All right, our text is Isaiah
25 verse 1. Isaiah 25 verse 1. And I hope
that we'll enjoy our study in Isaiah 25. We're just going to
look at verse 1 tonight. But this chapter, it opens in
praise. Praise to our God for His glorious
salvation through His grace, through the grace and mercy of
our God. And so this praise, it comes
from, it's being raised from the lips of God's children. The prophet here is saying this,
and this is the heart of God's children, of his people, who
are the happy recipients of his grace and mercy toward them in
Jesus Christ. What salvation is, or the expression
of our salvation, the expression of the joy of the child of God,
it's an explosion. It's dynamite. It's the power
of God breaking in upon our dark hearts, giving us light. and
thus life, and giving us liberty from the bondage of death and
sin that we all come forth in by nature. And so, the Lord brings
that light and he brings to our understanding what he has done
for us through his Son, Jesus Christ. And so, this light is
breaking forth upon our dark hearts. and making known to us
what he's done so that the response is, in the new man, that glorious
praise, thanking the Lord for what he has done for me, a sinner. It's what he's done. So tonight,
we're just going to go through each phrase in this first verse. And we'll see the rejoicing,
the boasting of the gospel truths that are expressed in each phrase
here, okay? So our title is, The Joyful Boast
of the Believer. The Joyful Boast of the Believer. And we have just one division,
because it's just one verse, and we're just going through
the five phrases. All right, so let's read verse
one together. Isaiah 25, one. O Lord, thou art my God. I will exalt thee, I will praise
thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things. Thy counsels
of old are faithfulness and truth." Each of these phrases that are
here, these are fruits, fruits born in us by the Holy Spirit,
bringing forth praise and glory and a boasting in what God has
done for us. Undeserving sinners we are. God
has done very graciously towards us and been very, very kind to
us. And so they come forth, these
fruits, these don't come forth from our flesh. They come forth
in the new man, that creation of the Lord Jesus Christ. As
the Apostle Paul, he said to us in 2 Corinthians 5.17 that
if any man being Christ Jesus. He's a new
creature. Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new or are become new. And then
he says in the next verse, and all things are of God. So every fruit that you bear,
it's of God. It's of the Lord God, our God,
who bears these fruits in us for his love and mercy toward
us through Jesus Christ. So, what we see here is that
the sinner saved. The sinner saved, they know the
source and the strength of their salvation. They're going to know
it. He's going to bring it to their
knowledge so that they know the source of their salvation, the
strength of their salvation, that which is keeping them. keeping
them in Him, that it comes from God. That's our source. God is
our source of salvation. God is the strength of our salvation. It's not our flesh. So this first
phrase here, this is what we confess. We confess who our God
is. The religions of this world are
speaking of themselves as their God. They have saved themselves. They're idolizing themselves.
But the child of God, the Christian, that one who is bought and cleansed
by the blood of Christ, they confess, O Lord, thou art my
God. That's our confession. You're
my God. You're the one who has saved me. You're the Lord. You're
the one who has done this glorious work. When I was looking at this,
the first thing, I noticed that the first thing that the Lord
said to Moses, when Moses was on Mount Sinai in Exodus 20 verse
2, the first thing he said before he gave him the law was, I am
the Lord thy God. which have brought thee out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." I'm your God,
he says. The Lord God says, I'm your God.
I'm the one who brought you out of the house of Egypt. I'm the
one who's brought you out of your bondage. Me, I did this.
And that's what the child of God is going to know. They're
going to confess. that this work is of the Lord. So what we see
is that when the Holy Spirit regenerates a sinner, when he
gives life to a dead sinner, so that they now know and understand
spiritual things, what God has done for them, when they have
this light and life, we know who it is that delivered us from
our bondage. And that's what the scriptures
describe us as being in bondage, in a prison. in darkness, shut
up to the things of God, unable to produce a righteousness, bound
to keep doing the same things that we always were doing. That
is sin and corruption and works of defilement. God had to save
us from that. We couldn't get ourselves out,
just like a criminal can't get themselves out of the prison.
the warden or somebody has to open that gate and let them out.
We can't let ourselves out. God has to do it. The Lord God.
And he's the one who delivers us from that house of bondage. And so, having this light and
having this life, the scriptures describe us as being given repentance. Repentance. Now, repentance isn't
what's often described, I mean it is, there's a sense in which
it is, but typically in religion, how do they describe repentance
to you? They tell you, you need to stop doing this thing and
start doing that thing. Stop this, stop that, stop this
other thing over here. and start doing this and start
doing that. Do less of that and do more of this over here. It's
all about you as a sinner and what you have to do. What you
better be doing and you better be doing better. That's their
repentance. Right? Being turned from your actions
to new actions. Right? That's the repentance.
But what God is describing to us and what he's showing us is
that God gives us repentance from those vain, dead works. Thinking that, oh, thinking that
I got to do this now to save myself. I got to do this to make
God happy. I got to do this so that I'll
be at more peace and have a more fulfilled life of faith in what
I'm doing. Right? The Lord says, no, no.
Let go of that idol. Stop that. That's what he's turning
us from is those dead works of religion that we thought saved
us. And he shows us, I'm your savior. I'm your God. I'm your Lord.
I've provided salvation in my son Jesus Christ. So being turned
from that dead idol of what we do He turns us to Christ. He turns us to see and behold,
my salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's what you've done
for me. So you see that, that difference
in repentance? God opens our hand, delivers
us from clinging to our dead works, thinking they did something
for us. and enables us to receive and
believe the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust Him. And that's all
His work and what He's done. So we now begin to live upon
the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, His life.
He's the one who gives life and deliverance. All right, so all
our salvation is always described as having been done, something
that God has done for the sinner. And we see this in the glorious
confession of the second phrase in Isaiah 25, verse one. The second phrase there says,
I will exalt thee. I'm exalting you, Lord. In other
words, you're my boast. When I speak of salvation, I'm
going to boast of you. I'm going to lift you up. I'm
going to praise you before men. I'm going to talk about what
you did for me through your Son, Jesus Christ, because you're
my righteousness. You're my hope. You're my peace
and my acceptance with God. I'm going to exalt Thee. And
so that's what the Save Center does. They speak of and exalt
the Lord Jesus Christ for what He's done. And, you know, we
look at one another. We see one another and we see
the faithfulness and the fruits that the Lord produces in his
people and the heart that he gives his people. And each one
of his people are saying, not me Lord, don't look at me. Don't
look at my faithfulness. Don't look at my fruits. Lord,
this is all your work. If there's anything that I'm
doing that's good, it's to the praise and glory of your name.
Don't don't look at me. I didn't do this Lord. You know
me I've got nothing to boast and I can't claim any glory for
myself And so we give we turn the glory to him to our Savior
to our Lord because what? We're his workmanship or his
workmanship. So all those fruits, that faithfulness
and any fruit of righteousness that he produces in us, it's
his work. It's his work. And so we've got
nothing to boast him in this except for him, except for his
name. And so We see that that's just
not something that we say, right? I'm not making this up, we're
not making this up. This is what the scriptures,
what the Lord teaches us, that all of our praise and boasting
is in Him. And Paul, to confirm what I'm
saying, Paul said to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 2. He said, for
I determined not to know anything among you. save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. He's saying, I'm exalting one. I'm going to exalt the Lord Jesus
Christ because I know that He's salvation. I know that He's the
one that works in the hearts of His people to turn them from
dead-letter religion and bears fruits in them. And it's all
through the preaching of faith. It's all in declaring Christ
as our Savior. It's all in declaring His faithful
work which produces faith in His people. And that's the trust
and the confidence that Paul had, and that's the trust and
the confidence that we have, so that we see this boast is
of God who puts it in our hearts, in our minds, and in our mouths.
It's His work that puts that boast there, to know what He's
done for us. Now, turn over there to 1 Corinthians.
Let's look at that. 1 Corinthians 1. Go to 1 Corinthians
1. That's leading up to what Paul
said. when He said, I determine not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All right, 1 Corinthians 1, 27.
And here, looking at these verses, these last verses of chapter
one, we see why this is a boast to exalt our Savior and to give
God all the glory in salvation. 1 Corinthians 1.27. But God, God did this. He chose the foolish things of
the world, right? And He's chosen those foolish
things of the world. And think about that. When you
hear these terms, Does it offend you? Or do you say, yeah, Lord,
I'm the fool. I'm the foolish one. Thank you,
Lord. I'm in that group. Or does that offend you? Does
that get you angry or upset that God would choose foolish things?
So God chose the foolish things of the world. And he did it to
confound the wise, to confuse the wise. And God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. Are you weak? Are you unable
to produce any good works so that all your good works that
do come forth have to be of the Lord? that you're afraid and
frightened and unable to do that which is good, so that you're
looking alone to the Lord Jesus Christ, that's who he calls,
those foolish ones and those weak ones. And the base things
of the world, verse 28, and the things which are despised hath
God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things
that are. So that the children of God,
us who believe in Him, we're not in this salvation. We're
nothing in this salvation. We've contributed nothing and
brought nothing to the table of any value to this. Our Lord
God did all this work of salvation. So it's Christ who's the creator
of us, right? He's the creator of the first
man, Adam. We come forth because we're Christ's
creation. All people come forth as the
creation of God. It's His work. It's His power.
It's Him continuing to sustain and to allow for life to continue
on this planet. God, He's the creator. And also,
just as He's the creator of the first man, so Christ is the creator
of the second man. He created all things, and all
things consist by Him and are for His pleasure, as He pleases. And so, that new creation of
Christ is by Himself. It's by His Spirit giving that
light in life, alright? Now, this is why God reveals
these facts to us, why He shows us that we've got nothing to
boast of. We're just fools and we're weak. and were base and were nothing.
And he shows us that so that, verse 29, no flesh should glory
in his presence. But of God are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, and any other thing you want to put in there
of what God has done for us, our justification, our joy, our
rejoicing, our gladness, our peace, our acceptance, anything
you want to put there, that's what God has made Christ unto
us. All those things. Everything necessary, God's done
this. So that according as it's written,
he that glorieth, For he that boasteth, let him glory, let
him boast in the Lord. And that's why it's done, so
that we boast, we know where we're, who we're boasting in.
We fully understand who it is that we are making our boast
in. All right, and so because Christ
is the sole factor, that is S-O-L-E, not S-O-U, well not speaking
of the inner man here, but because Christ is the only factor. the
alone factor, the one factor in our salvation, we're saved
by Christ apart from our works, apart from our will, apart from
our worth. Our works, and when I say that,
our works, I'm talking about those religious works that we
that we do and that we did as as unbelievers and that we do
in the in in the flesh and in the when we don't understand
when we don't see Christ those things that we do thinking that
that God is pleased with those those works you know typically
We understand in the beat, going to church and reading your Bible
and saying your prayers, a lot of people think that's their
salvation. Putting money in the plate as
it goes by, or doing a good deed for somebody, a lot of people
think that's my salvation, that's my hope, and that's how God is
pleased with me. And the Lord's showing us that's
not your salvation. Salvation is in Christ, and that's
where it is. And so it's not my works, it's
not my will. It's not my decision that saved
me. It's not because I made a decision
to follow Jesus. That's not how we're saved and
it's not because I'm special or somebody that God has saved
me. It's not our worth. It's not
I can't look to my parents or my job or or the amount of money
I have, or the amount of influence or power that I have, or the
skills that I have to do things, that's not why God saves anybody.
It's all in Christ that he's saved his people. And because
Christ is our sole confession, that's why we see what the apostles
said, what Peter and John said in Acts 4.12 when they said,
neither is there salvation in any other name under heaven,
given among men, whereby we must be saved. We must be saved, because
if we're going to be saved, it's got to be. It's got to be by
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's got to be by Him alone,
and that's all that we can look to. That's not your name. That's
not my name, that's not any other religious figure's name that's
out there that you can think of. That's not salvation in any
of those things. It's in one name, the Lord Jesus
Christ. That Jesus of Nazareth, he is
the Christ of God, the one whom God sent to save his people from
their sins. We know that there's many other
religions out there that claim to be Christian. I'm not even
talking about Muslims and Buddhism and all these other things that
are out there, or even Catholicism. But those that claim to be Christ,
they may say things like, oh, it's Christ only. Christ is my
salvation. He's the one who saves his people. But you notice, as soon as they
begin to speak of their salvation, When they talk about their salvation,
that they're saved, what do they do? They begin to describe to
you the things that they've done. The decision they made. The verse
that they heard and that really stuck with them and that they're
banking everything on. That was given to them. The aisle
that they walked. The prayer that they prayed.
It's always something of what they've done for Christ. You know, how they now live a
life of faith and how they walk in this faith. It's always something
that they've done. And there may be some that are
confused when I say it's not your faith that saves you. It's
not the faith of this flesh. It's not your will. It's not
your decision that saves you. And I want you to understand
because some people are like, well wait a minute, don't you have to believe?
Yeah, yes you do. You must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ to be saved. But that ain't from you. Faith
is certain. And because it's certain, you
know right away, that's not my work of this flesh. That isn't
something that I can do or produce of myself. It's certain, therefore
it must be Christ's work. It has to be His work. It's got to be a work which Christ
does for the sinner, because if it was dependent on your flesh,
your me, our wisdom, our will, our ability to do it, it wouldn't
be done. It wouldn't get done. We wouldn't
believe. So it's got to be something that Christ does. And faith is
as certain as these bodies will be raised from the grave. That's
how certain it is. Just as much as God promised
that we shall be raised from the dead, when he returns, So
it is that all his people, they shall believe, they shall confess
Christ. They will have faith, they will
believe. It's certain, because he makes it so. He's the one
that's doing it, alright? Just as Peter wrote in 2 Peter
1.3 when he said, according as his divine power hath given unto
us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Well, that
includes faith, because that pertains to life and godliness.
So he's given that to us. That's the beauty, the gifts
which Christ obtained for us when he rose from the dead. That's
what he gives, all these gifts to his people. Alright, turn
to John 5. John chapter 5, and we'll see
this. This is an example. that our
hearing and our faith is Christ's work. It's not our work. It's
given to us to be ours, to be our work, but it's Christ's work.
It's His workmanship which He worked in us. John 5, verse 25
and 26. Christ says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you. In other words, you need to hear
this. This is of a truth. You need to hear these words
is what he's saying. He says, The hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live. Now he's talking about
the first resurrection here. This isn't your being dead in
a grave down in the dirt. This isn't, that's not what he's
talking about. He's talking about us here on the top side of the
earth walking around in these bodies that you see now. And
he says you're all dead. You're all dead. But he says
the hour is coming and now is and has continued since he said
this that those that are dead They're going to hear His voice.
Those that are spiritually dead and have no life in themselves,
they're going to hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear it, those that hear His voice, they shall live. They shall live by His power,
and that's the first resurrection. And the first resurrection is
for all those that are blood-bought. All those that were bought and
paid for with the blood, the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why He went to the cross
to lay down His life. When He shed His blood, He made
atonement. He made He made a propitiation,
the means of our forgiveness, and shedding His blood for His
people. He put away their sin. God is no longer angry with us.
There's no more debt that we owe to God. We don't owe Him
any more debt of righteousness because we've provided it now
in full in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's clothed us and given us
His righteousness so that we stand perfect and accepted before
the throne of God right now, right now in Him. So there's
no more debt, there's no more anger, there's no more wrath
for us. It's all put away in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
that's the first resurrection for every blood-bought sinner.
And he says, for as the Father had life in Himself, so hath
He given to the Son to have life in Himself. In other words, whosoever
Christ wills to raise from the dead, that's who he raises. He
has life. He has the power to raise all
whom he will. Now this is different from the
second resurrection. That first resurrection is different
from the second resurrection, which is from the graves. And
I'll show you how I know that. Look at verse 28 and 29. John
5, 28. Our Lord says, marvel not at
this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in
the graves shall hear his voice. Don't be amazed that I'm giving
life to dead sinners because the hour is coming as well when
all those that are dead and lying in the dirt when they're there
in that grave, they're going to be raised from the dead. They're
going to hear his command to come up and shall come forth,
they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and
they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.
That is all those who have life in me. whom I've given life,
those are the ones that do good. They look to Christ. They believe
Christ, which is also all His work. That's how they're looking.
That's why they're looking, because of the life He's given them and
what He's worked in them. All that have done that good
They go to the resurrection of life and all those that don't
see Christ, don't hear his voice, don't believe him, they'll be
raised too, but to the resurrection of damnation. So those that take
part in the first resurrection shall not take part in the second
death. All will die the first death,
but not all will die the second death. And not all, all will
be raised the second resurrection, but not all are raised in the
first resurrection. And that's confusing, maybe a
little bit, but the beauty is, is what God has provided for
us. That first resurrection, no fear. The second death, no fear. Alright,
now when a sinner, a sinner is saved by Christ, that is, it's
not by his own will, not by his own works, the result is what
we see in the third phrase in Isaiah 25 verse 1. He says, I
will praise thy name. I will praise thy name. So their
boast is in Christ, because it's His voice that they've heard. He spoke His voice, and they
hear His voice. He gives them life, and so they
begin to praise Him. They praise Him for what He's
done, that it's His power. It's what He's done, and that's
why they believe. That's why we believe and hope
in Christ, and no longer hope in our works, no longer hope
in anything that we've done. So, in Christ, we understand
that all our spiritual blessings, all the blessings that are required
for life and godliness are poured out upon us in Christ. God blesses
us spiritually in Christ. And so the confession to Christ,
or of Christ, continues. Look at the fourth one, Isaiah
25 verse 1 there, the fourth phrase, for thou hast done wonderful
things. Wonderful things. Well, what
are these wonderful things that we see? Well, these wonderful
things that we're speaking of is that recognition and seeing
how God provides for us, how he continues to provide for us.
So the Lord provides for you, for his people, a gospel church. And he puts you in a gospel church
where the gospel is preached, where we exalt and praise the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a mercy, that's kindness
to do for you. And so he puts you there and
he settles you there so that you begin to calm down, right? Because we all come with loads
of religious baggage. And we still get stirred up and
fearful and afraid of all sorts of things, not the least of which
is thinking that there's something I can do to improve my situation
with God and the conviction I might be under or something like that.
And so we get to looking at ourselves, but the Lord, he settles us. as we hear the preaching of Christ
and we hear what He's done for us. Faith is given to us and
we begin to believe it and say, Lord, you really have done this.
It really is your work. And so as we hear Christ being
glorified over and over again, he gives us faith and believers
grow in his grace and they grow in that faith and they're settled
in that faith and trust him and really believe that this is all
his work of what Christ has accomplished. I like to go to this verse to
show you this, which is Philippians 1-9, where Paul said this, I
pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment, in sense, right? We saw that judgment means
sense. That is that we're learning that
Lord, oh even over here, you did this too, and Lord you did
that for me. And that sense of just how wicked
we were, and how bound up in sin we were, and the darkness
we were in, that sense of what He's accomplished for us grows
and increases in love. And love to Him, and love to
one another, and trusting Him, and believing Him. So He does
all that work. That growth that takes place,
it's all under the Gospel. It's taught to us by the Spirit,
whereby we know what we were and what Christ has accomplished
for us, what he's been made for us and made unto us. Alright,
and so here's what that looks like. Last phrase in Isaiah 25,
verse 1, Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. So we learn that the gospel is
a revelation, that it really is all his work, and what God
is revealing to us is the mystery of godliness. That he's not looking
to you and me, sinner, for righteousness, for us to produce something,
for us to get things straight and start doing better. He's
looking to his Son. That the mystery of godliness
is that all are sinners. He included right here, we're
all sinners, whether we were without religion, like the Gentiles,
or full of religion, like the Jews. God concluded every one
of us under sin. And that's why he sent his son
Jesus Christ. And that's why he's not looking
to you and me for our works of righteousness. He's looking alone
to his son. That's the mystery of godliness,
and that's what we're hearing. And we're seeing, Lord, you did
this. In your counsels in eternity past, you worked this whole thing
out. and you didn't put anything dependent
on me. Thank you Lord because we know
what I produce. We know the darkness and the
sin that comes forth from me and so he did everything and
we didn't alter anything. We didn't get him to start to
like us and we didn't do anything to cause him not to love us.
Christ did everything. His love for us is because of
what our Savior Jesus Christ has done. He's the one in whom
we glory and praise his name because not by works of righteousness
which I've done, but what he did for me. So everything we
see is all being worked out according to God's purpose, which he purposed
in himself. It's all according to his purpose,
all right? And Ephesians 1, 9, and 10 says,
having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according
to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself. The
mystery, that is the mystery of his will is according to his
good pleasure. that, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him." So when
Christ came to this earth as our surety, as the one who would
pay our debt, because we couldn't pay it, when he came, went to
that cross as our substitute to die in the place of his people
to pay their debt, and put it away fully so that we owe nothing
to God now. We are righteous, fully accepted.
He was accomplishing all things that he might faithfully and
justly gather together in himself every one of his children. So
it's a just thing. It's a faithful work that he's
done for us. And so therefore, brethren, we
may joyfully boast in Christ our Savior. Isaiah 25.1, O Lord,
thou art my God, I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name,
for thou hast done wonderful things. Thy counsels of old are
faithfulness and truth. I pray the Lord will bless that
through your hearts, just to rejoice in what our Savior has
done for us. All right, Joe. Oh, let's pray.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for the glorious good
work of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and what He's done, and His faithfulness
to work the salvation in His people. And Lord, to put praise
and thanks and thankfulness on our hearts, on our lips, on our
minds, Lord, and cause us to boast in Christ, not to boast
in ourselves, not to speak as though we've done anything in
this work. But Lord, we're thankful that
you saved us and delivered us from death and darkness, and
that you are the one who continues to provide that thankful heart,
that believing heart, and that keeps us ever looking to our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And Lord, as our brother prayed
earlier, that you would indeed be merciful to your people, that
you would teach us this gospel and settle us in the Lord Jesus
Christ, make us to know what you have already accomplished
for us, and give us a peace and a thankful heart in our Savior
Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen.