The Person of Praise, Part 1

My prayer for all of us as an assembly of believers is that this Christmas season, we would be able to capture the greatness of our coming king and to be able to truly celebrate his arrival. We are in a series called The Pathway to Praise, and it will take us through the Christmas season into the new year. You could call it the walkway to worship because truly it is the way in which you learn to worship the King.

And if you don't call it the walkway to worship, then you can call it the alleyway to adoration because there is a direction you go in which you are able to adore and celebrate your King. You might even call it the railway to reverence because in all reality, that's exactly what we're learning to do. Some might even call it the causeway to celebration for in it, it's all about the celebration of the King.

And still others might call it the doorway to devotion because in our praise and honor of God, we become more and more devoted to Him. But in all reality, it's truly the beltway to blessing. There is one way to be blessed by the Lord and that is to exalt His name, to praise Him for who He is.

And the blessing comes when you understand the privilege of praise. The blessing comes when you understand the profit of praise. The blessing comes when you understand that we are called to be a people of praise.

The blessing comes when you understand the prerequisites to praise, the priority of praise, and the purpose of praise. Those are the topics we have covered up to this point. But to accentuate your praise, you need to understand the person of praise.

And that's what we want to talk about this morning, the person of praise. The Bible says in Psalm 34, verse number 3, O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. Exalting His name, elevating His name, glorifying His name, lifting His name above all other names.

Why? Because Philippians 2 tells us that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 1, verse number 21, that Joseph was to call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.

In verse 23, it quotes Isaiah the prophet from Isaiah 7, verse number 14, which says you will call His name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. The name of Christ is the attributes of Christ, the character of Christ, the nature of Christ. And if you were with us on Wednesday evening, we told you that the name is truly indescribable, incalculable.

It is a name that is inexhaustible. That's simply because Revelation 19 tells us that there's a name written on Him that no one knows except Himself. And the question comes, how will no one in heaven know the name of Christ when He returns except Himself? It speaks of the immensity of His name.

It speaks of the infinitude of His name. To be able to understand the Christ is to spend all of eternity in His presence and learn to understand exactly who He is. And the Bible tells us that we are to come to know our Christ, know the Lord, and yet He is unsearchable, He is untraceable, He is simply unbelievable, and yet we are called to know Him, to understand Him, to grasp Him.

And so we study the person of praise. To do that we must understand the name that we are to exalt. In the Old Testament He is called by those four Hebrew consonants 6,823 times, Yahweh, for He is Jehovah God.

He is the Lord. And the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament into Greek, translates Yahweh as ego eimi, which translated means I am. And in John 8:58, our Lord says that He is the great I am.

He says before Abraham was, I am. Not that I was, but that I am. It's a verb to be.

He is always to be. He's always being. He's the great I am.

And the Bible says in John 8:24 that unless you believe, Christ says, that I am, you will die in your sins. And so what is it about the I am that you are to believe? Well, in John 6, He says, I am, ego eimi, the bread of life. So unless you believe that I am the one who can eliminate your hunger, you will die in your sins.

In John 8, verse number 12, He says, I am, ego eimi, I am the light of the world. Unless you believe that I am the one who eliminates and penetrates your darkness, you will die in your sins. And then in John 10, verse number 9, He says, I am the door of the sheep.

Unless you believe that I am the one who eliminates your hunger and illuminates your darkness, and then truly initiates your path, you will die in your sins. And then He says in John 10, verse number 11, I am the good shepherd. So the Yahweh of the Old Testament is the ego eimi of the New Testament.

He is the I am who is the good shepherd. And as a good shepherd, unless you believe that I am the one who obliviates your fear, you will die in your sin. And then in John 11, verse number 25 and 26, He says, I am the resurrection and the life.

Unless you believe that I am the one who dictates your destiny, you will die in your sins. And then He says in John 14, verse number 6, I am the way. I'm the one who delineates your path.

I am the truth. I am the one who elevates your mind. I am the life.

I am the one who liberates your soul. So unless you believe that I am the way, the truth, and the life, you will die in your sins. And then He says in John 15, verse number 1, I am the vine.

I am the one who cultivates your growth. For without me you cannot grow. So unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

And then in Revelation 1:8, the Lord says, I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end. I am the first and the last.

Because I am, it mandates your submission to me. So unless you believe that I am the God who mandates your submission and you follow me, you will die in your sins. And every one of those I am statements tells us how God is intricately and intimately involved in every single person's life.

He is the great I am. He is the great I am. He is the great King, the Yahweh of the Old Testament.

So if you were with us on Wednesday evening, we took you to Psalm 95, verse number 6, where it says, these words, Come, let us worship and bow down. This is the walkway to worship. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.

For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. We are Yahweh Hoseenu, the Lord, our Maker. That's who he is.

He is the Lord who forms us. And I just want to pick up on that from Wednesday evening because there were so many things I did not share because of the immensity of Yahweh Hoseenu, the Lord, our Maker. For example, Psalm 139 says this, For you formed my inward parts.

The Lord, our Maker, is the one who shapes, the one who forms, the one who molds, the one who creates. And the psalmist says, For you formed my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb. The intimacy, the intricacy of God's involvement in the birth of a child.

That he weaves every aspect of your life together. He says this, I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.

The psalmist is celebrating Yahweh Hoseenu, the Lord, my Maker, the Lord, my former, the Lord, my shaper. He says this, My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance.

In other words, God saw me before I actually existed in time and space. And in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. In other words, the Maker and former and creator of your life didn't just form you in your mother's womb, but actually created and dictated all the days of your existence.

They were all numbered before there was even yet one of them. Verse 17, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

The thoughts that God has of us go way beyond the sand on the seashore, because He is so immense. He is so indescribable. This One who makes and forms our lives.

So when you come to our theme verse for this series, The Pathway to Praise, it's Isaiah 43, 21. Know what it says. The people I have formed for myself, the people I have made for myself, the people that I have created, that I have shaped, that I have molded for myself, they will declare my praise.

Why is it the people that God has formed will declare His praise? Simply because that's what He designed them to do. It goes on to say this in chapter 44, verse number 21 of Isaiah, Remember these things, O Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you.

You are my servant. O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. So God has formed Israel.

He is their maker. In fact, over in Isaiah chapter 43, He says these words, verse number one, But now, thus says the Lord, your creator, O Jacob. He reminds them that He created them.

He created them as a nation. He created each individual. So He reminds them that I am your creator and He who formed you is real.

Not only did I create you into existence, I am actually forming your life. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name.

You are mine. God is so intimately involved in their lives. He calls them all by name.

He knows them all by name because they are His. So He says, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Now remember, Isaiah writes 100 years before their captivity.

And he's writing to them to help them understand that the captivity, the Babylonian captivity, is on the horizon. But when you go through the fire, when you walk through the water, note this, I have created all this for you because I want to make you just like myself. So He says these words in verse seven, Everyone who is called by my name and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made.

He reiterates over and over again for Israel, for them to understand, I have created you, I have made you, I have formed you. I am so involved in your life, you can't even begin to imagine all that I have done and will do. So he says this in verse 15, I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

And then he says in chapter 45, verse number 11, thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his fashioner. I am fashioning you. He says this, ask me about the things to come concerning my sons, and you shall commit to me the works of my hands.

It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with my hand and I ordained all their hosts. Then he says in verse 18, for thus says the Lord who created the heavens, he is the God who formed the earth and made it.

He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is none else. So Isaiah emphasized the fact that that Yahweh Hoseenu is the one who is the creator and maker of everything in life.

In fact, he says in chapter 45, verse number 7, I am the one forming, fashioning light and darkness. Darkness is a created thing. Darkness just isn't that which happens because there is no light.

No, God created darkness. So what was there before there was the creation of the world? What did it look like? It wasn't dark. Why? Because the Lord would create darkness.

Note this, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. So remember, God is, through the pen of Isaiah, helping a nation know a hundred years before they are into captivity, he's writing them to get them to repent and turn from their sin, that he is the creator of their upcoming calamity.

He has fashioned their calamity because he's fashioned his creation. And he wants to form his creation into his image. And he will stop at nothing to accomplish that feat.

So he says this, woe to the one who quarrels with the one who fashions them. Cursed be the man, cursed be the woman who wants to dispute with God who fashioned them. And earthen where vessel among the vessels of the earth, will the clay say to the potter, what are you doing? Or the thing you are making say, he has no hands.

Woe, cursed be him who says to a father, what are you begetting? Or to a woman, to what are you giving birth? So instead of disputing with your creator, you are to deposit your soul to a faithful creator. First Peter 4, verse number 9, Peter says to those who are suffering by the will of God, entrust your soul, deposit your soul to a faithful creator. But we are so busy disputing the way God does his creation, the way God does his forming, the way God does his fashioning of my life and my family, of my future.

We are so busy disputing with God instead of depositing our souls to a faithful creator. Why? Because it's all been decreed from the beginning of time, or really before there was ever time. Because all my days were numbered before there was even yet one of them.

And so when you begin to study the name of God, he is Yahweh Hoseenu, the Lord your maker, the Lord your fashioner, the Lord your designer, the Lord your creator. I'm the one who does all these things. And so as we embark on a season of celebration, we celebrate the person of praise.

Why? Because where you are today has all been fashioned in eternity past by God. You might be where you are because of your sin. God didn't cause you to sin, nor did God fashion your sin.

But in your sin, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God is working all things together for good. He is creating everything to come about for your good and for his glory, because God is in charge of all those things.

So we praise him as Yahweh Hoseenu. Why? Because he formed me. How about this? We also celebrate him as Yahweh Sabaoth, because he fights for me.

He fights for me. Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of armies, the Lord of hosts. I mentioned 245 times in the Old Testament.

202 of those times are in the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Malachi, and Haggai. Why? Because they all talk about the coming of the king and his kingdom. And the Lord who comes to set up his kingdom is the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies.

In fact, listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 46, verse number one. God is a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountain quake at its swelling pride.

Why? Verse seven. Because the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth, is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Then again in verse number 11, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth, is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. So when you want to begin to understand the name of God, you want to go to the place where it's first mentioned in the Bible.

So turn with me in your Bible to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel, chapter one. In 1 Samuel, we had the first mention of Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts or the Lord of armies.

As Yahweh Hoseenu, He is the one who forms me. As Yahweh Sabaoth, He is the one who fights for me. Again, the name of God is intimately involved in the lives of His people.

When you come to 1 Samuel, chapter 1, you have a man by the name of Elkanah. Elkanah has two wives. I'm not going to spend my time talking about why that's wrong or right.

I'm not going to do that. That's for another topic at another time. But Elkanah has two wives.

One is Hannah. The other is Peninnah. Peninnah has all the children, sons and daughters.

Peninnah has no children. She's barren. And she's barren because the Lord closed her womb.

Very important to understand that. So listen to what the Bible says. Verse number 3.

Now this man Elkanah would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Armies. This is the first time it's mentioned in the Scripture. Yahweh Sabaoth in Shiloh.

And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there. When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah, his wife, and to all her sons and daughters. So plural, Peninnah had sons and daughters.

But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Now that's a very significant statement. Elkanah loved Hannah.

It doesn't say he loved Peninnah. I'm sure he did to some extent. He had sons and daughters with her.

But the Bible emphasizes that he loved Hannah. Who by the way, her name means woman of grace. She lived her name.

Read on. Her rival, Hannah's rival, Peninnah, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb. Now I don't know about you, but when two women are at each other's throats and when one woman's bitter toward the other, they can be very, very vicious.

And I can't imagine what it would be like in the family. Here is Elkanah. He's got Peninnah with sons and daughters.

He's got the woman he loved, Hannah, who has no children because the Lord has closed her womb. And that's very important because, because the Lord is the one who opens and closes the womb. No one gets pregnant by accident.

You get pregnant because God opened your womb. It's by divine appointment. And yet God had closed Hannah's womb.

And I can't imagine what Peninnah would say to her out of her bitter jealousy. She had all the kids, but she didn't have the one thing she needed, the love of her husband. Hannah had that.

And so it provoked her to bitter, vicious jealousy and resentment. It didn't happen just once. It happened continually.

Read on. It happened year after year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she would provoke her so she wept and would not eat.

Can you imagine? Every time you went to worship the Lord on Sunday, this woman bitterly came against you just to ruin your time with the Lord. That's what Peninnah did. She was against Hannah.

Hannah was all alone. She was by herself. She wept bitterly.

So it says, then Elkanah, her husband said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? The Bible tells us that husbands are to live with their wives in an understanding way. Elkanah did not do that. It's obvious why she's weeping.

It's obvious why things are not great on her end. The other wife is coming against her. She has no children.

So Elkanah says these famous words, am I not better to you than ten sons? No, not so much. So read on. Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh.

Now Eli, the priest, was sitting on the seat at the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She, Hannah, greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. Bitterly.

Now this is so important. She didn't enact revenge upon Peninnah. She didn't say, well you might have the kids, but I got, I got the man.

She could have bad-mouthed Peninnah, but she's a woman of grace. She wasn't vicious. She was kind.

She was tender-hearted. She didn't want to cause disruption in the family. She didn't want Peninnah's kids to come against her or their father, Elkanah.

She would weep bitterly to the Lord. She would cry out to the Lord. Why? Read on.

It says, Lord of armies, I need you to fight for me. This fight is not for me. It's for the Lord of armies.

The battle is the Lord's. It's not mine. Would it be that we all had that attitude? That when someone in the church family comes against you and speaks bitterly against you, that we pray to the Lord of armies to fight for us.

This was Hannah. She said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall not come on his head. Lord of armies, if you will, if you will protect me and provide for me, I will devote my son completely and totally to you.

And God opened her womb, and God blessed her and gave her young Samuel, a great man of God. Remember? You probably don't, but let me remind you anyway of 2 Samuel chapter 7, where David had asked to build a house for the Lord, and the Lord said, no, but I am going to to give you a son, and that son shall build the house of the Lord. And David would praise God.

Listen to what it says. Verse 25 of 2 Samuel 7. Now, therefore, O Lord God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and his house, confirm it forever and do so you have spoken, or do as you have spoken, excuse me, and your name may be magnified forever by saying, Yahweh Sabaoth is God over Israel. And may the house of your servant David be established before you.

For you, O Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, have made a revelation to your servant saying, I will build you a house. Therefore, your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. Now, earlier in 1 Samuel 17, in David's famous battle with Goliath, he said these words.

David said to the Philistine in verse 45, you come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts. I come to you in the name of Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you, and I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands.

He needed the Lord of hosts to fight for him, and so he trusted in the Lord of armies, Yahweh Sabaoth. Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 9, I'm sorry, chapter 6. Isaiah gets a vision of the Lord, and it says in verse number one, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, in the train of his robe, filling the temple.

Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

Then I said, Woe is me, cursed be me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King. And who is the King? Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. You see, when you understand and see Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, you tremble in his presence, because he's the Lord of armies.

Later, as Isaiah was writing to Israel, the Lord would tell them about a great light that would shine upon the nation. It says these words, a child will be born, a son will be given, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful. His name will be called Counselor.

His name will be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

The zeal of Yahweh Sabaoth is going to accomplish all of this, the one who is going to come. In fact, the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, would give us this name as the last name in the Old Testament to remember the King of Israel. Twenty-five times in four chapters, Malachi mentions the Lord of hosts, Yahweh Sabaoth.

He tells them these words. Verse 16, those who fear the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem his name. They will be mine, says the Lord of hosts.

On the day that I prepared my own possession, in the day that I determined, the day that I fashioned, the day that I formed, because I am Yahweh Hoseenu, I create and form and fashion every day and everything, and because I am Yahweh Sabaoth, I am the Lord of all armies and all hosts. I control everything. I'm in charge.

I'm the one who forms you. I'm the one who fights for you. He says, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.

So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve him. Chapter four, verse number one, for behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaffed, and the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, what name? The Lord of armies, Yahweh Sabaoth.

For those of you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under your souls or the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies. There's coming a day where the sun, S-U-N, of righteousness is going to rise with healing in its wings.

Interesting, on the birth of the Christ child, the Lord of armies was in a cradle in Bethlehem, and yet it was the heavenly armies or the heavenly hosts that said to the shepherds, as the glory of the Lord shown all about them, we bring you good news of great joy. For unto you this day in the city of David has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. The Lord's hosts made that announcement, so the shepherds would understand that the Lord, Yahweh Sabaoth, is being born in a stable in Bethlehem.

It's no wonder they went in haste. It's no wonder they went quickly. It's no wonder they wanted to hear this word that was spoken to or see this word that was spoken to them because they knew that the one who would fight for them and the one who formed them had arrived.

Think about it as the book of Malachi concludes and Malachi talks about the Lord of armies. He's coming. He's going to rise with healing in his wings and then for 400 years there's nothing, complete silence, no word from heaven, no angel comes and speaks, nothing until Gabriel announces to Zacharias that he will give or his wife will give birth to the forerunner of the Messiah and thus sets in motion for us everything that was prophesied in the Old Testament.

This is the person that we praise. We sing Christmas songs. You hear them in the mall.

You hear people on television singing songs about the Christ child. Oh, come let us adore him. Let us bow before him.

And they're just words that they sing. They have no understanding as to what they are saying or singing, but we know because we're on this pathway called the pathway of praise. And what makes the pathway such a such a blessing is the person of praise.

My prayer is that every one of us would understand more and more about this great person. Yahweh Hoseenu, the one who fashions you. Yahweh Sabaoth, the one who fights for you.

Yahweh Rohi, the one who feeds you. But that will be next week. Let's pray together.

Father, thank you, Lord, for today, the chance to once again look at the name of our God. We might magnify and exalt your name together. Lord, for each family, each person, they are going to go through any number of emotions over the next several weeks.

Some good, some not so good. Some anxious filled, some joyfully filled. And you know that because all their days were numbered before there was even yet one of them.

So my prayer, Lord, is that as we, as a church, go through these next 16 weeks, that we would remember that you are the Lord who formed us. Not just us, but everything. And that the one who forms us is the one who fights for us.

The Lord of armies, the Lord of hosts. Time does not permit us to cover all that the Bible says about that. But our prayer, Father, is that in some small way we would capture a greater glimpse of the Christ and thus journey all the more down the pathway of praise for the glory of your name.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our soon coming King as the Lord of hosts. Amen.