“The Lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
– Exodus 15:2
It’s hard to pick one verse in Exodus 15 because it’s a song, literally a song celebrating what God has done among the Israelites and delivering them out of slavery in Egypt and bringing them to freedom, and so Moses just starts singing, “I’ll sing the Lord because he’s triumphed gloriously.” Think about what they’ve just seen with the Red Sea splitting in half, then walking through on dry land, and then looking back and seeing that sea come crashing down on their adversaries, the Egyptians. When Moses says, “The horse and its rider, he’s thrown into the sea,” and then he says these words in verse two, “The Lord is my strength and my song, Yahweh.”
We should be infused with praise in response to God’s grace in our lives.
Moses Boasts of the Lord’s Greatness
God is my strength, and he’s my song. He causes me to sing, and he has become my salvation. God, Yahweh. The Lord is the one who has saved me. And he says, “This is my God.” It’s almost like he’s just boasting here, this is my God who did this. This is my God who saved me and this is my God who delivered me. And this is my God who provided for me, and I will praise him, and not just my God or my father’s God. Those who trusted in God before me, those who saw him move in power on their behalf, them too, and so I exalt him. This is my father’s God and I exalt him.
Exodus 15:2 Reminds Us to Praise God in Prayer
I just want to encourage us today in prayer to praise God. We know there are different kinds of prayer. There’s intercessory prayer, there’s confession in prayer. There’s petition as we ask God for things and there’s thanksgiving. At the same time, part of our prayer life should include praise and worship and exaltation and singing, even. I would encourage you if you don’t sing during your time with the Lord, you need to start singing at some point because the Lord is our strength and our song. He’s the one who has saved us.
So, God right now, right now we pray, we look to you. We lift our eyes to heaven and we praise you for being our strength. We praise you, for you are our song. And we sing to you. Our hearts rejoice in you. We are glad in you, for you have become our salvation. God, thank you for saving us from our sins. We just thank you all over again today for the way you have saved us from our sins, for the way you’ve delivered us from death.
Jesus is the Conqueror
We don’t even have to fear death because, Jesus, you have conquered it. Additionally, we don’t have to fear sin because you have conquered sin. You’ve given us power over it. You have hurled death into the sea, you have removed it from us such that when we die, we know we will live with you forever. You are our God. And you are our God. And you are my God. I pray this, encourage others just to pray this, you’re my God, and I praise you.
Worshipping With All of the Saints
I will boast in you. There’s no one like you, no one as great as you, no one as good as you, no one as glorious as you. I worship you. We worship you and not just us, but with saints who’ve gone before us, all the way back to the Exodus with Moses and our forefathers and the faith who have gone before us have seen your power.
It’s an awesome thought, oh God, that we’re talking to you right now and you’re the same God who Moses was singing to (in Exodus 15:2) centuries ago. You’re the same God. You were his God and you are my God. You are our God, and we worship you. We praise you, we exalt you, we love you, we glorify you. We pray today, glorify your name in our lives. Be exalted through our lives today, we pray. Help us to live ever cognizant that you are our strength and our song. You have given us salvation. You are our God and we praise you, our father’s God, and we exalt your name. In Jesus’ name, we praise you. Amen
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
