The Banzai Chronicles

Today's sermon blew my doors off. It was God's message and God's message to me. It's still sinking in and seeping through me, so it's difficult to summarize. For Lent, John is preaching on idolatry and what lies beneath it in our hearts. Some notes from this morning (the text was Isaiah 41:1-20):

Where do you find idolatry (v.1-7)?

1. Where you're afraid—facing an uncertain future and formidable obstacles
   • This means it is at center stage of our lives
   • Where is my life—my future—on the line? What keeps me up at night?
2. Where you must come through
   • Stay strong; be successful and survive
   • Idols are only as good as your performance

How can you tell?

• Anxiety
• Pride
• Self-loathing
• When the above are present, look underneath them for the idol

How do you overcome this?

1. Seeing the futility (v. 7, also ch. 40-55)—worshipping an idol is just dumb
2. Trust in God's strength (v. 8-14)
   • Who is doing the work?
   • You have rest.

What is the result? (v. 15-16)

• God makes a worm (small, inconsequential, non-threatening) into a threshing sledge (formidable, powerful, useful in the harvest)
• We are redeemed, and we are redeemed to be used in His work, the harvest.

This doesn't do the sermon justice; I'm hoping to have it converted to MP3 and posted on the church website soon.

Read something this afternoon that made me sad, but in that way of longing for something good. There are things I want from God, and that's a far better thing than going after them in my own strength and asking Him to bless my efforts down the road.

He asks me to ask. And He redeems.