Isaiah 44: Sermon ideas

Sermon ideas - Isaiah 44: 

Who’s fool are you? We are all enslaved to something/someone. We all serve somebody. Idolatry enslaves. 

in the text:

• the rock of God - i know no other!
• the iron and wood of idols - save me!

Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. 

The choice we make with our lives isn’t worship God or don’t the choice we make is worship God or worship idols. It’s a question of ‘do i build my house here or over here?’ do I live for that or for this? Shall I follow Jesus or not? Shall I follow Jesus or shall I follow someone/thing else?

We have all struggled to believe God is who he says he is at one time or another (hands up), and so we’re not alone in this. Could close the sermon there because we have all learnt something, that we’re not alone. 

Learn about God by contrast. Idols are said to be:

• powerless to save
• manmade 
• convenient
• deceptive 
• dead

1 Thess: turn from idols to the true and living God. 

Profit:

Matthew - What does it profit a man…

Proverbs - earthly treasures do not profit

God mocks people who make gods and asks: have you made a god? Are you investing in something profitless? In Isaiah 40-49 he keeps exalting God the Father 

We have a longing for eternal life. We ignore death our whole lives and are always searching for things to keep death away. 1 John 5:12 whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Knowledge is not the same as truth. We have more knowledge than ever before but do we have more truth? In him is truth (i am the way the truth and the life). He is the true God and eternal life. 

Perhaps the idea has more to do with God as ‘rock’ and so it’s important that we know that God is a true and living Rock since no other rock in this world/life is. God is a rock upon which we build our lives. He is a true rock: stable, reliable, trustworthy and he is a living rock: solid, able to rescue, powerful, mighty.

Problem:

• idolatry is building our lives upon any rock other than God. It’s the saying to anything other than God ‘you can protect me, provide for me, sustain me, rescue me, strengthen me...'
• Idolatry destroys and distorts our humanity
• Idolatry deceives and blinds us
• We’re all idolaters 

What does it mean for my life when I say that God is my ‘rock’ and other things aren’t?

• My ultimate hope for the things I long for is found in him. that means that when I lose the things of this life, I do not despair in desperation. 
• Stories of what happens when we put our hope in the things of this world. He became a curse for me. when he hung on the cross he was cursed and received our curse and the curse of idolatry.

Ask why questions of the text and of us:

God is the true and living God. Why do we need to know this? 

• I am often deceived by so many other things that promise to give me satisfaction and truth. 
• I turn to things that aren’t living to do what only the living God

But it can’t just be existential/emotional fulfilment that this point impacts upon:

God is truth. He is the source of truth, he does not lie, he is always honest. In a world of leaders we can’t trust, God is truth. He cannot lie. 

God is living. He is not dead. He cannot die, he is the source of all life and will never not be living. Idols and false images of God may die but God the true God is the living one. Bursting with energy and vitality, God is life in all its youthfulness and strength.

Idols exits in stark contrast to God.

We spoke about idolatry recently and I said that all of us are idol worshippers. Why do we do it? Story of the Bible is the story of idolatries implications and yet they returned to it over and over again. Why? Why do we return to things that don’t work out for us

Idolatry: Why idolatry? Why did these guys make the wood?

Because… every one else was doing it, because life is tactile and they wanted worship to be as well, because of the size and success of the nations who did it, because to not do it is harder than doing it.

1. Information. What do they need to know? try and get it into one key sentence.

God is the true and living rock that we can build our lives upon

That worshipping idols enslaves and deceives but worshipping God brings freedom and truth

Our God is the true and living God. We all want truth and life but look in the wrong places for it

Worshipping false gods blinds you to see the foolishness of what you’re doing.

Manmade things cannot replace Godmade longings

What satisfies our senses cannot satisfy our hearts

Idolatry enslaves and blinds,  

We become what we behold.

2. Motivation. Why do they need to know it? answer this otherwise what you're saying is perceived to be irrelevant.

We will try to build our lives upon things that ultimately destroy us, or let us down.

3. Application. What do they need to do? be highly specific if you can.

Ask: Am I looking to earthly things to fill a heavenly void? 

Ask: Where are my feet planted

4. Inspiration. Why do they need to do it? imagine your family/school/workplace... think concentric circles of application (self, family, friends, workplace, community, country, world).

5. Reiteration. What can I do to help them remember? homework helps…

Idolatry and the Bible:

• the problem and warnings of idolatry, the first commandment and the warning in the NT (1 John).
• public health warning: if you see this idol you should not bow down to it.
• Reading of Is. 44. and commenting as go to show the foolishness and danger of idolatry. 
• searched the internet to find out what the insect was in my garden.
• Given the stupidity of idolatry and its dangers, why did they do it?
• Idols appearance of power, popular belief
• Personal longing for deliverance, popular belief 
• Blind to it and enslaved by it

Stories/illustrations:

• Idols are unstable : Keller stories of destruction to people who built their hopes around idols
• Idols have all the appearance of life but are dead: 
• Like a sports car with no engine
• Imagine getting a stuffed bear to act as your security
• animatronic dinosaurs scare kids because they don’t know that there’s no real life in it. 
• Ayres rock vs rio beaches. Rock. Solid but lonely and alone. Beach. Shifting but busy and fashionable.
• Communism: Creators of communism worshipped the ideology to the point that they were willing to kill those who would not worship/adhere to this new ideology. Even when it was clearly failing, they wouldn’t let it go 
• The true God: like saying ‘the true football team’ every other team doesn’t really play football?
• John Wimber: who’s fool are you?
• Football. Our god is better than you god is how the other nations thought whereas the Israelites behaved like ‘our god is the only god’. Compare to football teams.