You’ve heard that saying – “asleep at the wheel” right? Well the truth is, that many of us as we drive down this highway called life – are doing just that. We’re asleep to God’s amazing plans and purposes for our lives. Are you … asleep at the wheel??   Asleep at the Wheel Life is full of transitions isn’t it? We go from being a child to being an adult, they call those years our teenage years and anybody who’s been a teenager will know that it’s an awkward often difficult time. You se it’s this transition thing from something we know to something we don’t, from A to B. And what we’d really like is, we’d like our transitions to be quick and simple and direct and comfortable and predictable and safe. That’s what we’d like them to be. But transitions never are. From single to married, from married to single, from staff member to supervision, from supervisor to manager, from employed to unemployed, from student to teacher. Whatever the change is, whatever the transitions is, there’s always an awkwardness, an uncomfortableness about it. So we’ve been looking at this whole transition thing by putting ourselves in Israel’s shoes in this series. They’d been exiled in Babylon for seventy years but at the end of seventy years God’s ready to bless them again and take them back home to the Promised Land. Now you’d think that when Isaiah announced that, there’d be shouting and dancing in the streets. But think about it, most of them had been born in slavery. They’d been there over seventy years! And while they’ve heard of the Promised Land it’s a bit like a dream land! Does it really exist? And hey we’re slaves right? Dominated by the dominant world power of the day the Babylonians, right? How are we ever going to see the Promised Land? That’s the reality. And when we’re in our version of Babylon, when we’re in that difficult place we’d rather not be in, come on, how difficult for us to even begin to imagine that God would actually restore our lives? Sometimes fear is our default mode. It’s true for many of us. Most of us respond to uncertainty and transition with what? Fear rather than faith. And that is where Israel was; they needed some convincing that God was going to bless them. That’s where many people are today. How about you? So God sends them the prophet Isaiah and as we saw in the last program, three times in chapter 51 in the book of Isaiah God says to his people, “Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen, to me.” It’s like an alarm clock at 6 in the morning going Ring Ring Ring! What’s he trying to do? He’s trying to get their attention, he’s trying to wake them up and in fact the very next thing he says to them is, “Wake up!” Let’s hear what God has to say to His people back then and what He’s saying to you and me about His plans and purposes for us today. Isaiah Chapter 52, verses 1 – 6: Awake! Awake! Put on your strength oh Zion, put on your beautiful garments Jerusalem the holy city for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up oh captive Jerusalem loose the bonds from your neck oh captive daughter Zion for thus says the Lord your God you were sold for nothing and you shall be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord God, ‘Long ago my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens and the Assyrian too has oppressed them without cause, now therefor what I am doing here,’ says the Lord, ‘seeing that my people have been taken away without cause, they’re rulers house’, says the Lord, ‘and continually all day long my name is despised therefore my people shall know my name therefore in that day they shall know that it is I that speak, here am I’.” This is God shouting, “Wake up people!” You know what it’s like when you first wake up out of a deep sleep and your kind of groggy and disorientated and if you default mode is fear and you’re traveling through your difficult place – your Babylon, your health issue, your marriage issue, your family issue, your money issue, your whatever issue – when you’re in that place and your default mode is fear, Hey! You’re going to take some waking up. To wake up from the drowsiness of that negativity to the potential and the amazing future that God has for you. We need to get dressed in the garment of praise, we need to put on the strength we have in Christ! We need to shake the dust off our attitudes where it settled from lack of movement, cos tell you, fear has a tendency to paralyse us, we just kind of sit there and hope it’s all going to change. We need to lose the bonds of captivity to our circumstances that are choking us. What a beautiful picture. God is wanting His people to wake up to the fact that by his sovereign will and His immense power He’s already started doing some amazing stuff but the God of their fathers is going to redeem them without money in other words He’s going to do it, He’s already doing it, and it’s going to cost them nothing. No work, no effort, cos God is going to do it. “Wake up to what I’m doing here people”. That is what God’s saying to Israel and my friend that is what He’s saying here to you and me today. When we’re in that dark and difficult place of transition from something we know to something we don’t, from something that’s comfortable, albeit trying, to something that’s maybe not as comfortable and familiar, we almost want to sleep, most of us want to stay where we are. It’s out default mode; we’re not expecting God to move. I’m not saying God’s going to wave a magic wand and solve all your problems over night that may be his plan, that may not be his plan but he may have a plan to fill you with exquisite knowledge of his present, the sort that is only available in the dark place that you’re in the sort of knowledge the presences of God and his healing an comforting spirit that simply wouldn’t be as poignant or as powerful in a place of light as it is in a place of darkness. Whatever God’s plan is for you let me tell you, He has a plan. A plan for good, a plan to bless you, a plan to be your God right smack bang in the middle of that place that you’re in at the moment. You’re God has a mighty plan and a mighty purpose for your life and I don’t care if you’re 8 or your 80 or you’re 800, your God has a mighty plan and a purpose for your life. And today through his word this is what God is saying to you. “Wake up my child, wake up to the plan that I have for you.” Wow, see the stuff that we could end up missing out of if we are not in God’s word? If we don’t’ open God’s word and read it and read it as though he means to speak to us through it? Wake up to the plan that God has for your life for whatever it is, it’s good! And it’ll be such a tragedy for you to miss out on God’s plan for your life. Wake up!   Beautiful Feet Good news about tomorrow always brightens up today have you noticed? And there are probably only one or two people, and perhaps you’re one of them, who needs a bit of good news about tomorrow today. Like the nation of Israel a few hundred years BC when they were coming to the end of exile and slavery in Babylon, back in around 520BC give or take a few years. They desperately needed some good news. But you see for the last seventy years as slaves all they were used to was bad news, and for someone only used to bad news it can be really hard to get the good news though. God had to shake them and wake them up. He used the prophet Isaiah to do that as we’ve seen so far in this story, and of course you and I can be like that too. If all we’ve been used to is bad news for a long time, it’s kind of hard to wrap our hearts around some good news. It’s hard to have hope for tomorrow when the circumstances of yesterday and today are screaming at you there is no hope! Are you with me? Sure yo...

Released on 30 May 2021