Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Problem with Sinful Boredom | Historical Books | Isaiah 44:1-5

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Have you forgotten what it means to follow Christ? Are you prioritizing the wrong thing? Do you suffer from sinful boredom? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Isaiah 44:1-5 moves us from sinful boredom to holy enthusiasm. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Isaiah 44:1-5

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Bennett Maxwell leaned into the perfectly imperfect idea, and he turned his scrappy Arizona cookie shop into what was a pretty fast-growing franchise with several locations across the nation. He shared his messy behind-the-scenes details of building dirty dough on LinkedIn, everything from legal battles to protection, and he became known as the founder of the cookie, everyone craves, thick, imperfectly shaped,

layered with gooey fillings, and also baked and available for late night delivery. I think his story is interesting and his statistics and use them when talking to our own clients about the power of social media, especially LinkedIn to build a brand. Now, if you're on social media and you choose to be there and you're a consumer instead of a producer, you're actually doing something wrong. Because if you're not learning, growing, networking, or leading, LinkedIn has you and you don't have it. At least these are the things we say. Now, you could also say the same applies to all of social media. So this is what we tell the people that we work with. And often building up their LinkedIn with engaging content and regular posting

and cadence is one of the first things we do. Okay. Now let me set that aside and just say, if you look at my personal LinkedIn, you will notice that I have posted. twice this year. It's like a mechanic who needs an oil change. It's like a nutritionist who creates menu plans but doesn't have time to prepare her own meals or the pastor who is so busy taking care of his church that he forgets to pray for his own family and kids. Now we can all relate. Sometimes we're so busy helping and fixing others we don't have our own houses in order. I wonder if we can also be so busy being Christians that we forget what it means to live in Christ. I wonder if we get either bored or distracted about living out our true calling,

which involves some things that always aren't super flashy or attention gathering, listening to God's voice in His Word, obeying Him when we go out into the real world. There was a time when the Israelites didn't have a choice, because to survive and protect their firstborn children from suffering under the same plague that God was sending to Egypt, they had to do exactly what God said. An Exodus 12, we find a picture where God gives the people specific commandments for the first Passover. They have to select an animal from the flock, one per family.

They have to keep this animal until the 14th day of the month when they will slaughter it at midnight. Then they have to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts of the houses where the animal is eaten. They have to eat all the meat that night or burn anything that's left over. they have to save nothing for later. And while eating, they have to be dressed for travel with sandals on their feet and staff in their hand and they have to eat in a hurry. God said, I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I am the Lord. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you.

Now, don't you think something like a plague coming for all of the world? of the firstborns would make you very attentive to God's instruction, especially if he was telling you how he will protect you and your family. And then don't you think you would be grateful, beyond grateful, to belong to God, to leave a mark over your door demonstrating that you belong to him and fall under his authority? But that is not how we feel on most days, is it? Listening and obedience are not necessarily the exciting things that get us out of bed in the morning. That is, unless God is changing our hearts, to want to do these things. Complacency.

It's an easy word for us. You might even say we're complacent about our complacency. It's a Bible-study answer to the question, what are you struggling with? Oh, I don't know. Meanwhile, filtering out addiction, gossip, lust, while saying complacency, I'm just feeling complacent in my spiritual walk. We talk about it as if it's something God has put us in and should, if he was merciful and attentive, get us out of. But author Ray Ortland calls it something different. Ray Ortland calls it sinful boredom. And I think this is really interesting. It also brings us to our

passage today, Isaiah chapter 44, where God assures his people of his gracious commitment to choose them to make them, form them, and help. In Ray Ortland's words, it is a promise to lift people out of sinful boredom into holy enthusiasm. How does this happen? Well, Hebrews 6.5 says that God gives us foretaste of his new creation even now. And John 737 and 38 explained that for God's own glory, he will keep refreshing our spirits along the way. The good news, our sinful boredom is not permanent. This is because our journey into God's eternal promises are an ongoing miracle of his grace. Isaiah 44 describes what it will be like for the Gentiles to hear the good news about God's grace. It says they will spring up like grass in a meadow like poplar trees by flowing streams.

And it gives a nod to the story that I just told you about the first generation, the Israelites who were escaping Egypt, who were smearing blood on their doorpost to escape the plague of the firstborn, and therefore celebrating the first Passover. Isaiah 44 recounts. It says, some will say, I belong to the Lord. Others will call themselves by the name of Jacob. Still others will write on their hand the Lord's and will take the name Israel. These verses illustrate a time in Israel's history when they were grateful, aware, listening, obedient,

and enthusiastic about belonging to God. It is important for us to know our own story. Acts 247 says he will amaze us as generation after a generation of his people rise up with Christ-centered joy and eager devotion. What about you? Are you one of those rising up to the people in your life as someone with Christ-centered joy, an eager devotion? If not, you can ask God to help you.

Ask him to show you the things that oppress you. For the Israelites, it was the king of Egypt. Do you know what's holding you about? from God's grace and his promises for you? Ask him to do for you what you need. In 1 Corinthians 5,7, and 8, Paul describes what it means to be people who belong to Jesus, the Passover lamb, an identity that requires us to walk in obedience. He says, get rid of the old yeas so that you may be a new, unleavened batch as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. To live in sincerity and truth, we need the promises that God gives in Isaiah 4.

where he assures his people of his gracious commitment to choose us, make us, form us, help us. What obedience would God tell you to walk through to be that new bread, to take hold and live in your new identity, to be a living sacrifice? Basically, to be the opposite of sinfully bored or complacent. God promises to be with us on this journey. Let's pray and ask God to rescue us from our sinful boredom. Lord, will you show me, whisper in my ear what you see here and know? Tell me what I don't know. I'm oppressed and needy just like the Israelites.

But my oppressors are not pharaohs and plagues. They are things much more accepted, like consumerism, competitiveness, working to gain approval, misuses of time, and many others that I cannot even name because I take their power and influence for granted. Will you think on me? Will you show me what oppresses me? Will you show me what help I need so I can be more free to enthusiastically obey you and enjoy your presence? You are my helper and deliverer my rock. Amen.