April of 2025, something rather unusual happened on Mt. Fuji in Japan. A 27-year-old Chinese university student decided to climb the mountain in the off-season, when climbing is more treacherous. Mt. Fuji is 12,000 ft. above sea-level; the highest peak in Japan.

Things didn't go according to plan. He developed altitude sickness, had trouble with his climbing equipment, and eventually had to be rescued by helicopter on April 22. Now, you'd think that being airlifted off a mountain would be enough excitement for one week, right? You might think he'd learned a valuable lesson about respecting the mountain and knowing your limitations. But apparently, he had left something behind...his cell phone.

So four days later, on April 26, he went BACK on Mt Fuji, attempting to retrieve his phone. And again, he got into trouble. AGAIN, he developed altitude sickness. And AGAIN, emergency responders had to rescue him from the mountain! Twice in four days, from the same mountain, all over a cell phone!

It's an almost unbelievable story, but it raises a question: What good is being rescued if you simply go right back to the thing that put you in danger in the first place? And as crazy as that story sounds, I wonder if we sometimes do something very similar in our relationship with God. We cry out to Him when we're in trouble. We ask Him to deliver us from the consequences of our choices. We rejoice when He answers our prayers. But sometimes, once the crisis has passed, we go right back to living the way we were living before. And then we wonder why we keep finding ourselves in trouble!

Everyone has a cell phone, right? In fact, if you DON'T - first of all, way to go; I respect the heck outta you! Secondly, raise your hand proudly. These things are now such a huge part of life, it's kinda scary. Now, for those who DO have a cell phone ,how many of you have had that cell phone that recently did an update? A little inconvenient, right? It seems like every time I turn around, my phone is telling me there's a new update available. And apparently, this update is going to make my phone faster, safer, smarter, and improve the quality of my life!

HOWEVER, when I do all the things you gotta do to get the update, when my phone restarts, everything pretty much looks the same - except they've moved three buttons and now I can't figure out how to set my alarm!

And it's not just our phones. Computers are constantly updating, too. You sit down at the computer to get some work done, and Windows announces that it's time for an update. And it doesn't ASK - it just tells you, "This may take a while." And suddenly what was working five minutes ago will be unavailable for the next 2 hours, it seems.

Software updates are only part of the problem. Every year, the companies that make these things announce that they've developed something even better. There's a new phone, a new computer, a new tv, a new smartwatch. And each new model comes with features that apparently make the one we bought last year hopelessly inadequate.

But wait - my phone was FINE yesterday. It made calls. It sent messages. It took pictures. It gave me directions. I could get online with it. So why do I NEED an upgrade? It's because they TELL me I need one. Did you know there's actually a term for the idea that products are designed or marketed with a limited useful lifespan. It's called planned obsolescence. We are living in a culture where products are more easily replaced than repaired, where newer models are constantly being introduced, EVEN IF THE OLD MODEL STILL WORKS.

Now I bring that up because if we're not careful, this upgrade mindset - the "I need the 2.0 or the 3.0" way of thinking - influences the way we think about everything, even our relationship with God. What do I mean?

The story we're looking at today has two interesting bookends. These bookends are two names. Now, names are funny things. Parents can spend an enormous amount of time deciding what to name a child. You want something you both like, something that sounds good with the last name, something meaningful, and preferably something the child won't spend the rest of his life having to explain or be teased about.

Every year the Social Security Administration releases a list of the most popular baby names in America. We don't have the official list for 2026 yet because, apparently, they insist on letting the year finish before they count all the babies. But the most recent list tells us that the most popular names for boys include Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, and Henry. For girls, it's Olivia, Charlotte, Emma, Amelia, and Sophia.

Those are good names. Solid names. Names you can imagine being used on a playground without feeling that you've made a horrible mistake.

Of course, choosing a name at times is complicated because of a bad experience one of the parents had. “How about Frank?” “Absolutely not." “Why not?” “I knew a Frank in high school.”

Apparently Frank did something so terrible in 1985 that the name is now permanently banned from the family bloodline! My daughter teaches first grade and refuses to name a child anything with an X in it. Why? Because names carry associations, memories. They carry history and experience.

In the Bible, names oftentimes carry meaning. Abraham's name tells a story. Isaac's name - "Laughter," reminds us of joy at the arrival of a long-awaited son. Jacob wrestles with God and becomes Israel. Jesus is given a name that means “Jehovah saves,” because, as the angel told Joseph, “He will save his people from their sins.” So at times a name doesn't merely identify you; sometimes a name tells a story, and again, the story we're looking at today is bookended by two names. One of them belongs to a baby. The other one belongs to a rock.

Now, neither one made the Social Security Administration's top ten. The baby is named Ichabod. The rock is named Ebenezer. Two very literary names, right? Unusual names for our time, for sure. But those two names tell us the whole story we're going to look at today.