What we've seen so far here is obviously in Lesson 1 we saw that we serve an amazing, wonderful God who at the presence of God, the people that experienced God face-to-face bowed down, fell to their face, almost in fear, but God always raised him up and said, fear not. And the idea is just when Moses saw and spent time with God face to face, his face shone when he came down the mountain. When the elders and the people of Israel went up the mountain, they experienced the thundering and the quaking. And remember the trumpet? And the whole room was shaking. But the idea is there is power in the presence of God. When you experience God, you are never the same. And I think sometimes as a Christian, I'm in that bucket. I feel that sometimes we can, can I say this? We play Christianity really well. Makes sense. We are very religious. Makes sense. And is religion Is doing religious works wrong? No. There's nothing wrong with trying to follow the law, doing right by your family, coming to church, doing those things. But we'll see that throughout scripture it's all about a king and his kingdom and his relationship with his people. That's all God is doing. The entire scripture is not about doing things for God necessarily, but it's walking with God. Do you see the difference? Where a lot of times we just want to do things, where God says, I want your heart. I don't need your money. I don't need your time. I don't need your talents and abilities. I created with your breath. All I want you to do is get on your face and worship me, and I will love you and bless you. God just wants us to spend time with Him. And then when you do spend time with Him, then you'll naturally want to do things for Him. But I think a lot of times we reverse the roles. And I know I do that all the time. So, let's take a look at a couple things. First of all, I want to start off with God's mission. Now, today is called the Vineyard of God. And I want to see, there's an analogy in the scriptures that is prevalent, and I never noticed it. I just thought, oh, he talks about vineyards, he talks about farming, he talks about grapes, he talks about sheep sometimes, and these analogies. But I found something that was quite interesting that I think will be a blessing to you. Let's take a look first at God's mission. God's mission in Deuteronomy 6, 5 in your Bibles, I think it's in your notes there as well. I highlighted this passage. It says, Deuteronomy 6, 5, God's desire for his people is for them to love him with all his heart, all our soul, and all our might. Remember, God's mission all along, and I'll talk about this a little bit later, is to have a walking relationship with his people. So, at the beginning, when God created the universe, we saw in the heavenlies that there were Seraphim and Cherubim, even Lucifer was there worshiping the almighty creator, the king of kings, Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, okay? All these names that we attribute to God, God was seated on his throne and he was receiving the ultimate worship. And then he said, I want to create somebody in my image. I wanted to create somebody that has a mind, an intellect, a will, the ability to love, the ability to have emotions, just like me, to come and fellowship with me. So he created Adam, and he created Adam in a perfect, peaceful environment, and then he created everything wonderful and sublime, and Adam sinned, and Adam did the wrong thing, and Adam served Satan instead of serving God, and Adam worshipped worshipped his own mind, his own intellect, his own will instead of worshipping the one who created him. And then we see that ever since then there was a separation. So God has a mission and his mission is to provide what we say, shalom, peace. He wants to provide shalom back to his people. First he wants to provide it vertically, so he wants people to be reunited back to him. And then he also, then he wants the people to provide peace and shalom to the people around them. And then as a representation of him. And we'll see that today as it unfolds. But the idea is we see that first of all, we see that God desired for the people that were in bondage in Egypt at that point to deliver his people from bondage. So he wanted to do the first step was, first thing I want to do is I want Moses to go to Pharaoh and to say, let my people go. I don't know if he's saying, but he could have been. But the idea is, so he said, we're just reviewing, but the idea is he wanted to deliver on a bondage because in bondage, you can serve God in bondage, but he says, I'm going to take my people away from bondage. I'm going to take them to a place where they can worship me freely, where they can spend time with me, where I can teach them how wonderful I am, and they don't have to be in bondage. to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. So he said, that's the first thing we're going to do. I'm going to deliver. So God delivered his people just like he delivers us out of bondage of sin, right? When we accept salvation, he takes us out from the bondage and the slavery to Satan that we were worshiping before and now says, listen, I'm going to give you a life that can serve me and love me because I suffered and died and paid for your sins. So what he does is he drew the people out of Egypt and he took them out there because he wanted to provide peace and freedom. Now, the second thing he decided, he says, now not only will I take them out of bondage, when I'm in Egypt and we're traveling out here with these million or so people out there, I'm going to teach them about myself. And I'm going to teach them and establish a means or a system to worship me. A system, you say, what is worship again? We'll talk about that in the next couple of weeks. break into the word worship itself, but to give our devotion, our love, everything that we are, our entire being, we will give to Him. So God brought Israel out of the desert to meet with Him. That was the whole purpose. It wasn't supposed to take that long in the desert. It could have taken three or four weeks, maybe a little bit longer. Some of you Bible scholars could correct me on that, but it wasn't supposed to take 40 years in the desert. Do you understand? It was only supposed to be a time where he said, I'm going to take you out of bondage. We're going to go... Why? No distractions. Just me, you, my people, my instruction, my servant. We're going to learn about me. We're going to learn about me. But you know what's interesting? just like mankind, just like us, they refuse to listen. Many times. Even after being corrected many times. So you know what they ended up doing for 40 years? Instead of learning about Him, they learned about themselves for 40 years. Isn't that sad? And isn't that us? So we get saved into power and presence and we've experienced God and we hear the mountain shake and everything and we get saved and we're supposed to learn about God and after that we spend the next how many years learning about ourselves and learning about our sin and learning about when we're supposed to move on and God wants to teach us about ourselves but he wants us to spend time with him. The more time you spend with God, the more things make sense. Moses, he wasn't this fantastic, wonderful, perfect guy. He had his own struggles and issues, but he spent time with God and it was evident by what he did. And then Joshua, we'll see later on, saw what was happening. He said, I want to do this. And he took up the torch and says, I've spent time with God. And then when they're, remember when they went into the promised land and they like, they looked and they saw Jericho and they saw all these people and, and there's this, these, these huge huge giants and things like that. He said, we can't do it. Joshua came back and says, what's your problem, guys? We serve a great God. Take the land, you know. So he was just excited about doing this. And the idea is because he spent time with God. Meanwhile, the people there, like us, we spent time talking to each other, gossiping, you know, what this happened, what this happened. And then all these people were just bickering and bitter and things. And this is us. This is us every day. We do these things. But the more you spend time with God, the more you realize what his mission and his plan is. And our job is to get it on. his plan. Then the last thing is after that he said he brought them out to the promised land after they spent 40 years in the desert. And he did this so that he could provide security for his people. He gave them, he says, listen, we're no longer going to be in Egypt. We're no longer going to be under the bondage of the desert and the heat and things like that. I'm going to give you a land that is flowing with milk and honey, with grapes. Alright? That are huge. These are small ones. They're mini-me's. And he said, you know, a place where you will just thrive and love. And then there, because you spent time with me and I restored my relationship with you because I built you a tabernacle and there's a place for you to worship now. And now we have access to you and you can come to me anytime you want because I'm your father and you are my children. And then he says, now show this to the world. And so the world will look and say, who are these people? Who are these Israelites? Who are the God that they serve? We want to be part of that. Now some of them, they said no. So God obliterated them. Completely destroyed these nations that rejected Him. But other ones came on board. And then we'll see later on, guess what God does? We become. that royal priesthood, and then it's our job to show the world the great God that we serve to represent Him. So we see God's mission. Now, let's move on to God's plan. So here's a picture, and some of you have been to Israel, and I envy you, but that's okay. Maybe we'll have Charlie talk about Israel a little bit later on sometime. Want to do that sometime? We'll have Charlie come up, because he tours in Israel, and I love that man. because he's been to Israel. All right, so and as he looks Egyptian and I want to just have him to dress up as Pharaoh one day. All right, so the idea is, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm trying to do my best research from being a third party, from just seeing things online and researching online. But this is an example of possibly what they could have seen except for the established buildings and things like that in the background and the power lines and the roads. But the idea is this would have been the promised land, a far different stretch than the previous picture that was in the desert. Do you make sense? And you know what's funny? We see the desert because we live in it, okay? But don't you see that when you're driving and you're coming down the 15 or the 95 and you're like, Your car's like, ooh, and it's going down, and all of a sudden, like, oh, Vegas. It's really not that green, but compared to the desert, it's really green, you know? And so this is like a beautiful land over the hillside where maybe they would have looked down from Mount Pisgah, and Moses would have seen this and said, oh, this is what God wanted for the people the whole time. No more deserts. Look what they're going to get. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be wonderful. So this is the land that God gave them. So God set out to restore shalom to his creation, peace. God's plan was to restore peace. to his people, his creation. Now, how did he do this? He did this three ways. I'm going to give you the three points here if you want to write these down. Number one, he restored shalom or peace, number one, through his people by worship in the tabernacle. And that's what we're going to see. So the first thing he did is he took his people out of bondage. He says, I'm going to create a tabernacle. And then later on, we're going to convert this to a temple. But the idea is right now it's a tabernacle. And I'm going to spend time in a place called the Holy of Holies where my presence will sit atop of it with a pillar of smoke or a pillar of fire and you will experience my presence wherever you go. When I move, you move with me. When I go this way, you move that way. And the idea is so they could experience peace with God and they could have their sins atoned for once a year when the priest would go in there and offer the sacrifice. But it was a means for them to access God. Now remember last week's SOT? One of the sad parts was this. Remember that God called all of Israel to represent Him? He called Israel, all of Israel, to be His priests. But then remember when Moses came down from the mountain and he saw the golden calf and he was like, what? What is this? And God was angry and Moses came down and he was angry. He broke the tablets and he basically said, who is on the Lord's side? Who will obey? And the Levites are the only one that said, we'll do this and we'll follow. And then so then God said, that's it. Then the Levites, you will become my priests because the rest of them were doing their own thing. Now, is that what we do? Sometimes we do that. But the idea is, we'll see later on, in a second, that we have become the priesthood now, through Jesus Christ. We are the priests. We are the representatives of the Most High to establish the tabernacle wherever we go. So the idea is, the first step is, he wanted to restore shalom, or peace, to his people. So he brought them out of bondage, he brought them into the desert, he taught them about himself, and then he built a tabernacle so they could experience his presence. Then, After that, God prepared the land for his people. So we see that God took time to spend time with his people, but then he says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do even better than that. I'm going to bless them so much they won't even know what to do with it. They're going to have a land that I'm going to conquer. There's all these people, there was these people groups already established the land, already planted vineyards, already built towers, already built cities, all this kind of stuff. And God says, you're going to take everything, and this entire land will be yours if you just obey me. and then he just came in charging and God said you can have this and you can have this and you can have this and I'm going to bless you and I'm going to bless you and then Moses writes Genesis and he writes Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and he writes all these establishing laws of the land, how to treat your neighbors, how to worship God, He gives exact plans on exactly what you're supposed to do when you get to the land. And then we see through Joshua and Judges, and then we see the story unfold. But the idea is God said, I'm going to do this, and I'm gonna prepare a land for you so that it'll be ready for you, that when you go in there, I will give you this victorious life. Not gonna be easy, but it's gonna be victorious. And you're gonna conquer the people. It's gonna be a challenge, but I'm gonna be with you if you follow and keep my commandments. And then God illustrates this, and this is where I wanted to get to today, in a beautiful example of poetry. of poetry. Now, I did not make this up, okay? I found this and I said, this is so good. I think the people will love this. And I thought this is helpful for me. So I preached it to myself and then I was like, okay, I got to fix that. And then after that I said, all right, let's share this with my friends and my family here. Okay, because I said this is going to be good. It's going to help you out. Now, remember they crossed over into the promised land, into the Jordan Jordan River. And then they experience this beautiful land that is no longer the desert. And it's this land where it's flowing, obviously, with sheep's milk, and honey, and grapes, and olives, and vineyards, and just everything that you'd ever imagine that you'd want. And so I'm going to show you a picture of an example. Now, what they could have seen, now there's debates, but I'm going to believe God. So, there's debates on what they could have seen, but this is an example of a terrace in Israel, possibly where they would have crossed over in Kadesh Barnea area. And there's some terraces like this all over the world, okay? It's a farming method that has been established. Now, what it is, is this. It's on the side of a mountain, if you ask any farmer or anybody who's planted a vineyard, it's very, very difficult to have a farm on the side of a mountain. Very, very difficult. But if you build a terrace system like they have here, what happens is when the rains fall on the top of the mountain, the water flows down and it trickles into the first terrace, which basically you build a wall up like this, on the side of the mountain you build a wall, You fill it with super fertile soil. You clear all the rocks. You mow the rocks. You use the rocks to build the other wall. And then after that, you plant your little vineyard like this on a strip of land. And then the water trickles down. And then it gets exactly what you need. And then it trickles down again and gives the next person what they need. And it trickles down again and gives the next person what they need. So it's this beautiful system of flowing water as well with a very soil and fertile ground, so you can build on the side of a mountain where you would have not been able to build. So, now some people argue that this was built much later on, but because of what scripture says and what we see today, I have a feeling that many of these terraces possibly were in Israel when they came into the land, okay? Just my thing. Some people say it was built much later, but I think when you see what God says, you'll be like, That's exactly what he's describing. It's exactly what he's saying. So, I want you to turn to Isaiah chapter 5. Isaiah, what an interesting book. Isaiah chapter 5. So God is going to describe something here using poetry, which is a beautiful analogy of what he does. I'm going to put the words up on the screen so you can kind of see and visualize each of the sentences of what he's trying to say. So God takes his people out of this dry, barren desert, teaches them about him, then teaches them about themselves so they can learn their frailty, their sin, their failures, so they can learn and learn from their mistakes. Sometimes they learned them, sometimes they didn't. But you know what I love? God's not done with people. That's an amazing thing, because you know what's interesting? Look at this story. You want to read any book of the Bible this week in the Old Testament, any book of the Bible this week, and you will see this story happening over and over and over again. It wasn't done. They didn't learn in the desert. They learned some things they didn't. They came to the promised land. They struggled with the same things. Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. They struggle with one of those three things every single time. And then after that, we want a king. Okay. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy might. They struggle with it. All right, so he sent judges, and then he sent a king, and he sent King David, and David loved God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might. And after that, he had a son. All his heart, all his soul, all his might. Still messed up, did some things wrong, and then you have a series of kings who did that which is wrong, because they missed one of those three parts. Isn't that amazing? And the story is constantly, always like this. If you do what God tells you to do, God will provide for your needs, He'll take care of you, He'll conquer the land. But then when you start walking away, He starts taking things away. Now how does this work? Let's look at this. In Isaiah chapter 5, There's kind of a parenthetical phrase that Isaiah writes here that God inspires him to write. And it says this, verse 1, So the idea here is, God is the one speaking and he's writing to his loved one in the vineyard that is Israel. Okay? And he says, My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. Just picture the idea. My beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. This idea of a terrace. They just came into the promised land. This is the vineyard that they have. God is our... And the next verse, And he fenced it, and he gathered out the stones thereof. And he planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein. And he looked that it should bring forth good grapes. Ooh. Ooh. You ready? Here, pass the good grapes around. Take, eat, for these are my grapes. I've already separated them out into little clusters for you. If you hog it, we'll know because they'll be missing grapes. I'm watching you. All right, so good grapes. Now, your Bible doesn't say good. You're like, oh, that was not, okay, I'll explain this, and I put it in parentheses just for those King James people, okay? So the idea is, the Bible doesn't say good grapes, but I wanna show you. This is what the Bible says after that, okay? And it says, and it brought forth wild grapes. Wild grapes. So get the picture. God says this. He's telling Isaiah to tell a story. He says, I love my people so much. In fact, I love Israel. And they're like a vineyard. You know? And they're like a vineyard. And therefore, I did this for them. I found a fruitful hill on the side of this terraced land. And I dug the soil. This is God saying, I dug up the rocks because you can't grow stuff there. I dug it all up. I put the best soil there possible. Absolutely the best soil. I tilled it. God's saying, I did this for you. I built up a wall to protect that side. I built down the wall that way to protect that side. I built a tower in the middle of this to protect from enemies and animals and at night for security so you could protect your little vineyard. And then he says, and I even built a wine press. Why is there a wine press? Because I'm expecting a bountiful harvest. There's going to be a harvest of grapes in this vineyard so great that you have to have a wine press in each field. So he says, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to plant not just any vine, the choices, the most beautiful, plenteous, juiciest grapes in all of Whole Foods. And he says, I'm going to plant them there. And they're going to grow this beautiful vine. And I'm expecting there to be a great, Harvest, isn't this wonderful? I'm such a wonderful God for doing this for you. And then it's supposed to bring forth good grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes? You say, what do you mean wild grapes? Isn't that like organic non-GMO grapes, like the stuff that grows up? No. Wild grapes here would be a condition of grapes back then that would have produced a grape that showed up and then shriveled up with a disease and died off producing no seeds. Makes sense? So it pops up, then shrivels up, and then you get nothing. You can't put them in the wine press. They're sour. They're disgusting. They don't taste good. And some of you are like, oh, I got one of those. Sometimes you're like, oh, sweet, oh. Or you buy apples at Costco or something, and there's a whole bag. And inside the bag, you're like, those are my favorite. And you grab it, and you're like, oh. Or clementines? Or mandarin oranges? You're like, yeah, it's gonna be juicy. You open it up and it's sour. You're like, the whole bag, you know? And so the idea, you get the picture here? So this is what God's saying. I have this vineyard. I did the work. I planted the soil. I planted the seed. I made this vineyard. I built the tower. I built the walls. I did everything for you. I built this up exactly for you. And it's supposed to produce wonderful grapes. That's what I did for you, Israel. Go conquer the land. Yes, sir. Go and conquer, conquer, conquer. Fall away, fall away, fall away. Come back, come back, come back, come back. Wild grapes, wild grapes. Good grapes, good grapes, good grapes. Bad grapes, bad grapes, bad grapes. And then he says, why have you given me bad grapes? Why does this happen? So then, this is the worst, guys. God judges his people. This is what God says he'll do. It's the same vineyard. Look at the wall. The wall has fallen down. There's nothing growing. The wall that was right here, nothing growing. There's nothing there. Just fall by the wayside. Useless. Still there. Still vineyard. There's nothing left. So this is what he says, and this is, I could see Isaiah crying when he writes this. I'll try not to. Okay, and he says in verse two, he says, and he brought forth wild grapes, verse three. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt, between me and the vineyard. You be the judge of what happened here. What do you think happened? Verse 4, what could have I done more to my vineyard? God says, what more could have I done for you? What else could I have done that I have not done it? Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, good grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. I did everything for you. What did you do wrong? I told you what to do. Why did you let it happen? I gave everything. I made the surroundings perfect. I gave Adam and Eve a garden, and yet they sinned. I gave the people a means to worship, yet they sinned. I gave people a king, yet they sinned. I gave people a Messiah, yet they crucified him. And then I gave a church. What are we gonna do about it? It's amazing. And then he says this in verse five, he says, and now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. This is God's judgment. This is the part, like, can we just skip to the, like Jesus loves people? This is what God does when we disobey him, okay? It's not out of hate. It's out of, I need you to learn this lesson so I can bless you. That's what it is. He says, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof. It will be eaten up and break down the wall. It's not just by accident. I will break it. I will take away the hedge of protection. I will crush the wall. And he says, and break down the wall thereof, and it will be trodden down. People are going to walk by, kick it, and be like, who built this tower? It's worthless. Did you see the tower that was there earlier? That's still one of the original towers that they built. It's still there, but it's not doing its full function, but it's still there. It's amazing. And he said, verse six, and I will lay it waste, wasted. It shall not be pruned nor digged, nor shall they come up briars and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no more upon it. I'm going to stop the elements from blessing. I'm going to stop the circumstances from blessing. these people, because you walked away. Why? For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. And he looked for judgment, but behold, oppression. And he looked for righteousness, but behold, a cry. And then he starts going into them. Woe unto them that join house to house. And he starts going, woe unto you, woe unto you. This is going to happen. Your wives are going to be barren. Your children aren't going to produce. The other thing is going to happen. They're going to conquer your land. They're going to take away everything. Why don't you just turn back to him? And they say, no. And they turn their back on God. So then after this, a couple of chapters later, God not shuts up, but he stops for 400 years. Okay. You're going to have to wait until they send a Messiah to come to restore shalom to the people once again. So we see what happens with this. Now, how does this work for us? You say, OK, that's Israel. I understand. There are some applications, I think, that we can definitely see in our own lives about this. Well, how does this apply to our life? Now, first of all, I want you to realize this. In 1 Peter 2, if you want to turn there, First Peter 2, let me see here. In verse, let's say verse 5. Let's go to verse 5. Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. I'm not going to read the whole passage, but the idea is there is you. He's not talking necessarily to the Jews there. He's talking to us. He says, you are a priesthood. You are a royal priesthood. The job that I gave to the Old Testament, to the tabernacle, the priest there, now that's your job. Your job is to do this. Anybody that follows Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior is now responsible for working the field, is now responsible for being my representative on this earth. We are now called to be ambassadors for Christ, right? 2 Corinthians 5.20. But the idea is, it's our job now to represent the Most High. So the lesson learned could be applied to us as well. So he says, let's take a look at the plant itself. Here's an example of a, you can see, this is actually in California, but you can see the vineyard here. But I can show you the example of how this works. When you look at the plant itself, okay, There's a couple parts, and I want to maybe draw some conclusions from the tree itself. On the bottom, there's a stump. Okay, right there. It's like this. This is the stump. And the stump, I believe, is Israel. Okay? And we know, we're going to look at this in a second here in John chapter 15, that Jesus says, I am the vine. and ye are the branches. Does it make sense? He talks about bearing fruit. We're going to read it in a second. But I believe that the stump was Israel. Out of the stump comes the vine. And the vine is Jesus Christ. He came out of Israel, right? He's the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah. He comes out from Israel. So the stump is Israel. God's the one who put the stump there. And Israel comes out, and out of there comes Jesus, the Messiah. And out of the Messiah, out of the vine, comes these little branches, the green parts. And out of the green parts, the branches, comes fruit. Makes sense? That is produced by the stump that feeds the fruit to come out. We have no, we don't have any say about how much fruit comes out. We don't work the fruit. We don't do anything to the fruit. We just produce fruit. God's the one who does it all. Does it make sense? But the idea here is, I believe, so that's why you can't throw Israel out. Some people would want to throw Israel out. Now, I don't believe we are Israel per se. Some people would, I've heard some people contend with that. I'm okay with that. We can discuss it later. I might learn something new. But the idea is, I'm not an Israelite. I am not from Judah. I'm not a Jewish person. Okay? But the idea is, the stump produced the Savior, and the Savior produced the branches, and the branches are us. And we produce the fruit. So it's a very good analogy of the vineyard that God gives us. So we see the analogy of the plant itself. The analogy of the plant. So we see who are what our role is. We are part of this vineyard that God wants to produce fruit in. Now, in John chapter 15, let me read this one really quick for you. John chapter 15. Now throughout the week, listen I know, I've sat in Sunday schools where the teacher would say, Hey, I recommend that you study this throughout the week. And I don't know if I did, but I'm saying if you want to learn more, you could study the passages. That's why I put it in there. If you want to get a good study, read it. If you don't, you can wait till next week, but I think you'll get something more out of it. John chapter 15. Think about this, guys. We just talked about this, okay? The people leave Egypt, they come to the Promised Land, they see these vineyards. God tells them later on in Isaiah, I did this, I did this, I did this, why the wild grapes? And in John chapter 50, Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. My father's the one working the field. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purchase it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. except it abide in the vine. No more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. There's a winepress, folks, a winepress that God made for you. For without me you can do nothing. If a man can abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burnt. Why? Prophecy of Isaiah chapter 5. God will just let it go to waste. If you don't do what he tells you to do, just let it go to waste. He'll let your tree burn down. And he says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, because you are the branch, and it will be done unto you, because the stump and the vine listen to the branch, because they are part of the tree. Make sense? So, and then he keeps going, he talks about much fruit and bearing much fruit. But a beautiful analogy, this fruitful fruitful vineyard on a hillside. Isaiah says, do what God wants you to do and He'll bless. If not, there's judgment and there is a woe for you. If you don't do it, it's it. Jesus says, I am the vine. If you abide in me, I will give you much fruit. Let's see what happens. There's another story. The analogy of the wicked husbandmen. Ooh, here's a condemnation to the Jewish people of the day. I think this was written specifically to the religious elders and the people who rejected Christ. This can be us at times. Matthew 21 verses 33, I'm going to read this one quickly and we'll be done here. Matthew 21 verse 33, it says this, here another parable, another vineyard guys, there was a certain householder which planted a vineyard, this is God, and hedged it around it, watch, and dig the wine press in it, ooh, and dig the wine press and built a tower and let it out of the husbandmen and went into a far country. This is just what Isaiah just said. There's a certain husband who built this vineyard, who got everything ready for you. Jesus is repeating what Isaiah said, because Jesus is the Word of God, so he always... I don't know, parenthetical statement here, I have a feeling, I don't know, but I have a feeling that every single thing that Jesus ever said is Old Testament, something from the Old Testament. I'm not saying... I'm just saying whatever you sometimes we read pastor you're like oh this is new teaching he's just explaining the same thing he's always said because he's the word of God. Does it make sense? So I don't know I'd have to look up every story but the idea is I have a feeling the more and more I study the more I see that Jesus said the same thing oh said the same thing oh he's just fulfilling oh he's just fulfilling it's amazing it's like God knew what he was doing. All right? And it says this, watch, this is a scary thing. Verse 34, and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husband. He sent people to go to the field that they might receive the fruits. And the husband then took his servants and beat one and killed another. This is the people of Israel. God said, all right, here, tend to my garden. I'll go away for a little while. I'll let you guys do your thing. So he sent kings and prophets and people and servants and John the Baptist And people, he said, here, I'll send some people to work the field. And, oh, what happened? You beat them and you sent them back to me? What? That's not what I wanted. This is my field. Why are you doing this to me? And then he keeps going. And he says, and the husband took his servants and beat one and killed another and stoned one another. And we know the passage he goes. He says, lastly, the husband then says, all right, that's it. I'm the owner. That's it. I'm going to send my son. They will respect my son. They send Jesus Christ. And God says, I'm going to send my own son. They'll listen to my son. And guess what they did? They crucified him. And the religious elders, that's what they did of the day. We crucified him because we didn't trust the owner of the land. And he says in verse, and he says, he says, verse 38. But when the husband saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and let us seize our inheritance. And they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him. When the Lord, therefore, of the vineyard cometh, what will, do you think he'll do to that husbandman? That's what God says. He's like, what do you think he's going to do to the person who took care of the land? It's gonna be bad for that person on that day. And so the judgment, you gotta look at it from a different perspective. This is the judgment on Israel. He says, listen, I gave you this vineyard and you cast me out. I told you this would happen in Isaiah chapter five, but you did it. It's not good. Well, what about the vineyard itself? The analogy of the vineyard. So here's the application for us as we look. Think about this, okay? Here's the vineyard. I believe that we are the vineyard now, okay? And in your vineyard, you have beautiful soil that God has laid out for you. He's already dug the rocks. He built the wall. He puts a tower. He made a wine press for you. And he says, go take care of my vineyard. You know what's interesting? Look at these vineyards. That's a little parcel of land right there. That's it. That's all you got. There's another one right there. That's all he got. Some of you think the promise sound like, oh, it's gonna be acres of land for the children of Israel. God said, no. Okay, the burgs, they get this right there. All right, the Limassons, they get this part there. Okay, the Bertrands right there, the Benjamins. Benjamins, you need a whole thing here. You need a big tower, you know. The Koreas, they're starting a family. They got a little son now, so there you go. All right. So he said, this is exactly what you need. Yeah, the webs are neighbors, so they got this whole bit. They got the street. There's their minivan right there. God gave them everything they need, right? So look at this analogy. I want to make this super plain. Here's the vineyard of God. This is our lives. This is the church. This mountain here, this hillside, is the church of God. Our job is to work the field. The walls were like this. Our job is to teach our children that if the wall is failing, pick up a rock and you stick it in the wall. You make the wall good. Because if I let my wall fail, the birch lands, starts to sink into mine. If I let my wall start to collapse, if I don't care, if I'm doing my own thing, I don't care about this thing about worshiping God, I let the rock slide, The Koreas, their plantation starts to fall. It affects everyone around you. You think you're only doing your own thing, but you don't work the field well, it's going to affect everybody around you. Now here's the question. What about the mother who doesn't have a husband? She's got a field, she's got to work herself. What about the older folks who lost their son and went to the world? The prodigal. He's out somewhere else. Somebody's got to help them work the field. It's our job to help each other in this field. This is God's kingdom. We're supposed to help each other out. There's watchtowers built on this field. Our job is not to be playing games and fooling around. It's to stand late at night and sit there while your kids are doing their studies, while you send them off to Christian school. And our job is to stand there and watch them and train our children in the ways they should go, so then when they're old they'll not depart from it. Because if you get down from the Watchtower because you want to do your own hobbies and your own passions and your own things, guess what? There's nobody on that tower on that side of the field. Nobody's watching for the wolves. Nobody's watching for the world to creep in. Nobody's watching for this stuff. And guess what? The walls will cave in because we neglected the things God told us to do. So the idea is, our job is to help each other build the wall. When I build this wall, this ensures that the people next door, their wall's good. And I'm counting on Samson and Natalie to build their wall, because they're down there. I'm up here. I don't know what they're doing down there. I'm just praying that they're doing good. So I bring gifts, and I fellowship with them, and I spend time with them. Why? Because I know they're building their wall. And when we encourage each other, we put more rocks up on our wall to build the wall up, to make sure that the soil is fertile. So our job as parents, our job as people, is to teach our children, the next generation's grandparents to teach their children to work the field, to guard the wall, to work in the wine press, to do it. Why? Because here's the thing we have to understand. The grapes are not up to us. We can't control the grapes that come out. But I bet you if you work the wall, you guard the field, you let God water, God will provide the increase. but it's not up to you. And you're like, well, what happens if this happens and my grapes and my fruitful offspring and things like that, it doesn't work out. You are there to provide the best environment for the field to thrive. It's not up to us. Our job is just to work the field. So when you build that tower of protection and you put your kids in a Christian school, or you build that tower, that wall, because you think this is important in your life because we're not gonna do this and we're gonna do this and church is important, you're building that wall, that foundation so that everything else can build and the vineyard can thrive. And that's the application for what? So here's the four things that I've done really quick. What God gives you is exactly what you need. I always thought that they go to the promised land, they get acres of land, you know, and then, no, it's a strip right there, it's exactly what you need. Sometimes we want things in the Christian life, we want this American Christian life of like bountiful success and power and fame and all this kind of stuff. God will give you exactly what you need, just work the field that God's given you. It's exactly what you need. The next thing that he condemned people for is hear the cry of the needy. There's some people in the vineyard next door that may need your help. They may be too quiet to cry out, but you need to be sensitive enough to help them out. There's people in our church that need help. Our job is to help them build their wall. If there's a single mom, it's our job to help her build her wall. If there's parents that are struggling in their relationship, it's our job to help strengthen that relationship so they can have a wall. Because if not, it collapses on the next one, collapses on the next one. When the rains come, it'll miss that whole vineyard. It's our job. That's what we are called to do. Third thing he says, be my presence. Your job is to represent me in this world. I want you to represent me. And lastly, think like a community. It's all about, it's this church of God. It's a beautiful example of the vineyard. God has this beautiful vineyard on a fruitful hill. He dug it, he built a tower, he built the wall, and he wants good grapes. So the question we have is what are we gonna give him? Are we going to give them good grapes? Or are we going to give them these rotten grapes that fall apart because we didn't do our job? We have a job to do. So when you're at home taking care of your kids, homeschooling, you're babysitting them, you're doing whatever, you're volunteering, you're helping the nursery, you're helping in the media business, whatever you're doing, do it to the glory of God because He has a vineyard and He wants you to do your job. That's our job. It's simple. I don't want to be like Israel that they missed out. I don't want to be like the kings when they missed out. I don't want to be like the people who crucified our Savior because they missed out. I want to be like those disciples that didn't get their act together all the time, but at least they tried to do their best, right? They tried to plant their vineyard. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this example. Lord, I pray as we look throughout this week, I pray that you would think about our vineyard, the vineyard that you have provided. I pray that we would look at an example and I pray that we would work the field work the vineyard, build the hedge, build the towers, dig the ground, do exactly what we need to do. And Father, you would provide for the blessing, the increase, and everything that we need to work our land. Thank you for being so good to us, Lord. Thank you for this beautiful example in scripture, but also, Father, the warning if we don't build our walls correctly and we don't plant and work our vineyard. Father, thank you for everything you do for us. Give us a great day and encourage us to work the vineyard that you have given us. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for watching.