The Edge of Isaiah — Yielding Wild Grapes

(S1) — What does it takes to yield a good crop? Location — Soil — Seeds — Care — Protection

There is an expectation of the one who plants, prepares and provides protection of its crop — A fruitful harvest?

(S2) — Series — Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard

Isaiah 5:1a (NIV)

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard

Isaiah’s love (Lord) — Vineyard/fruitful — Israel/Judah

This was God’s vision for His people — The fruit of a RIGHT relationship with a JUST God!

Even for the farmer who does the best of all things to ensure a plentiful harvest, there times when crops fail to produce as they are expected, and it leads to disappointment.

God’s lament over Israel, His beloved vineyard, which had yielded only wild grapes — God’s Disappointment with His vineyard — Israel producing only wild grapes in their unfaithfulness.

Warning to Judah to not follow the same path — Two questions — Asking them to Judge between God and his vineyard

4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Isaiah 5 (NIV)

Isaiahs words are a LOVE song gone wrong — Country song

A song (parable) about God’s vision for the church — A vision that includes you and I — All who will come to a right relationship with a just God. But like Israel, God is disappointed when the people, the church fail to produce good fruit…

Good news God will go to the ends of the earth to gain your love

Middle school girl friend — I did everything to get her to like me

(S3) — Prophet's words — Meant to take us to the edge — like the obvious love Isaiah had for God and God had for the people of Judah

“The burden of the parable is that God has carefully tended to the needs of the nation, and has done all He could to see that they would live just and righteous lives, but they have not done so. He watched eagerly for good fruit, but they brought forth only evil fruit. God, therefore, will turn them over to their enemies.” Kenneth E. Jones, “The Book of Isaiah,” in Isaiah-Malachi, vol. 3, The Wesleyan Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), 30.

“The vineyard was given every opportunity to produce the highest quality fruit — What can we learn from this unproductive vineyard that only yielded wild grapes?” What does God expect of his vineyard today? How do we know we are producing good fruit?

BIBLES — NOTES — PRAY

(S4) —

WHAT GOD HAD DONE FOR THEM (1-2)

GOD’S QUESTIONS (3-4)

GOD’S JUDGEMENT (5-6)

WHAT GOD EXPECTED OF THEM (7)

Focus — What God had done so that his people would be a prosperous nation — What God expected so that it would reveal his Justice and righteousness to the world.

(S5) — What more could I have done? The evidence of God’s faithfulness —

Isaiah 5:1–2 (NIV)

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

Five ways the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

1b My loved one had a vineyard on a FERTILE hillside.

Fertile — God set them up well — Canaan (Promised Land)

Exodus 3:8 “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey

(S6) — Fertile Crescent — Battle for this land

“A fine, well-placed vineyard” (Eugene H. Peterson, The Message)

God’s vision to Abraham — God birthed a nation and saw them as a beacon on a hill...

The first way, the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

(S7) —

1. Vision of PLENTY

Psalm 80:8-11 “You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. 9 You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. 11 Its branches reached as far as the Sea, its shoots as far as the River.”

He set it where it would be fruitful. Prime real estate with the richest soil. A place of abundance

(S8) —

Carol Nelson: We weren’t in the Bronx very long when Eli discovered Hunts Point Farmers Market and the Bronx Terminal Farmers Market, where people could get boxes of produce and dumpster dive. Right away it became apparent we could get a lot more than we could eat. We started giving it to some of the local people, including Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

One afternoon I was out on the sidewalk… and here came Mother Teresa herself along with some other sisters. First she put her hand on Kyle’s head and blessed him. Then she shook my hand and said, “Oh, the Farm and Plenty — you are the heroes of the world.” — Nancy Housel speaking of Mother Theresa

Jesus cast a vision for the church of God’s goodness — Vision of plenty that is grounded in faith

John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

What if we as a church focused more on the plenty of God?

Mother Teresa meeting with Plenty volunteers May 1978 “Ah yes, I see. Plenty of God’s love to share.”

(S9) — The Israelite’s had lost site of God’s plenty — Where God had placed them

Isaiah 5:2 (NIV)

He dug it up and cleared it of stones...

God gets his hands dirty — Tended the soil so it had the capability to produce good fruit

Landscaping — What they did I did

God’s justice or judgement as turning the soil and clearing the rocks…

Psalm 111:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.”

To fear is to know ones love — My dad

The second way, the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

(S10) — Making room for...

2. The WORK of GRACE

God’s grace is turning over the soil in our hearts, clearing out the things that get in the way of our growth. Grace is the preparation needed so that people can grow in deeper love with God

As long as they were faithful to Him, they would enjoy the benefits of the perfect soil of God’s love

Isaiah 29:23 “When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.”

Jesus is the way to remove the stones in our own field, what hardens our hearts...

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

It is finished — My work is done — the harvest is plentiful

Isaiah 64:8 “8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

(S11) — Making room for the work of God’s grace...

Isaiah 5:2 (NIV)

…He planted it with the choicest vines.

Isaiah’s prophesy of the Messiah, Jesus the one to come who would bring God’s justice and righteousness through his life, death and resurrection.

Isaiah 11:10 “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.”

The third way, the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

(S12) — by...

3. PLANTING in the name of Jesus

His name is above every other name. Jesus is Lord, he is the way the truth and the life. The way to build a just and caring society.

The churches failure of naming Jesus as the only way to God

The best of preachers — God/Jesus

There is only one harvest in God’s vision, one work of his hands, and one Messiah who came to save. One name for the church to plant!

Psalm 80:14-15 “Return to us, God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself.”

(S13) — The people were under God’s protection as long as they were faithful

Isaiah 5:2 (NIV)

He built a watchtower in it...

God’s presence — Stood above the vineyard — Keeping it safe

sacred of the dark — Mom in my room

The fourth way, the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

(S14) — By putting it all...

4. Under God’s PROTECTION

Psalm 80:10 “The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.”

This requires remaining faithful and trusting in God’s presence with us

“Best of all, God is with us.” John Wesley

Jesus is our safety in the storms of life — Jesus is our shelter — Jesus is our rock a solid place to stand when our world shakes around us

Deuteronomy 32:31-32 “For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede. 32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.”

(S15) — Jesus is our protection, our rock and redeemer, God’s presence with us

Isaiah 5:2 (NIV)

and He cut out a winepress as well.

The Lord built them a wine press — A way to produce the most delicious and beneficial wine.

Upper trough — Trampling Grapes

Lower trough — A basin for the juice

The expectation they would produce a harvest...

The fifth way, the church is called to live out this faithfulness, that produces a harvest of good fruit for God’s kingdom

(S16) — We were...

5. Made to PRODUCE Good Fruit

In Jesus, the church was made for this…to produce fruit that would last

John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

Jesus is the fruit of the spirit in you...

Galatians 5:22–23 “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

(S17) — One question remains — Why did God’s people only yield sour bitter grapes?

Vision of PLENTY — The WORK of GRACE — PLANTING in the name of Jesus — God’s PROTECTION — PRODUCING good fruit

They had forgotten that they were his vision — stopped making room for the work of GRACE — No longer PLANTING for a future — Fallen out of God’s PROTECTION — Not PRODUCING good fruit! By bringing God’s justice and righteousness to the world.

The bad news — Not all would listen to Isaiah’s songs...

(S18)

Isaiah 5:7 (NIV)

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

What does God see when he looks at the church today…?

The good news — There would be a remnant who would…Judah and out of their vision…Jesus would come

What more could he do? — Jesus

Are we living lives that are producing fruit ripe for a harvest of God’s vision, bringing justice and righteousness into the world?