October 14, 2012
Dear friends in Christ.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving up to the
cities, I saw a sign for Minnesota Harvesters, and my mind was immediately
filled with memories. It was when I was
in grade school, 7th or 8th grade that our class took a trip up to Minnesota
Harvesters. We had the opportunity to
ride horses and walk through the apple orchard.
I still remember it because when we took that trip we were in one of the
last years of the drought of the 1980’s.
It hadn’t rained much if at all that summer, yet, when we arrived I was
amazed to see rows and rows of trees with branches bowing low due to the weight
of their fruit. It seemed that no matter which direction I would look, all I
could see was tree after tree producing an excellent crop of ripe red apples. All I could see was trees doing exactly what
they were grown to do—producing fruit for the orchards owners.
Well, in many ways, this orchard is a picture of the
very thing that the Lord wants to find when he looks at the lives of his
faithful children here on earth! For
when the Lord looks at our lives he hopes to see tree after tree, or to use the
illustration from our lesson today, vine after vine producing fruits of faith
our of love for the Lord our God. In
fact, as we study the lesson before us this is the very thing that the Lord our
God will be calling on us to do! As we
hear the Lord speaking to us through the prophet Isaiah, we will hear him
calling on us to produce fruits of faith for the Lord! He will be calling on each and every one of
us to produce fruits. Let’s take a look
at what the Lord tells us in our lesson today: “I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard: 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. 3 “Now you dwellers in
Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my 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? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do
to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will
break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will
command the clouds not to rain on it.” 7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is
the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he
looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of
distress." (Isaiah 5:1–7, NIV84)
Fruits of faith are the very thing that the Lord
wanted his people to produce. He wanted
to see their faith showing itself in love and action as they lived in the
vineyard that the Lord himself had prepared for them. The problem, however, was that Israel was not
producing the fruits of faith for which the Lord was looking! Though the Lord himself had prepared Israel
as his vineyard and planted them as the garden of his delight, they did not
produce the fruit that the Lord expected.
But when we think of Israel’s history, this truth becomes extremely sad,
because it was the Lord who gave his people every possible advantage. As we just reviewed in Bible Study, it was
the Lord who freed the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt, leading
them safely through The Red Sea to Mt. Sinai in Arabia. It was the Lord who blessed them, even as he
led them through the wilderness for forty years, so that their clothes and
their shoes did not wear out, nor did their feet even swell during that
time. It was the Lord who fought for his
people sending the hornet ahead of them and driving out the inhabitants of the
land for them. It was the Lord who gave
them cities that they had not built and fields that they had not planted. It was the Lord who built up the watchtower
of the priesthood and the temple worship which was designed to draw the people
ever closer to himself. He even
surrounded them with the hedge of the Law to keep them safe from the ungodly
ways of the nations around them.
However, even though the Lord did all this and more
for his people, they did not produce the fruits of faith for which he was
looking, because in so many cases they were led away from the Lord by the
allure of false gods. For in the same
way that the jewelry counter will stop most women, and even some men in their
tracks, drawing them in for a closer look the charm of false gods drew the
Israelites in. In the same way that most
women will lose their husbands to the mesmerizing glow of the TV during
football season, so also the Lord lost so many of the Israelites to their
fascination with idols. Though they had
been planted like grapevines in the rich dark earth of God’s Word and regularly
received the abundant waters of God’s grace, the Israelites willfully sent
their roots out into the gumbo of idolatry and the dry streams of false
religion. Because of this, even though
Israel continued to live in the Lord’s vineyard, they were no longer producing
fruits of faith for the Lord. Rather, as
Isaiah tells us, “they yielded only bad fruit.” (Isaiah 5:2, NIV84).
While it is true that Isaiah delivered this message
to the Israelites nearly three thousand years ago, these words still apply to
us today. Though this section of
Scripture clearly speaks of Israel as the Lord’s vineyard, we know that through
faith in Jesus, we are living in the Lord’s vineyards even today. We know that the Lord is looking to us to produce
fruits of faith for him. We know that he
is regularly checking our branches to see what kinds of fruit we are producing.
But the question is, “What kind of fruit are we producing?” From this vantage point it’s hard to say,
because only the Lord truly knows what kinds of fruit we are producing.
However, there is something we can say: we have been
given just as many advantages as the Israelites. For we are living in a land where we have the
freedom to worship the Lord in whatever way we see fit. We are living in a land where we have the
freedom to speak to anyone and everyone about our Savior whenever we want
to. We are living in a time when God’s
Word has been recorded for us in the pages of Scripture. On top of that, we are living in an area
where most of us could walk to church if we so desired, but even if you don’t
live that close to church, there are very few of us who have to drive more than
ten miles to get here. Yet, the question
is, are we taking advantage of those benefits?
Or are we becoming lax in our own spiritual lives and following the
Israelites pattern of producing less and less fruit for the Lord? Are we making sure that our roots are growing
in the rich soil of God’s Word? Or, are
we beginning to send them over into the gumbo of idolatry and the dry deserts
of false religion. It kind of makes me
wonder what the Lord would say if he spoke to us right now. Would he praise us and encourage us? Or would he say to us, “Now you dwellers in
Le Sueur and people of this tri-county area, judge between me and my vineyard.
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?” (See Isaiah 5:3-4).
What would the Lord say to us today? Would he encourage us in our fruit
producing? Or would he say that we were
beginning to follow the road the Israelites followed. Sadly, for the Israelites, as they traveled
the road of their lives they were producing fewer and fewer fruits for the Lord
until the Lord had it in mind, finally, to destroy his vineyard. Which is exactly what the Lord reveals when
he says, “Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take
away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it
will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on
it.”" (Isaiah 5:5–6, NIV84)
Because the Israelites had turned away from their
God and went off to follow idols, the Lord planned to destroy his vineyard, and
that’s exactly what he did less than 150 years later. He sent the Babylonians who came and
destroyed Jerusalem and Judea. They came
and killed anyone who resisted. They
came and led whoever was left off into captivity. This was the punishment the Lord had decided
for Israel because they were no longer producing fruits of faith for him. This was the punishment that they received
because they continued to walk down the road of destruction even after
countless warnings from the Lord. But
the scariest part about this is that this could well be the punishment, which
the Lord has in store for us for the exact same reason.
For the truth is, even though you and I are part of
the Lord’s vineyard, the majority of our country is not. Though we are part of the Lord’s kingdom
through faith, the majority of our world is producing nothing but bloodshed and
cries of distress. And if we should fail
in our production of fruits for the Lord, the only thing left would be our own destruction. But even though our nation and the rest of
the world have begun traveling this path, you and I are still able to turn from
the road of destruction. We are able to
turn from that road by turning to the Lord in repentance. We can turn to the Lord knowing that the
blood of our Savior has covered those times when we have neglected his
Word. We can turn to the Lord knowing
that our Savior’s blood covers those times when we have failed to worship
him. In fact, we can turn to the Lord
knowing that every sin we’ve ever committed has been removed by Jesus’
blood. There is no sin too large and no
sin to small, for Jesus blood covers all.
This is the message that shows our God’s great love
for us, and this is the message that moves us to respond with our love. For when we are reminded of how Jesus’ love
for us led him to the cross to pay for our sins, our hearts are moved to give
him thanks. When we are reminded of how
Jesus died for us even while we were still his enemies, we are moved to serve
him with our lives. In fact, this is the
message that moves us to call our roots back from the gumbo and dry streams and
drive them deep into the black earth of God’s Word. This is the message that moves us to dust off
at least one of our Bibles and begin reading again on a regular basis. This is the message, which moves us to make
time to read those short Meditation devotions after mealtime or at
bedtime. This is the message, the
message of Christ’s love for us that moves us to meet together at the Lord’s
house each week. For here, in the Lord’s
house, we have the opportunity to hear the Lord speaking to us in the liturgy,
in the lessons, and even in the sermon; and here in the Lord’s house, we have
the opportunity to speak to him through our prayers and our hymns. These are fruits of faith, which are pleasing
to the Lord. These are the fruits of
faith produced out of love for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
What a blessing to know that it is the Lord who
moves us and enables us to produce fruits of faith for him. Let us live in our love for him so that our
lives may ever produce fruit for him.
May the Lord bless our lives so that our lives are filled with fruit in
the same way those trees at Minnesota Harvesters were filled. That our lives
may be lives of joy and serves to the Lord, ever producing fruit for him.
Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
