Episode 1197: Vineyards or Wild Grapes?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,197 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Dr. Debi Silber: I'm Dr. Debi Silber. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure to live out your calling. Having the ability to overcome betrayal in a healthy way is key.

[00:00:22] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott

[00:00:29] Maderer.

[00:00:30] Scott Maderer: But outside of church in between worship services, are you seeing them out in the world doing ministry and doing good? Are you seeing the fruit of the vineyard being. Are you seeing it producing nothing but wild grapes. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly [00:01:00] desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in your.

[00:01:12] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:19] In today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about Isaiah chapter five versus one through seven. I talk about how sometimes we focus on the vineyard and not the world of wild grapes. And I share how this is a call for all of us to care for the world around us.

[00:01:39] Isaiah chapter five versus one through seven says. Let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watch tower in the midst of it and hued out a wine VA in [00:02:00] it.

[00:02:00] He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grape. and now in habit, tense of Jerusalem and people of Judea judge between me and my vineyard, what more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it. What I expected it to yield grapes. Why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.

[00:02:24] I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured. I will break down its walls and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a. It shall not be pruned or hoed and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they reign no reign upon it for the vineyard of the Lord of host is the house of Israel.

[00:02:49] And the people of Judea are his pleasant planting. He expected justice, but saw bloodshed righteousness, but her to. This passage has a lot of [00:03:00] kind of metaphorical or allegorical language in it. It's talking about what was going on in Judea at that time. And to how God was unpleased with it.

[00:03:14] And I think if we get past some of the language, we can understand what's going on. So first off this idea of he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes is important and the allegory of the vineyard is important. I don't know if you've ever visited a vineyard, but they tend to be very beautiful places.

[00:03:36] They have beautiful greenery. They have well manicured lawns. They have row upon row of grape vines. They're beautiful. And they're marvelous to see in many ways, even if you're not a fan of wine, the vineyard itself is a beautiful place and vineyards at the time of the Bible. Prized possessions. They were well taken [00:04:00] care of.

[00:04:00] They were a source of pride, a source of money. They were something that was important and it took a great deal of time and energy to care for them and make them beneficial. Make them produce good grape. There was always something to do. There was nurturing of the grapes. There was tending of the vineyard.

[00:04:23] There was making sure whether it was the time that the grapes were growing or the time in between whenever you were taking care of the fields of getting everything ready so that everything was focused on grapes, fresh whole round. Perfect. grapes and the workers there would have to be well trained and meticulous and detailed in all they did to take care of the vines and the grapes.

[00:04:51] However, in this vineyard, it looks like they did that, but there were wild grapes. Now, if you've ever eaten [00:05:00] grapes that are grown for wine production or for. Eating. They tend to be sweet. They tend to be juicy. They tend to be large, but if you've ever seen wild grapes, I live in Texas and we have wild Mustang, grapes.

[00:05:15] They tend to be small. They tend to be hard and they tend to be very bitter in flavor. So here they're growing, they're watering, they're doing all of the things that they should do, but instead of getting these plump juicy grapes, They produced these small bitter fruit, these grapes were not able to do what they were meant to do to provide food or to provide the manufacturer of wine or any of these things.

[00:05:49] At this point we could think the vineyards of today, From this passage are oftentimes the church buildings [00:06:00] that we have, these large churches with beautiful sanctuaries lighting technology, a cafe out in the north X area, the outside lobby area. Very well cared for visually breathtaking. And yet, sometimes.

[00:06:19] When we look outside of those walls and we look to the world, we notice oppression. We notice healthcare problems, racism, immigration discrimination, ageism misogyny, xenophobia, nationalism. We notice people fighting and shouting and yelling at each other at the top of their lungs. So with beautiful vineyards in the midst of the world, we're still seeing wild grapes outside of the vineyard.

[00:06:48] And I would argue, we often see those wild grapes inside the vineyard as well. We go to church and instead of being a place of worship, [00:07:00] It's a place where those same arguments of the world are brought inside the walls. And we're yelling at each other at the top of our lungs about how this is right. Or that is right.

[00:07:13] Or this is wrong. We argue about the word of God, but we also argue about what's going on in the world and we don't repent of it. We don't turn away from it. We don't look to God for instruction. We don't do any of that. And what God is saying here is if that's what you wanna do, I can remove the workers from the vineyard.

[00:07:38] I can tear down the walls. I can let the people have their way I wanna be clear. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a great, big, beautiful church. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a cafe or something in the lobby. I'm not saying. Anything wrong with having ministry.

[00:07:58] That is [00:08:00] beautiful. Instead, what I'm talking about is what's happening between the connection of the people with each other and with God, are you seeing the love of God in the actions of the people? Not just at church. But outside of church in between worship services, are you seeing them out in the world doing ministry and doing good?

[00:08:30] Are you seeing the fruit of the vineyard being good? Are you seeing it producing nothing but wild grapes? Thanks for listening.

[00:08:44] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your [00:09:00] calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired steward.

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