Decisions about tough choices can be vexing. Add love to the context of decision-making, and that complicates things greatly. God's loving providence has expectations in Isaiah 5, and Jesus pushes his listeners to decide because the time has come - no more fence-sitting.
Consumer choices can be overwhelming as a trip to the supermarket quickly discloses. Our biases can cloud our judgment as we seek to discern what is best. If we know our bias, we can better manage our decision-making.
God has a bias for God's people. In the metaphor of a vineyard, Isaiah 5 describes the lovingly created, perfect vineyard that God provided God's people. Yet all that the vineyard produced was bad grapes.
What began as a love song turns into divorce court. God renders judgment, deciding that if the vineyard won't produce good grapes, then it should be destroyed and made a wasteland. What was God looking for that God did not find? Read verse 7.
Jesus has the surprising teaching about bringing fire, and bringing not peace but a sword. The mentioned "division" is more problematic than simply dividing, having the weight of "dissension," that some will be viewed as betraying the others.
Jesus tells them that if you can tell the change in weather by simple signs - as pictured above - surely you know that now is the time for decision.
Check out the sermon video below and find out the whole story.
Consumer choices can be overwhelming as a trip to the supermarket quickly discloses. Our biases can cloud our judgment as we seek to discern what is best. If we know our bias, we can better manage our decision-making.
God has a bias for God's people. In the metaphor of a vineyard, Isaiah 5 describes the lovingly created, perfect vineyard that God provided God's people. Yet all that the vineyard produced was bad grapes.
What began as a love song turns into divorce court. God renders judgment, deciding that if the vineyard won't produce good grapes, then it should be destroyed and made a wasteland. What was God looking for that God did not find? Read verse 7.
Jesus has the surprising teaching about bringing fire, and bringing not peace but a sword. The mentioned "division" is more problematic than simply dividing, having the weight of "dissension," that some will be viewed as betraying the others.
Jesus tells them that if you can tell the change in weather by simple signs - as pictured above - surely you know that now is the time for decision.
Check out the sermon video below and find out the whole story.
| 08-18-19-sermon.mp3 |
| 08-18-19-ff-answers.pdf |
| 08-18-19-a_tough_love_decision.pdf |