Relationships showcase the best and worst of people. You may come to decision time and decide to break off a relationship. That's likely to spark conflict as it creates division. The Kingdom relationship can create lots of problems, too.
Isaiah uses the image of a lovingly tended vineyard to describe how God has provided all the right things to produce a wonderful harvest. Yet what gets produced are not sweet grapes, but sour grapes. God has a bit of a fit, deciding that the vineyard should be destroyed and made desolate.
You've probably been there: you give and give in a relationship, but the reciprocity expected in such a relationship never emerges. It's a one-way street, and you're at the dead end. Time to quit. That's where God is with the people.
Getting past the vineyard and grape metaphor, what did God really expect from his people?
Jesus' teaching has the distressing line that he has come to bring not peace, but a sword. He goes on to talk about setting family relations into conflict and division. This bothers lot of folks because we always imagine Jesus teaching differently in most other places.
Actually, Jesus is re-defining relationships as they should be in the Kingdom, and implicitly, he indicates God's expectations are a lot like what you discovered in Isaiah.
Didn't you figure out what God was expecting from his "vineyard," his people? Then you better take a look at the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.
Isaiah uses the image of a lovingly tended vineyard to describe how God has provided all the right things to produce a wonderful harvest. Yet what gets produced are not sweet grapes, but sour grapes. God has a bit of a fit, deciding that the vineyard should be destroyed and made desolate.
You've probably been there: you give and give in a relationship, but the reciprocity expected in such a relationship never emerges. It's a one-way street, and you're at the dead end. Time to quit. That's where God is with the people.
Getting past the vineyard and grape metaphor, what did God really expect from his people?
Jesus' teaching has the distressing line that he has come to bring not peace, but a sword. He goes on to talk about setting family relations into conflict and division. This bothers lot of folks because we always imagine Jesus teaching differently in most other places.
Actually, Jesus is re-defining relationships as they should be in the Kingdom, and implicitly, he indicates God's expectations are a lot like what you discovered in Isaiah.
Didn't you figure out what God was expecting from his "vineyard," his people? Then you better take a look at the sermon video below, and note the downloads below the video panel.
| 08-14-16-ff-answers.pdf |
| 08-14-16-decision_and_division.pdf |