LISTEN TO A GENUINE LOVE SONG
– Isaiah 5:1-7
What percentage of songs on the radio are about love? 50%? 75%? 90%? I can’t tell you but whether it’s rock, pop, or country, I’d say that the majority of songs are about love and relationships. So, does this mean that songwriters understand how love works because they write about it so much? I would disagree when you consider how most of those love songs are about people trying to figure it out. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear a love song by someone who actually knows what true love is and not all those confusing speculations and theories? That’s what our sermon text is this morning – it’s a love song written and sung by God himself and it’s meant for us. As we listen to this true and genuine love song we’re going to learn how much God has done for us, and, at the same time, how much God expects from us.
When people write love songs they use cute little nicknames like “Honey-pie”, “Pumpkin”, or “Sunshine” to describe their loved ones. In his song God calls his loved ones: “Vineyard.” And God calls us this because he wants us to realize how much he has done for us. Think about how much work it is to plant a vineyard. You would first have to clear the trees, till the ground, remove the stones, plant good vines, and then build a fence around it all to keep out the critters. God says he’s done all that hard work for us and more.
So, what does God mean that he has cleared stones from us, planted us, and put a fence around us? First and foremost, God is telling us what he has done spiritually. You see, contrary to what many people think, when it comes to spiritual encounters, God makes the initial contact. We don’t go looking for God any more than a plot of ground looks for a farmer to work its soil. It can’t! That farmer must first seek out and then work the soil if it’s to be productive. Wasn’t that how things worked in the Garden of Eden? After Adam and Eve ate from the tree they weren’t supposed to eat from, they ran and hid from God because they were afraid. Adam and Eve would have remained in hiding had God not come looking for them and promised to send them a Savior from their sin.
And God continues to go after sinners today. In fact, he’s doing that right now through the words of this sermon. He wants you and me to know that he loves us. And he’s doing more than just telling that, he’s actually creating or strengthening faith in that promise of his love. Just like farmers must remove stones before they can plant their vineyard, so God must work over our stony hearts removing our doubts and skepticism before he plants faith. This happens whenever we hear or meditate on words from the Bible. Through our baptisms the Holy Spirit entered our hearts and went to work to create faith. Even after faith has been created, the Holy Spirit stays to protect that faith and to nurture it just as a farmer stays to prune his vines once they’ve been planted.
So why has God done all this for us? Well why does a farmer go through the hassle of planting a vineyard? Of course he does so, so that he can enjoy the fruit it produces. In the same way, God has created faith in our hearts so that we will produce fruit, that is, do things that bring God joy. And what is it that brings God joy? The Apostle Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22b, 23a). When God sees us doing these things it brings him joy.
But is that always what God sees us produce? It’s not what he saw in the Israelites of the prophet Isaiah’s day. God expected his people to produce choice grapes because he had done so much for them but instead he found only sour ones. Sure, on the outside the Israelites may have looked good but on the inside they were rotten. And God brings out that point with a word play in the last verse of our text. God said he looked for justice but found bloodshed. He sought righteousness but heard only cries of distress (Isaiah 5:7). It doesn’t sound like much a word play in English but it is in Hebrew. In Hebrew, God said he looked for mishpat but found only mispach. He hoped for zedekah but heard only zaakah. The Israelites may have thought that the way they were living was good enough for the Lord, close enough to the righteousness and justice he demanded, but it wasn’t. They were way off target. In fact, they were doing the opposite of what God expected from them.
Are we guilty of the same thing? At times have we tricked ourselves into thinking that we’re doing what God wants when in reality we’re doing the opposite? For example have you ever said: “I’ve never committed an act of road-rage. God must be happy with me.” God is certainly happy that we haven’t cut anyone off on the highway on purpose and put their life in danger but he expects more from his Vineyard. He wants us to show the fruit of patience, peace, and gentleness in the words that we speak and in the thoughts that we entertain about other drivers.
Because the Israelites hadn’t produced the fruit God wanted, he said to them: “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). Since his vineyard had not produced the grapes he wanted, God was going to let the vineyard be destroyed.
So…wait a minute! I thought this was supposed to be a love song. It still is though. You see…. the fact that God told the Israelites what lay in store for them because they had failed to produce fruit, was loving. He warned them about the dire consequences of their sins because he didn’t want them to have to suffer those consequences. Isn’t that why parents tell their children what will happen if they touch a hot stove? They’ll describe the blisters that would form and the throbbing pain of a burn because they don’t want their children to have to experience it first-hand. God speaks to us in the same way this morning. He warns us that if we ignore his Word and do things our way we will have to suffer the dire consequences of having God’s loving attention taken away from us forever.
So, what should we do? Should we try harder to produce the fruit God wants? No. Start by looking back to the first part of our sermon text and be reminded of how much God has done for us. We heard how hard God worked to create faith in our hearts, but faith in what? Not just faith that there is a God, faith in God’s Son, Jesus. Jesus came to this earth to remove our sins. Like a farmer clearing stones from his field, Jesus cleared the sins from our lives and bore their weight on the cross. This backbreaking work, no, this life-breaking work Jesus did saves us from God’s punishment.
A good love song will give you goose bumps, especially if that song is sung to you by someone who loves you. You won’t find any songs like that on the radio but you will find them in the Bible. In fact, through our text this morning the God of the universe has acknowledged his love for you. He’s not only acknowledged it, he’s demonstrated it through Jesus. May that love for us produce the fruit God seeks. May we be patient, gentle, loving, and kind because we are God’s Vineyard. Amen.
Welcome: The family of Zion welcomes you as we worship the Lord today. We encourage children to worship with us. However, if you need to leave with your child, there is a nursery room to the right as you exit the sanctuary. The rest rooms are located in the hallway between the sanctuary and the fellowship hall. Visitors, please sign our guest book to the right, just outside the sanctuary. We’re glad that you are here and pray that through our worship the Lord grants you peace.
W h a t T h i s S u n d a y i s A b o u t
A STORY OF RECKLESS PATIENCE
Patience is a virtue. But can too much patience be a vice? If you are too patient, waiting to see if that pain in your stomach goes away with time, you might make a problem worse. If you are too patient with an incompetent employee, you will lose productivity before the inevitable—his firing—occurs anyway. Too much patience would seem not to be a virtue, but reckless behavior.
Yet that is exactly what God demonstrates to a rebellious human race—reckless patience. Through a story Jesus teaches exactly what God’s patience means for us.
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ORDER OF WORSHIP……………………………………………………….…….…p. 154
HYMNS: 920 – 862 – 674 – 932
PRAYER – Almighty God, in your bountiful goodness keep us safe from every evil of body and soul. Make us ready, with cheerful hearts, to do whatever pleases you; through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
FIRST LESSON – Isaiah 5:1-7 (pew Bible p. 486) – This song leads God’s people of every generation to self-evaluation and self-condemnation. Such a song leads us to repent and cry, “Lord, have mercy!” Let us never receive God’s grace in vain, but pray that we might produce the fruits that our beloved seeks.
PSALM FOR THE DAY………………………………………………………………….80
SECOND LESSON – Philippians 3:12-21 (pew Bible p. 832) – God has given us the kingdom of heaven by faith. We are the people he promised would produce its fruits. So, let us do exactly that.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION – Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia / Your words are my joy – and my heart’s delight / Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
GOSPEL LESSON – Matthew 21:33-43 (pew Bible p. 698) – Jesus’ words in the Gospel highlight the patience of our God as he seeks fruits of faith. Could God have done anything more for Israel? The point here is the amazing patience the owner displays.
SERMON……………………………………………………………………….Isaiah 5:1-7
“LISTEN TO A GENUINE LOVE SONG”
Lessons for Proper 22
FIRST LESSON – Isaiah 5:1-7
The Song of the Vineyard
5 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 people 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 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.
SECOND LESSON – Philippians 3:12-21
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Following Paul’s Example
15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
GOSPEL LESSON – Matthew 21:33-43
The Parable of the Tenants
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
COMMUNION – This morning we have the privilege of receiving the Lord Jesus’ very body and blood together with the bread and wine, for the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith in him as our Savior. We ask that only those who are communicant members of a church in fellowship with the WELS or ELS come to the Lord’s altar. Please be sure to sign up on the sheet in the entryway of church.
FELLOWSHIP AND BIBLE STUDY AFTER THE SERVICE – Please stick around for fellowship and Bible Study after the service today.
NEXT SUNDAY – Next Sunday we will celebrate Proper 23 at 9:00 with fellowship and Bible Study at 10:15. The readings will be: Isaiah 25:6-9 / Romans 1:16-17 / Matthew 22:1-14.
LWMS FALL RALLY – The Lutheran Women’s Mission Society Fall Rally will be held on Saturday, October 10th at Grace Lutheran Church in Columbia starting at 9:30. Please see the bulletin insert for more information. Peace in Marshfield will be hosting the Spring Rally next Spring on April 24th.
PLANNING COMMITTEE – The Planning Committee will have a meeting on Wednesday, October 14 at 6:00 PM.
CHURCH DIRECTORY AND PHOTOS – Angela and Dee Bruck will be taking photos to update our member photo board on October 18 & 25. They will also be updating our church directory, so please check the copy we have provided in the narthex and make corrections if necessary. Please check the box next to your name after reviewing your information.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW– Last Week’s Worship Attendance: Members-24; Guests-5 / Fellowship-Bible Class – 25 / Sunday’s Offerings-$1,106.00
THOSE WE REMEMBER IN OUR PRAYERS – Barbara & Larry Long; Liz & Roger Lisenby; Greg Miller; Russ Perry, Deb Hunt’s father, in hospice care at home; Patsy Mickelson (Jane’s mother); Khendra Murdock; Norine Richardson.
