The Skillful Vinedresser - Isaiah 5:1-4

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, welcome to the Vine Life Church podcast. We're in Boulder, Colorado. Following Jesus by staying rooted in his presence, growing in his family and living on his mission so that hearts are awakened with his awe-inspiring love. And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at VineLife.com. For now, here's a short sermon from last week in Divine Life. Again, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you. I see some new faces to me anyway. Welcome. This is my daughter, Trinity. Isn't she cute? I asked her to read the word. So if I could have everybody just stand up while we listen to the word this morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Isaiah 5, 1 through 4. Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it. And he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done to it? When I looked to it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And John 15, 1 through 5. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, and neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Amen. Okay, you can sit down. Thanks, honey. So those scriptures, John 15, and then especially Isaiah 5, 1, let me sing for my beloved, my love song concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. That um those verses have really been a landmark and kind of foundational life verse, if you will, for this house. In fact, um, for those of you that missed last week's message, I'd encourage you to go check it out on divine life.com or on your wherever you listen to podcasts. But it was really good because Luke reminded us that our founding pastors were given that Isaiah 5.1 verse as a a verse that really they held on to, and it was an encouragement for decades that guided the whole community. It was a promise that God had given vine life that we would be a fruital or a yeah, of I always mess this up. We laugh at there we go. Fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill. I don't know why I have trouble with that. Um so it was it was an amazing promise that God gave. But as Luke shared last week, you know, it's been decades. Um that was the early 80s that that promise was given. And, you know, faces have changed, leadership has changed, vine life has been through lots and lots, ups and downs, right? And so we've kind of God's last few years has really had us in a place where he keeps asking us to put everything on the table. And so the elders felt we need to put the name on the table, we need to put this verse back on the table and ask the Lord, is this still for us? Is this what you have? And as they prayed as an eldership, um, Luke, I'm gonna actually read what he said last week. I think he shared some of his journal, and this, and they really felt um the Lord confirming what he was saying to them. Luke said, I I see your the Lord was saying to them, I see your desire to be part of something new and fresh. If you launch something new, I will be with you, and there will be fruit and I will be glorified. But if you give yourself to what I have already spoken and what I've already set in motion, you're you'll experience much more fruit. You won't be able to take credit for it because it came before you and the roots go deeper than you know. There is something I want to grow from this old root system established in the prayers and sacrifice of those who came before. I meant what I spoke when this church was founded, that you would be a fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill. I know the seasons have changed and there have been unexpected twists on the journey, but I have not given up on my word for you. What I said, I meant. And the promise you were founded upon still remains. If you are willing to re-receive vine life as your name, there are more treasures for you to be discovered within the root system, a fruitfulness you have yet to see. And when the eldership came to the lead team and kind of explained that this is where they were at, the Lord reminded me of a journal entry that I wrote back in July of 2018, and I'd like to share it with you. I wrote, O vine life, God has led you, allured you in the desert to speak tenderly to you. Here in the desert, he will give you back your vineyards and make the valley of trouble a door of hope. Here in this new way that we give ourselves to him in, he affirms that we are bound to him forever in righteousness, justice, unfailing love, and compassion. God is shaking the heavens and the earth around vine life, removing once more what can be shaken, so that what cannot be shaken remains. Since we are receiving our rights of succession to a throne in God's kingdom, let us be extremely thankful and offer God the purest worship that delights his heart as we all lay down our lives in absolute surrender, filled with awe. For God is a holy, devouring fire and consuming light. Your very name holds the secret of your success, vine life. Fullness of life comes as you connect to God's heart, corporately receiving the nutrients and food, and as you teach others how to cultivate these times, clinging to Jesus, the true vine, remain in him. Cling to the vine. Let his life teem through you. Your very life comes from communion and connection with him. I just thought that was fun, but that way back in you know, July of 2018, God was affirming our name. It is who we are. And this scripture about being a fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill, if this is our identity and this is what God is calling us to and asking us to re-embrace as a community, wouldn't it make sense that we really understand what that means? What God is actually promising us and what he's asking us to walk into and be with him. And so that's why we're committing last week, this week, and several weeks following on really digging into this verse together and trying to see it from many different angles to really understand what God is promising us. So I look at this Isaiah verse, and because I do biblical dream interpretation, and that's all about symbols, and really this verse in Isaiah is uh is a prophecy. Even though Isaiah starts out by saying this is his song to his beloved about him being a vine dresser over this vineyard, really, if as as Trinity read the verse, you see very quickly it shifts. And Isaiah is not singing his song to the Lord, but he's singing the song that God, as the vine dresser, is singing over the vineyard, right? So I start looking at and I start asking myself, why is he using this imagery? Why is God making himself a vine dresser? And why is he talking about vineyards and hills and fruitfulness? You know, he could have used any imagery. And part of the thing that I learned in dream interpretation is to ask why. So, Janine, my mentor, if I came to her with a dream and I said, in this dream, I walked into a restaurant and I ordered a hamburger, she would say, Okay, why do you think it was a restaurant and not your kitchen in your own home or somebody else's kitchen in their home? Like, why was it specifically that you were in a restaurant and why did you order a hamburger and not have pizza or spaghetti or something, right? And so I do the same thing with this, and I say, Why? Why these images? Well, this I didn't know until we started studying the subject of vineyards. But do you know in the Bible, more than any plant, more than any grain, more than any fruit or vegetable, grapes and vineyards are talked about the most. Isn't that amazing? I would have guessed wheat or something. I don't know what you would have thought, but I wouldn't have guessed grapes and vineyards. But as far as like horticulture and agriculture and all that, that is the thing that the Lord uses the most. And so I have to ask again, why? I think there's some elements about grapes and vineyards that are kind of have some spiritual implications for us. First of all, grapes are super versatile, aren't they? You can eat them outright, you can squash them and make them into a jelly or a spread. You can squash them some more and glean juice from them, and if you let that juice ferment, it becomes wine. And you can also take the seeds and they become, you can make grape seed oil. And they even use the leaves to wrap them up in like rice and mint. I had some of that when I was in Lebanon, and it was amazing. So the same with us, when God is calling us to fruitfulness, it's not just one way or one note. There's versatility in even how we express the fruitfulness of God, right? And when you look at like your journey with the Lord and think of somebody else's journey with the Lord, no two journeys look the same. We're all bearing fruitfulness in different ways. So there's a lot of variety. So I can see how the Lord would use the analogy of grapes and vineyard in that way. Um, but then you have the vine dresser, right? And when I think of certain fruits, like um, we lived on an apple orchard growing up, and we never did anything with the trees to care for them, or but they would yield apples every year, and we'd go out and pick them, and my mom would make all this yummy apple sauce and apple butter. Oh gosh, there's like nothing better than fresh apple butter. It's amazing. But we we did nothing to care for it, you know. And you think about coconuts just grow on trees, and you don't have a coconut dresser that's taking care of it, right? But vineyards are kind of high maintenance, to be honest. Um, as you really start to look into viticulture, you need a vine dresser, and you need a vine dresser who knows what he's doing, that has experience and knowledge on how to care for a vineyard to create grapes. I'm not saying that grapes can't grow in the wild, they do, but there are some varieties that their clusters will be like 30 pounds. And so that's why they talk in the Bible about putting the clusters on a pole and two men had to carry it because they these clusters can get really heavy. So if you're talking about that kind of fruitfulness and bounty being harvested, you need a vine dresser who is skilled, who understands what he's doing to create that kind of fruitfulness. And same with us, right? I mean, Jesus talked as Trinity read in John 15, that we can't do anything apart from him. So it makes sense to me that God would use this imagery of a vineyard to remind us every time he's talking about that, that we are dependent upon him for our fruitfulness. It's not what we just do on our own. We have to cling to the vine, we have to cling to Jesus for fruitfulness to come. Okay. I always bring water up and I never drink it, but today, dry mouth. Okay. Um, so Isaiah is a prophet. And we already talked about how in this moment he is prophesying, right? And he's talking about the vine dresser and his care over the vineyard. But he's not only prophesying, he's singing. So again, I find myself saying, why? What is going on that makes this man decide, I'm not gonna just speak this thing, I'm singing a song. Right? Music is meant to move us, is it not? But Isaiah here is not just singing any old song, he's singing a love song. And love songs are meant to make us feel something, are they not? I mean, how many times have you been just minding your own business, driving in the car, listening to the radio, and then a song comes on, and all of a sudden that love song just takes you back in time to another moment, right? And you're feeling all the feels, and you're like, what is going on? Well, I want to take you on a journey of my the history of love songs that have moved me. So they're gonna throw a picture up of me from 1986. That's me. You can laugh. This is meant to be funny. Sixth grade, gotta love that jean jacket with the poof sleeves, like what? And perms. You'll see many styles of perms, unfortunately, um, in me over the years. But yeah, 1986. So that summer I go to summer camp. It was a Christian camp, but I have to admit, I don't really remember learning anything or growing closer to Jesus because he kind of took a backseat, unfortunately, to Chris Mendoza. He was an eighth grader, and I was sixth grader, and he took interest in me, and there was a dance, and it just so happens the summer of 86, Karate Kid 2 came out. They got a slide here of Karate Kid 2 and Peter Setera. Do you guys remember him? Look at those shoulder pads. Oh my goodness, what were we thinking? But yeah, so during that um dance, they played the glory of love, and we're gonna we're gonna play in case you forget the song. Hopefully, it'll jar the memory of those of you that know it. You got that, Graham? It's the cute eighth grader, and that song is plain. It became the anthem of my summer, even though tragically that relationship ended because you know, neither one of us could drive. This is before internet, we never saw each other again, but I would cry myself to sleep every night that summer, listening to that song, remembering that moment and all of its glory. And so today I can't listen to that song and not just be transported back to that total awkward version of myself. But we would move on. And in 1989, again in the summer, there was something about me finding love in the summer. I met a boy. Now I'm they've got a picture. I didn't have a picture really of the two of us together, but there we are. We can drive now, so we could see each other. It was good. Um, gotta love that perm again. I just like see that, and I can smell hair gel and mousse and hairspray. Um, but we met that summer, and then he had to go off in the fall. He was part of a boarding school for boys in Connecticut, and we met in Massachusetts. So we would only get to see each other occasionally on weekends. And notice the ripped jeans, like that wasn't actually popular at that stage, but he was into alternative music. So I'm talking like REM, Depeche Mode, and of course, the cure. And so, pictures of you, you can go ahead and play it, Graham, um, and show the slide of the cure. Now, I don't know if you were into this music, and this is an insufferably long intro before you ever get into singing, but they were very weird and we loved it. And this song is about people that are apart and they can only look at each other's pictures. And so it just was the perfect song during that that time period. Okay, we can be done with that. Um then it was a long time before I would find love again because we we dated for like a year and I held a torch for him for way too long. But then in the summer again of 1994, I'm in college. I think we've got another picture of me at that stage, new boyfriend. Still have a perm. Help me, Jesus. Um, but we dated for, you know, most of the time I was in college, but in the summers we were apart. And so that particular summer, that picture on the right there is me as a camp counselor in Maine teaching dance. He was gone in Pennsylvania doing something with theater, and we weren't able to see each other. It just so happens that that year, Counting Crows released an album. We could, yeah, there we go. And there was a song that I don't think they played on the radio, but you can go ahead and start that one. You might not know it, but just listen, it'll start making you feel really sad because that summer I was sad. I wasn't with my love, and I just needed a phone call, and that's what the song is all about. Needing a phone call because he's away from his love, and so that song was a huge love song for me. Okay, we can end that. Finally, thank the Lord Jesus. I get out of perms and I meet my husband Travis. The year is 1996 when we meet. Um, yeah, I couldn't resist that bomber jacket with the fur collar. I mean, come on, and that cute blonde hair. We don't know what happened to the blonde hair, but anyway, I meet him, and at the time we're part of a a community of young people at a church in Wichita, Kansas, that Waterdeep. I don't know how many of you know about them, they lived in Kansas City, so they would come to our church quite often and do concerts. And so, really, I can't listen to that that any of the songs from that period and not be kind of transported back to a different time where people were wearing Birkenstocks and patrouilly was in the air. I mean, I guess I was. Preparing us to come to Boulder, I don't know. But um But they they would sing this song at their concerts that eventually would get put onto an album in 1997 from Sink or Swim called Both of Us Will Feel the Blast. And I'm gonna play it for you in a minute, but let me just set it up. So in this song, he's talking about two people that love each other very much, but also hurt each other very much, you know? And but coming to the conclusion that God had gifted each other. Um God had gifted one another to each other. And then they kind of imagine at the end what it will be like when they finally die and this life fades away, and they enter into heaven and they get to sit down at that wedding feast with Jesus and what that would be like. So let's go ahead and play the song. You guys can hear.

SPEAKER_04 22:58

I hope we sit together when Jesus said the wine.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

And I'm sorry, I meant to have the words up there, but um it's just talking about, you know, seeing Jesus and enjoying that first sip of communion wine and being able to see him in the fullness and just the knowing of what love really is all about in its fullness. And that became our love song, really. Um we have others, but that's one that I can't listen to that song and actually often makes me tear up because I'm just so thankful to the Lord for his faithfulness and keeping us together through all of the ups and downs. But also, I thought it was very fitting for this morning and what we're talking about because we have a vine dresser whose heart and goal is for that communion wine. That's the end game. He really wants to be able to sit down and for us to see him face to face without any barrier, without any haze, to see him clearly and to experience the fullness of love as the fruitfulness of his life and ours flows out with communion wine. And we get to share that with him, and we get to share that with others as our own or his fruitfulness in us becomes something that other people can taste and experience. And so this morning, as we continue on in talking about this, I, you know, we could we could spend a lot of time talking about implications for us, but what I'm really hoping that you walk away with is just an understanding of the vine dresser. So we're gonna focus on God as the ultimate vine dresser. And one of the things that I realized, even going through this funny exercise of all the different love songs, is that I did not pick these love songs, especially not that first one, my goodness. Um, but they kind of chose me, you know? It was just like the song that embodied or perfectly gave an example of what I was feeling or what was going on in my relationship at that time. And I think about this Isaiah verse and and what it's meant to vine life, and it wasn't one that we chose. It wasn't one that the founding pastors chose. It is the song that was given to us, it's the song that the vine dresser has been singing over us, and ultimately it's way bigger than just vine life, isn't it? This is the song that God has been singing over all of the people that He loves. And it's an unrequited love kind of song. It has actually, it goes sad, it goes kind of south at the end. And it wouldn't be fair for us to talk about it and not make mention of that. Um Isaiah 5.4 says, and he, meaning God, looked for it, meaning the vineyard, to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And honestly, before really studying this, I don't know that I thought that wild grapes was a bad thing. I think I was thinking it was more like, woo, free and fun, the party grapes. But that's not what it's talking about, sadly. Wild grapes are bitter, sour, unripe, worthless, stinky is actually one of the words that they use. So this vine dresser has taken care for a vineyard and he was looking for it to yield grapes, but it yielded bitter, sour grapes. So basically, we're talking about bad fruit. And the reality is that all of us, collectively, as a as a church, individually, we all yield bad fruit. It's true, and we'll talk about this more in future weeks about how to set us up for fruitfulness. But what I want us to focus on is the vine dresser's perspective with our bad fruit. Because we have to realize that he knew ahead of time, before he did anything, before he even selected the land in which he was going to plant the vineyard, he knew that we were going to yield bad fruit. And yet he did it anyway, because he loves us and he's committed to us, and that is why Jesus came and became the perfect vine for us to cling on to and to remain in so that we can produce good fruit. Right? And you know what? He's not afraid of our bad fruit. He makes, he compensates for it. He takes our bad fruit and he throws it back down in the ground and lets it become fertilizer. In Isaiah 5.4, he also says, What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Isn't that completely beautiful and breathtaking? We have a vine dresser that goes out of his way and uses every bit of his power, which he has all power, to ensure that he has done everything that he possibly can for our fruitfulness. This is his commitment to us. And in the natural, a vine dresser would have to have endurance, right? He's got to attend to this vineyard, he's got to put sweat and labor, then he waits and waits and waits. Finally, there's work with the harvest, and all of this is done before he ever gets to taste of the fruit. He has to be educated, skilled, and experienced, have lots of wisdom and knowledge on how to care for the vineyard, because, like we mentioned, it's finicky. It needs a lot of care. He has to have passion and intensity. And just like in the natural the qualities of vine dresser, our God, the master vine dresser, is an expert gardener, the best of all. And he is relentlessly committed to our fruitfulness and goes out of his way to ensure that he has cared for us in such a way that we will produce a harvest. And again, it's not so he just can brag about that he has an amazing vineyard. It's because of that communion wine that he is wanting us and him to be able to taste together. So, Isaiah 5.2, my beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. Why a hill? This is important for us to understand when we're talking about the vine dresser. In today's technology, with all the equipment and things that we have, it's not as important. They can pretty much produce a healthy, fruitful vineyard on any kind of terrain. Um, but in the time that Isaiah is singing this song out, so the people can hear and understand God's heart for them, a hill was vital. Because there's a man named Jeff Cox, who's an author and gardener, and he he says it this way grapes don't like wet feet. So if you had a level land and you tried to plant a vineyard, when the rains come, it creates all this standing water. And basically what happens to the vineyard is it suffocates because it needs oxygen in order to grow. And so that standing water basically drowns the vineyard and then the roots begin to rot. But on the other side, you can't have too much incline. It's got to be the right kind of hill because when the rain comes, if there's too much of a slope, erosion of the soil, and then they don't have the nutrients, you know. So there's a picture that I have of a vineyard that's planted on a hill. If we can bring that up. So our vine dresser knows. Isn't that amazing? He knows the perfect placement for which to put the vineyard so that it can it can grow and flourish and create fruit. And God knows that about us as well. You know, I think back through my life and all the different locations that I lived, and some of them I liked, some of them I didn't, some of them I loved the people that I was around, some not so much. But at the end of the day, I've learned through all of those situations and experiences that it really doesn't matter who I'm with and what I'm doing, because I'm planted and I'm perfectly placed in Christ. So no matter where I am or who I'm with, I have the ability to live and let Jesus teem through me to where the fruit that comes out of my life is patience and kindness and love and goodness, self-control. All the fruit of his spirit. Because my perfect placement is in Christ and my belonging is in him. The other thing is soil condition. Any good vine dresser is going to understand that the soil matters. In Isaiah 5, 2, it says he dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. So notice he's digging before he ever clears any stones. And really, what the vine dresser and Isaiah would have done is cleared away the really big stones and used that to make a fence, because later, and a tower, and he uses it to make a wine vat. It said he built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed it out, hewed out a wine vat in it. So he uses those really big rocks to do that. But if if I was to go right now and like start digging up the earth out here and wanted to make a vineyard, I would go out and buy like the best organic soil. I'd want that stuff that looks really dark and moist and no clumps, it's just like gorgeous, you know, and use that. But unfortunately, I don't think any grapes would grow. Because believe it or not, for grapes to grow in a vineyard, it requires rocky soil. I'm gonna say that again for those of you that were like zoning out and thinking about lunch already. It requires rocky soil. Now, if you gave it that nice lush organic stuff that I was talking about, what would happen is the vineyard would look really green and gorgeous because leaves would just go crazy. There'd be all these beautiful vines and leaves, but no grapes. But you let rocks stay in there, and it's the perfect amount of resistance and challenge for the roots to work their way around those rocks and force them to go down deep, and then through that struggle, grapes. And isn't that the way with us? Like, I want easy soil. God give me the, you know, put all the miracle grow into the potting soil that you buy, you know, at the store. Like, make let's make this easy. But God loves me too much to do that. It's like, no, I know just the right amount of rock that you need in your life, the right amount of trial, the right amount of challenge, because I'm gonna watch you rise up. I'm gonna watch you lean into me a little bit more. It's gonna pull on you to trust me just a little bit more, Jeanette. And when you do, that's when my fruit will flourish and it'll be fruit that remains because it was costly. And Joseph understood this, you know, the guy with the pretty coat with all the colors. If you don't know that story, you can go read it in Genesis or rent the movie. But um, just kidding, it's not exactly accurate in the uh Disney version, but um, but you know, he went through trial after trial after trial, challenge after challenge after challenge. Stuff that honestly, if I had lived it, I don't know that I would have stayed faithful. I don't know what I would do. I mean, I can't imagine it apart from the grace of the Lord, of course, but hard stuff, thrown in prison wrongfully, thrown in a pit by his brothers. I mean, just tough, tough stuff. But in Psalm 88, it talks about that God transplanted a vine from Egypt. Joseph's father Jacob, when he's blessing him, says that Joseph was a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climbed over the wall, meaning his, you know, what his impact didn't just impact their family, but spread far beyond. And then Joseph himself would say in Genesis 41, 52, for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. Man, that slays me. This man who went through so much horrific things, were you know, years left and forgotten in prison. But God had given him a promise, much like he gave us a promise. It was through a dream of what he was gonna do, and everything that was going on in his life for years and years and years and years, looked like the complete opposite. And yet, when it was all said and done and he was able to stand and reflect on his life, he could see that the fruitfulness that he experienced in his end days was a result of the affliction and the trouble and the challenges that he had in life. And we have that opportunity too. There are many times where we might be frustrated at the rocks that are in our soil. But we have to realize that God gives us those things or allows them to happen, or uses them even when it's not Him and it's not us, it's just life in a broken world. He uses those things to grow us and to produce fruit. So I'd like you all to close your eyes and Piper, if you want to come and play some music. I want to just give us all a chance to respond to the Lord wherever he's touching us this morning. So go ahead and close your eyes and get comfortable. And I want you to think through maybe, maybe the bad fruit is something that is kind of racing through your heart this morning. You're thinking about places of regret or sin. Was what was being produced in your life or um missed opportunities. And there's some sadness over the the fruit that resulted in that time. Or maybe it's even currently. And I want you to hear the Lord as he's saying, It's okay. I can take that bad fruit. I can turn anything around for your good. That's what I do. I make all things new. And the bad fruit in your life doesn't change the promises that I've given you, the things that I'm wanting to do in your life, and my commitment and love for you. I knew about every piece of bad fruit that was gonna produce in your life before I ever spoke you into existence.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

But I have good fruit for you.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

I have communion for you. You didn't know who I was, you didn't know who you were in that moment. That's why the battery was produced.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

And you can trust me. You can trust me here. You can trust me the next time.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Maybe you're frustrated with your placement. Maybe you're in a job that you're not happy with, or some sort of working relationship is hard and frustrating, and you'd love to get out of it. Maybe there's some frustration at the family that you were born into, and some of the relationships that you have with relatives or siblings or parents. And there's just been this undercurrent in your life of just irritation and frustration at where the Lord has planted you. But I want you to hear him saying this morning that he understands. He doesn't want those relationships to be the way that they are, but he understands the struggle and the challenge that it's been. And I hear him inviting you to just know that you're in him, that you belong to him. And you're not out of place because you're perfectly placed in him, in his heart.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

And if you will trust him and you will lean into him, he will give you the strength to produce good fruit in spite of those challenging relationships.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

And maybe it's the soil that's hitting you this morning, and you're you're thinking about challenges that have happened, and disappointing circumstances, or just things not being the way you think that they should be or want them to be, or even what God has promised you. You don't understand why things are the way they are, and part of you has just been wanting, couldn't things just be easier, Lord? Why does everything have to be a battle? And again, I hear the Lord saying, I know. I know that these things have been hard, and it's not right.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

But I'm here with you, and I love you, and if you will trust me, I will give you the strength you need. Drink deep of my communion wine, but it will nourish you and it will fill you.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

And it will give you the ability to love when love feels hard. To be patient when you feel like you're on your last nerve. To speak with kindness when really what they deserve is a harsh word.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

You have to trust me, though.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

God, we thank you that you are with us. Even in times where it doesn't feel like it, you are the good vine dresser who cares for your vineyard. God, thank you for the lengths that you have gone to ensure that we are cared for, that we are nurtured, that we have everything that we need, and you've set us up fully for fruitfulness. God, and thank you that you do this because you are motivated purely by love for us and a desire for us to be known by you and for us to know you. It always comes down to communion. That is your heart. And it's overwhelming to think about it, Lord. But help us, Holy Spirit. Help us see and perceive the vine dresser rightly, that he is good, and that everything he does is motivated out of a desire to bring us his love and goodness.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

We love you, Lord.