Rev. Roland J. Wells, Jr. - Pastor

Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost - October 6, 2002

Lessons: Isaiah 5:1-7; Philip. 3:4-14; Matthew 21:33-46

" The Mystery of the Day of Grace"

Introduction:

When I was about 20, gas prices skyrocketed, and I thought I'd save a bunch of money by buying a Volkswagon. It was a cute '68 fastback. I bought it from a seminarian who ran it out of oil on the freeway. I was told that all it needed was a new engine, and for $400 I could have a neat little car.

So I put in the engine. And a used transmission. And tires. And new fuel injectors, a fuel injector brain box, new heater boxes; a heater, a torsion bar, another transmission, brakes, two brake calipers, two new fenders; new rocker panels, and then I painted it. I saved so much money driving a small car! It's amazing how much money you can spend making a new car out of a used one!

I have a loyalty to old cars. I keep fixing far longer than it makes sense. "Well, I'll try to fix one more thing, and maybe that will do it. It's only got 190,000 miles on it, and doesn't use any oil!" How long do you keep trying? Will a $900 repair on a $1,500 car keep it running for a year? When do you give up? That's a 21^st Century parable version of our text today. When will God quit trying to 'fix' things with his people?

I) God Doesn't Give Up On His People

Our First Lesson is the story of how God would call his people Israel to repentance. He tried and tried. They wouldn't listen. Our Gospel lesson is much the same story, 750 years later, in Jesus' day. The story, at its primary level is a word of judgement on Judea and the Jewish leaders.

God loves the people of Israel. Our First Lesson comes from perhaps 750 years before Christ. God was still calling the Northern Kingdom of Israel to repentance. He had called them to repentance for decades. He had sent prophets. Some of the people listened, but most didn't. Finally in 722 BC Assyria attacked. They broke down their walls and took them captive. The Assyrians led Israel away, with big fishhooks in their skins, linked together with cords. The northern ten tribes were never to be seen again.

God continued to call the southern kingdom of Judah. He sent them prophets; they had some great kings. But like the northern kingdom, they were wooed by the fertility cult prostitutes of the Canaanite religions. They also sacrificed their babies by dropping them alive into fire. Now that was exciting religion! That was passion! A lot more exciting than that old God of Israel, YAWEH,called them into a trust covenant, who gave them the law to follow, and sacrifices to make. That was pretty boring, compared to cult prostitutes and watching your neighbor's baby burn! Now, that was passionate religion! But YAHWEH said that was horribly immoral. God kept sending prophets, but the people liked that exciting stuff. And in 586 BC, the Babylonians came, knocked down the walls of Jerusalem, and marched the people off to Babylon. Many people must have died on that march. Seventy years later, a third empire rose up, the Persians, destroyed Babylon and let the people of Judah go home. A remnant did.

Why am I telling you this? God loved his people, but when things got too bad, he made it clear that enough's enough. The prophets called the people to repentance. When they did repent, God spared them. When they got hard-hearted, When he had come to the end of everything he could do, he stepped in. He brought their behavior and unbelief to an end.

II) A Lesson for Us

As we look at Jesus' teaching, we can apply this to the call of people in our day as well. The great and gracious message here is that God is not going to give up on anyone easily. Our God is a God who continues to seek us, to woo us, to pursue us, to continue to be the 'Hound of heaven' until he has reached us to bring us back to him. This is true if we have never heard, and it is true if we have heard, believed and grown cold.

But there is the mystery of 'the Day of Grace.' The writer of Hebrews talks about this in the entire third chapter. The end of the discussion goes like this: (Hebrews 3:12-15) Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. [13] But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. [14] For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. [15] As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts...

There are times when God's Spirit calls harder than at other times. Why? I don't know. Throughout the Bible there are so many, many times when God calls the individual, claims the individual. Sometimes it's a call to service; sometimes it's a call to faith; sometimes it's a call to surrender; sometimes it's a call to repent. That is the day. That is the call. Sometimes the hearer hears, and decides to not do what God wants. In the OT, many heard, and would hear. I think of Ahaz, Ahab and Saul to name a few. It's a sad fact that God calls, but we may resist. When those three resisted, it affected the entire people of Israel. Our actions affect many.

There are times in individuals' hearts when God calls them strongly. It may be at Bible camp, or in a sermon, or in a deep talk with a friend. Everything is laid out very clearly; the Holy Spirit is knocking very loudly. God wills to work in that life, whether the person is young or old. It may be a call to surrender, to faith, to repentance, to forgive someone... and for many of you, you have been through struggles like that. Sometimes the struggle goes on and on. God wrestles with us, like he did with Jacob. The wrestling may be with our will, our ego, our priorities, our fears, our desire to hang on and be in control.

The scary thing is that God keeps wrestling with us when we are genuine. He wrestles with us in profound love. But God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. And if we are throwing up questions to keep him away; if we continue to struggle, because we know that we really want to win at all costs- God will let you win. In his profound love, he will allow you to walk away. Maybe another time of wrestling will come. Maybe it won't. Every time we win, our heart becomes harder; it becomes more proud, more self-reliant; more self-centered. Our heart becomes harder and our ears become more plugged up.

III) Some Examples

I've known several persons in both groups. I know people who struggled with God for many years; they had big questions; they had big hurts; they had a deep struggle of very real things that were hard for them to work through. But God did not let them go. They kept wrestling, and God answered every question, and proved himself to them in a life-changing way.

I've known others who were very close to the kingdom many times. But every time that God had broken through their pride, their self-reliance, their questions and doubts- they came up with a whole new way to keep God at arm's length. They just weren't ready. They were too busy. They heard something on TV that the Bible wasn't reliable. Too many hypocrites in the church; on and on.

And a few I've seen go to their graves, holding off God with those easy, flimsy arguments. Jesus had been so close so many times, but they had fought him off. The day of grace, offered many times, had passed.

God loves honest questions. You sit down with God, and wrestle it through, bring your doubts, go to the Bible, talk to a pastor, learn a bit, bring real questions-God loves those! God loves nothing better than when we bring a question to him. Every year I get a few more answered, and I find a couple new ones- God delights in showing us the answers to the hard question- and when we wrestle it through we learn more and more about the nature of God.

I remember a member of the University Orchestra raised a question one year on the fall tour bus. He was older, and very smug about his agnosticism. He said, "How can you believe in a God who knows what you need, but makes you beg for it in prayer? Why doesn't he just give it to you if he's all powerful?" I was a little shocked at his question, but I couldn't answer it at 18. I brought it to my pastor, and he gave me the Book of Concord. I didn't find any answers there. It took several years, and I wrestled with it. I realized that there was a lie there about the nature of God, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Finally, I realized that prayer isn't God making us beg. Prayer is not for God's good, but for ours, so we can know the nature and reality of the Father. We can't hear or see God, and we sense him very, very poorly. We learn his will in his Word, but we learn to know him as we bring our requests to him, and he answers. Prayer is the way we learn to know the nature of the Father, so we can grow in our sensitivity, and get to know his goodness. We get to know our Father's heart. God gave me the answer, and in doing so, taught me how prayer works.

When God began to call me to be a pastor, I had several honest doubts. I didn't think I was good enough, enough of a person. I couldn't dream of seeing myself in that role. The pastor was an individual of too much respect in my family, not for a regular person like me. I didn't think I could stand in front of people and talk. I didn't think I could come up with enough ideas. I didn't think I could lead things well enough.

I brought all of these things before God, respectfully, as honest doubts. It took him about two years to work through the list, but one-by-one, through the situations he kept putting me in, he knocking down my excuses, one by one. Finally I said yes, changed my major and God never let me down. God loves honest questions; but don't let them keep you from trusting! Trusting through them is a crucial part of growing in faith.

The call of God comes to us this morning. Jesus loves you, and he's died to prove it. He desires to be the very center of your life. For your sake, nothing else will do. Maybe he's been calling you for years; maybe he's calling you in an entirely different way today. You can fight him. You can wrestle him, bringing your very honest doubts. As you wrestle with things this morning, it's time for a breakthrough. Is God calling you to surrender? Today. Invitation, Amen.

Pentecost 20 - October 6, 2002

Isaiah 5:1-7

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 men 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 house of Israel,

and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight.

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;

for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Philip. 3:4-14

though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

[7] But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. [8] What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. [10] I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

[12] Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. [13] Brothers, 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.

Matthew 21:33-46

"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 went away on a journey. [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 capstone;

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. [44] He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."

[45] When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. [46] They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.