Gtoctr/ss072509
Psalms 128 NKJV
1 Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways.
2 When you eat the labor of your hands, You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants All around your table.
4 Behold, thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD.
This Psalm paints a picture of someone who is blessed, happy, fulfilled, and in love. How does a person get a life like that? It begins with having the right priorities.
(After I complete my studies for each sermon I email a copy to several individuals and church staff members. Each time I email a copy of my sermon notes I include a brief exhortation on what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to me in my private time with Him. I don’t think I have ever shared with any of these mini-sermons with the church before however, this morning I want to just read a portion of what I wrote to them yesterday. I hope you will find this useful for further consideration:
There is an Identity Crisis in America
Who or what are you first?
Are you first a child of God?
Are you first a Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic?
Are you first a Black person, a White person, an Asian, or Hispanic?
Are you first a woman or a man?
Are you first a Republican or a Democrat?
Are you first a member of management or a worker, union or not?
Are you first a fan of your favorite team?
Where do you go to first to decide or determine your stance.
Were they safe or were they out? Is he right or is he wrong? Does the truth matter, does it weigh in fairly or do you only stand on the side which favors your team, your party, your gender, or your race?
Are you open to the truth, without hedging … regardless of who it favors?
Do you have what it takes to be the impartial umpire?
Are you a voice or are you only an echo of self serving rhetoric?
Is there some better way? Should there not be a priority of identities to which our other associations submit and in which a subordinate identity never violates a superior identity? If so, what should be at the top of our identity list?
Who or what are you first? Think about it! …)
Now, let’s get back to our message for this morning … Fruitful Vines!
Watch this before we continue:
Samson and Delilah postcard … Listen to the wrong voice, make the wrong choice.
What was wrong with this guy?
Judges 16:4 And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Samson loved her … but she was an unfruitful vine.
What made Delilah an unfruitful vine? She did not love Samson back, she loved herself. Unfruitful vines are vines which, although you care for them, cultivate them, water them, and love them … they do not produce fruit for you and they do not love you back. It’s a one way street … always what you can do for them and if you stop, they just look for someone else to take care of them … no loyalty, no love, no faithfulness, no commitment, no fruit for all of your investment.
Let some better offer come along and they discard you in a heartbeat without remorse and without regret … they take all you offer and may satisfy you as long as it meets their needs, then, when you least expect it and can least afford it, they leave you high and dry.
1 John 2 NKJV
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
Love not the world … it is an unfruitful vine which will not love you back.
The same thing happened to Eve in the Garden. She got her eyes off of what God said and onto what the serpent was saying. The serpent did not love her … he loved himself and what she could do for him.
The world does not love you, it loves itself. Your car, your vanity, your job, your money does not love you … it loves itself.
In the day of trouble you cannot pray to your money or to your vanity and expect it to lay down its life for your need.
1 Timothy 6 NKJV
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Verse 17 calls money, “uncertain riches”, which cannot be trusted.
Money is not evil, just the love of money, or anything else which causes a person to abandon what is right and righteous.
Proverbs 23 NKJV
4 ¶ Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease!
5 Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Riches are enticing and elusive … like the fig tree cursed by Jesus in Matthew 21, it promised fruit but did not deliver … an unfruitful vine!
Colossians 3
1 ¶ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
How can you fall out of love with the unfruitful vines so that you stop cultivating the wrong relationships, investing in the wrong futures, stop listening to the wrong voices, and then fall in love with the fruitful vines God has for your life?
First, take an inventory of your life to make sure you are not the unfruitful vine in someone else’s life.
Then, ask God to deliver you from the unfruitful vines in your life.
Realize that some vines which are currently unfruitful may still be the will of God for your life … surely you can determine which ones … if not, go to God’s Word or get some counsel.
If you are connected to an unfruitful vine to which God has attached you, then be faithful to trust God as you continue to cultivate a fruitful field in which God can bring that vine to its fruitful season.
And don’t forget, make God and His will your top priority.
