This message was about giving back to God what he is do by referencing scripture in Luke.
The church we’re heading to this morning is St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Dodge, IA. I found it via searching on Siri (an iPhone application) for churches in the area (it was one of the 15 in the area) while I was sitting at the local pub last night.
My GPS locates me to the church and I create my own parking spot—just as I did last night at Sneakers. I’m not sure where the front entrance is, but I waited a minute for someone to walk in the side door I was parked near. It was a stellar 20 degrees out that day and I was without a jacket (it didn’t match my St. Patty’s day ensemble from the night prior). For this reason I wasn’t looking to walk outside anymore than I needed to. I entered the church from the side with 4-5 others and we began our journey through the community hall to the service hall. I thought of this as my free tour of the place, I even had a guide leading me.
I arrive and am greeted by the first usher and then the second hands me a program for today’s service. I step inside the worship area and veer to the left so I’m not blocking the entrance. This gave me time to search for a spot up front I can sneak into—like I always do. The front two rows of the one of the five sections in this church are empty, so I take the best seat in the house, in a row all by myself. Why not right? :)
This church was set up really well. Instead of having only a couple of sections of pews extending back further they wanted everyone to be closer, so they structured a round alter and basically 180 degree seating area around them. The pews were only about fifteen rows deep per section—brilliant! It gave the essence that everyone at service was closer, and there for a reason.
Service was about to start. There are two pastors, a very experienced one, Allen Henderson “Pastor Al”, and a younger one, Nathan Peitsch “Pastor Nathan.” Nathan opened by telling us what the message was going to be about today—from Luke: “Tenants in the Vineyard.” He was brief, because now wasn’t the time to get into detail about the sermon—it was time for worship songs. Pastor Nathan did something I really appreciated. He informed the congregation what they could think about as they sang the worship songs as they related to the topic of the sermon that day. All the songs were hand selected to relate to that sermon. Everything in this church had a really nice flow to it. I really appreciated that.
The words for the worship songs are printed via an overhead projector. The congregation sang all the songs together—as they also recited scripture together as well. I appreciated this. It wasn’t something I was used to even though I had grown up in a church that exercised this practice. I would have hopped up front to lead the choir in singing, but my experience in my high school choir told me that probably wouldn’t be a great idea. After the completion of the songs Pastor Al invited us to greet each other. I immediately turn to my left and greet a sweet older women who decided to join me in my empty pew at the last minute. Her name was Myrna. Before I can turn around and greet the family behind me I am approached immediately by Pastor Nathan. He welcomes me by asking my name and where I came from today. I tell him I’m from Rochester, Minnesota and I’m flirting with moving to Fort Dodge soon. This was a very nice gesture from Pastor Nathan, and it made me feel very at-home. A great first impression.
The service started with a beautiful family having their new son, Blakley, baptized. It was a very well done service for him. I really liked how they presented Blakely to the congregation several times throughout the baptism. Again, everything appeared to have an even flow and process for things.
The Sermon
We then stood for the gospel of Luke, where Pastor Nathan spoke about the meaning of the first hymn we sang “Christ is our Cornerstone” and how it directly correlated to the scripture from Luke we were studying today. This was a great segue to begin the sermon.
If you would like to follow along, the sermon is from Luke 20: 9-20.
The scripture in Luke is a tale of grace. The tale starts out with a vineyard owner sending out a servant to collect his share of the crop for their use of his vineyard. The servant complies and goes to the renters of the vineyard where he is beaten and sent home empty handed. The owner gives his renters grace, and simply sends another servant to retrieve the money for his vineyard. This servant is treated shamefully and beaten. A third servant is sent who is wounded and chased away. To mediate this problem the vineyard owner decides he will send his most beloved son. Surely they will respect him right?
This resulted in the community workers killing the owner’s most beloved son. They did this out of greed, because they knew this son would be the eventual inheritor of the land, and they wanted the vineyard for themselves.
We can relate this to God sending Jesus, his most beloved son, knowing very well his son will be beaten if not worse. God did this to show us grace. In the story you and I are the wicked tenants. It was time for the tenant to give what was due, and they didn’t want to give anything for everything already being provided for them.
We owe God our honor, obedience, love, and our faith. We often don’t give God what he is due.[tweet this]
Every day God is the one who is due and He is requesting only the smallest acts in return. This made me really think about more acts I can do every week to help serve him, to give God what he is due. The whole week belongs to Him—how can we give him what he is due? What else can we do throughout our week to give more to God?
The Bible is God’s messenger. For me this message from Luke was telling me I need to take more time studying His word via spending more time in my Bible every week. I’ve been neglecting my scripture time for several weeks now. I’m studying relentlessly to accelerate my learning curve on online marketing. I’m doing this so I may quickly and effectively deliver valuable content I have to people, and earn my living through it. This is no excuse. I need to have faith he is guiding a safe path for me. This lesson I received today is telling me I need to slow down. I need to learn more patience. I’ve been taking things so quickly and wanting to create such quick turnaround I’m finding I often get ahead of myself. This has resulted in me neglecting my study of the scripture and the overwhelming of others. I need to slow down, relax, and let things come to me as they were always meant to. This doesn’t mean I should stop taking action, this only means I need to be conscience I am not pressing unwarranted action. Nothing good as has ever come from forcing action.
Your Turn
I’ve told you how this lesson from Luke spoke to me, but how did it speak to you? What emotions arise? What can you do throughout your week to give more to God?
Continue spreading peace and have a blessed week! Heath