Over the Hedge

Isaiah 5:4,5 "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? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge."

Genesis 49:22 "Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall."

There is a hedge that we live in - though it's hard to explain, I know it's there. We as Christians live under the protection of the Lord that allows us to grow and strengthen. It's a place of study, prayer, fellowship, digging into the deeper truths, arguing about the simpler ones and being rooted firmly in Christ, who is our spring. Because Christ is our Spring, the vine grows from within this hedge. It's a nice place to be - but it is clear from Jacob's blessing on Joseph that a true vine will grow over this hedge and bear fruit in the desert.

Joseph was a great example of this. He was rooted in God - everything he said and did was centered around Him. That is why he was able to find strength in prison, comfort in a foreign land. And it was also why he was able to bear fruit in Egypt - which is always a symbol of the world in the OT. Joseph was clearly "hedged in" - but his vine grew over the hedge and impacted the world.

We need to take this message to heart: We are too "Church-focused." Feed me. Help me. Discuss and debate with me. Grow me. Play my music. Sing my songs. Preach messages that touch me. Create ministries that impact me. Read my Bible. Dress my way. Agree with me. Come with me into this hedge and hold me.

Seriously - are the vines growing out of our churches? Are they like Joseph - climbing over the wall and into the desert, bearing fruit in the world so that they may be touched, fed, clothed, loved, healed, forgiven and brought to Christ? Or is all of our fruit grown for the sake of feeding our own fat bodies?

The fruitful vine is near a spring - rooted and fed by Christ. That's the church. But it then grows over the wall and feeds the lost. That's the mission of the church. We need to get back on mission and grow over the hedge, before God takes it away and we find ourselves naked and unprotected - with our "bad grapes" exposed to the world. That's a place of humiliation that I don't ever want to find myself in.