September Garden

This period of time that we are in between the Day of Trumpets, Feast of Trumpets, and the Day of Atonement, has been called by some a time between the suns. I found that in some reading here recently. And it's an interesting description of the time. We're in a very seasonally summer-is-ending, but fall's not quite here. That's where you find it, you know, really every year between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. You can look, you can tell the light is changing as the season begins to turn. The light's always different at this time of year. It's very interesting. And for me, I've always been fascinated by that because the rays of the light are bent at a different angle as the sun begins to move southward. I tend to, with the leaves as they turn, or the lawns turn brown, the light is a bit warmer. It's less harsh on the landscape. There's more of a diffused angle of light in this unique period of time. And as I look at that, I say, well, there's an interesting lesson, I think, because light is different, casts different shadows and different angles on our landscape. And as we look at this period of time spiritually, it's marked by Holy Days. It's marked by four periods of high Holy Days, from trumpets all the way to the last great day, as well as the weekly Sabbath. But it's an intense period of Holy Time. The Jews call this period, by their tradition, between trumpets and atonement, they call this ten-day period the Days of Awe. Days of Awe. Days of Awe and wonder. And it's a time for them, as Peter Eddington was bringing out in his sermon on the Sabbath, on the trumpets, for them it's a time of self-examination, as they lead up to the Day of Atonement. And that's their tradition, and it's not without biblical precedent. So it's not a bad tradition, and not the thoughts that he was bringing out are certainly appropriate for us to consider and think about. Those of you that have been around in the length of time will know that I've often spoken about this period of time. In fact, I've gotten records of my notes. This is about the sixth or the seventh time that I have taken this time of year to talk about it. I've always entitled this sermon a September Garden. And in my notes, going all the way back to about 1984-85, living up here, when I first gave this topic with variations since then, and even variation today. So if you think you've heard it, listen carefully. You haven't heard it all. And there's always time to review. I looked around one day, and I saw yard after yard, garden after garden in the backyards, including my own, to be full of weeds. What I called a September Garden. You look around your yards, as I've already spoken about my own yard.

What was once lush and green back in May, and a garden, perhaps by late June into July, that was full of tomatoes and peppers and beans and all kinds of other produce that we anxiously planted in the spring as soon as we could, as we tilled the soil, got our beds ready, put the plants in the ground, and anticipated the fruit and the juicy tomatoes and everything else that we enjoy when we go through that exercise of planting.

And I actually enjoy mowing the yard come April or May for a few weeks anyway, because it's just good to get out and do those things. You love spring and see life coming back, but sometimes welcome the drought of August when I don't have to mow. And I haven't mowed in about six weeks, so that's okay in one sense. But, you know, I see, as I look out my yard now, my garden is a September garden.

There are still pepper plants and tomato plants, and just this week I pulled off two or three tomatoes that had hung around and had ripened and wilted. The peppers are kind of scraggly looking and wilted, and I just stopped watering. We had gathered as much as we needed and wanted to probably work up, and the heat took over everything else.

I kind of have to admit I lost a little bit of interest. After a certain point in time, the garden just doesn't look inviting, and you don't want to get out there in a hot humidity at certain times and putter around. And all of that, of course, is a change from the enthusiasm, as I said, that we usually have each spring when we can't wait to get a garden in the ground.

And if you're like me, you go out, you start going out after you've got your tomato plants out, or you've spread your seed, and you start looking for those first little sprouts to come up. And you keep waiting for that first tomato blossom to come, and then the first sign of some tomatoes.

It's like, okay, we're going to have some this year. You're anxious about all of that. You till the ground, you plant the seed, pull those weeds out and hold, keep things going. Or in my case, I put down as much organic mulch as I can to keep the weeds down, but we wait expectantly. And then sometime around August, we lose interest with all the things that come, and we grow tired of working in the garden. And so when it comes to this time of year, I observe the phenomenon of a September garden.

And I always use that as a prod for myself, and I'd like to share that with all of you again, because if we're not careful, our spiritual lives can become September gardens. Full of weeds, kind of wilted, fruit kind of there, but maybe not. And maybe not that enticing because it's a little bit blotched and wilted, and it just doesn't look as good as it did six or eight weeks before.

We start out in God's church, in God's way of life with zeal. We look at the concept of the first love, learning of the truth, wanting to obey God, searching, exciting about what we found. It's still exciting to see people contact us. We had a woman who was at the – during the morning service of the Day of Trumpets there in Indianapolis, saw her walk in the door, didn't recognize her, and she was a lady that found us off the Internet, walked in for the first time.

She'd been looking for a Sabbath church that kept the Holy Days. She said there's plenty of Sabbath-keeping groups, but they don't all keep the Holy Days. And she found us, and she was there, and she was excited, and I hope she comes back. We see this on a regular basis, of people who find it as an excitement of contacting someone who is keeping not just the Sabbath, but also the Holy Days and not keeping the holidays of this world. To see that excitement in someone new is always exciting for me, and I hope it is for you, and we need to pray more and more for that.

God's work is not done. God is not finished in calling people. That's why I was saying on the Feast of Trumpets, we are to be found so doing when Jesus returns. The work doesn't end. It may alter, it may go through various phases, and it will go through its times, as I explained then.

But the work of preaching the Gospel, the work of God discipling, and the church needing to prepare people is going to go on right up until the very end. The death of no one individual at any given time in the history of the Bible and the history of the church of God tells me that the work ends at thus and such a time or date, or by the demise of any one individual or group.

It just doesn't happen, not according to the Bible. It might happen in somebody's mind, in somebody's interpretation. That's their business. But I don't see that biblically. And I see the fruits that there are the people there. But bringing it back to us, our excitement, our zeal, is it still there? We bear fruit. We root out sin. We keep the spiritual weeds from growing in our life, don't we? At various times. We make strides, just like we see our plants grow and shoot up in the May, June, or July period and begin to blossom and then produce fruit.

But you know, for you and I, if we're not careful and diligent, the disease of indifference can overtake us and choke out the spiritual life that is there. Matthew 13 in the parable of the sower and the seed shows that where seed is sown and fruit begins to be born, the cares of this world. Or the evil one comes and snatches away what's been sown.

Or what is particularly interesting in that parable, the cares of life overcome an individual. You can liken that to, in a sense, spiritual weeds that grow up and tangle and take over a well-planted, cultivated, tended garden that's a delight and a beauty to look at. But if the attention, if the care, sometimes almost on a daily basis, fails, weeds come in and choke out the life and ultimately the fruit that is there. All of the indicators and teachings of the Scriptures show us that our calling is to endure to the end. He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved, Jesus said.

To finish the harvest, to be there when the Master returns, to take account of His servants, to be there when Christ does separate the tares from the wheat at the time of the harvest. We're in the fall Holy Day season, the harvest period, pictured by these Holy Days as well. The lessons are right in front of our eyes. The question for you and I is, are we sure that our garden is not overgrown? Have we been diligent to keep the weeds rooted out, to tend to our garden, to keep them from being the typical September garden that is out there?

I will have to admit, my garden this year, if you looked at it right now, it's not as bad as it could be, but it's not as good as it could be either. In fact, tomorrow I hope to get out there and pull up what's there and kind of get rid of some of the weeds and start getting it ready for either maybe a smaller fall garden of some plants, if it's not too late to get those in, or for next spring.

But at least to get it cleaned off and prepared as I can at this time for next year so that it's not the eyesore that it is. Gardening is a year-round project, whether it's a vegetable garden, a perennial garden, flower garden, whatever we're dealing with. To properly care for those things takes time, takes attention, takes knowledge. To keep our spiritual lives from being choked out by weeds takes care and attention as well. Let's look at a few observations that Christ made about this subject. First, let's turn over to Luke 13. Luke 13. Let's look at verse 6.

This is the parable of the barren fig tree. Luke 13, verse 6. Christ said, He also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Look, for three years I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground?

You would think, cut it down, root out the stump, the roots, put another tree in there that's going to bear fruit. It's taking up space. Space in a garden is a very rare commodity, very important real estate. For most of us, just as it would have been in Christ's day, people didn't always have large, large acres and acres of estates. They had to cultivate very small acreage and parcels of ground. So if something wasn't bearing fruit, they had to get rid of it, put something in there that would.

Because these figs were part of their livelihood, whether it provided their own food or they sold them, it was more than just a hobby. And it was important that it bore fruit. But the keeper of the man's vineyard answered and said in verse 8, Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well, but if not after that, you can cut it down. The steward here, the vineyard keeper, could be likened to a spiritual overseer, a minister, someone who's intervening, a priest in one sense in terms of a relationship for an individual, or even our own selves.

And you're looking and realizing, hey, wait a minute, this is a wake-up call. This is something that could happen to me. And God, be merciful. Give me a little bit of time. I'll start bearing fruit. Or let me work with this person. Let me work with this person. You know, sometimes you find yourself in a supervisory position, in an office, find that at times this happens in the church, at times, from time to time, and maybe one person's actions.

You know, the boss says, look, we have to let them go. They're not pulling their weight. And the manager, the steward, whoever, would say, look, let me work with that individual. Let me go back over their review. Let me give them a pretty stern review. Let's give them three months, six months, whatever, and point out their mistakes, point out where they need to improve, and give them another chance. They're going through a bad time. Or, I think I can work with them.

Those things happen, and those are good when they do, and mercy and grace are extended. God extends mercy and grace to all of us. Before, if you will, a time of judgment comes. Again, as I was explaining on the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Trumpets is a time of judgment upon the world. But it also shows the culmination of judgment upon the church and reminds us that the church is being judged now.

Judgment has come to the house of God, Peter said. If it begins here, how much more so will it be for those others? Judgment is upon the house of God, upon each one of us. We are being judged by the Scriptures, by the Bible, just as those in the great white throne judgment will come up and be set by their opportunity to live by the teachings of the Scriptures as well.

Our time of judgment is now. And we have these markers of the Holy Days, particularly the Feast of Trumpets and Atonement, to examine ourselves by those principles. Christ is concerned that we bear fruit. He's patient, but that patience will have an end at some point. And certainly, by the time of the resurrection, judgment will be done and wrapped up for those that will be a part of that first resurrection.

And so fruit that is born has got to be tangible. It has to be seen. And it's a wake-up call. Are we the fig tree that needs to be fertilized, dug around? In recent years, I've had to cut down a few trees in my yard. We had an ornamental plum tree that every year, in the early years we lived in our home, it just would blossom really nice. And even had certain small plums on it. But they would always fall off. They would never really mature. And gradually, this tree began to die back and die back. And parts of it I would lop off another branch and cut it back, prune it back. And until it got to the point where there was just one basic branch that was flowering every year. And I was ready to cut it down. And Debbie said one year, oh no, you still have some life on it. Keep it going. So she talked me into letting it go. But finally it died off. And a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago, I just cut the whole thing down and ground the stump out. And it's gone. I had to cut an apple tree down a year ago because it was overtaking the yard. It was one of these that needed a mate with it. The fruit would never ripen and mature. It always would drop. And you just had a whole mess of rotten apples on the yard and the bees that come with rotten apples. And so you had to, it just got to be an eyesore. And it was blocking off two other trees in terms of their maturity and growth. So we cut it down. You have to learn how to plant trees. I've learned that over the years, both in another home I had and this one I bought 20 years ago. Planting trees is an art. You want to plant them with 20, 30 years' vision so that you don't get them too close to one another. You think, well, I've got to have plenty of space here when there's a little bitty sapling about like this. And then 15 years down the road, if you're still there, you realize, oh, I've got them too close together. Well, that's what happened with my yard. And we had to clean out a few things. So there's an art to it. And you have to plant even trees in a new space with the long term if you're going to expect it to get fruit for them to do their job and to do their purpose. So look at Luke 14. There's another example here in Luke 14. The parable of the Great Supper, verse 15.

Now when those of us who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to them, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And he said a certain man gave a great supper and invited many and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, come, for all things are now ready. Of course, the supper is a time foretelling the time of the harvest and Christ's coming, the resurrection in that period of time. All things are now ready. But they all with one accord began to make excuses.

The first said to him, I have bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. Still another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.

You note that verse 20 is the smallest explanation that is given of the three. In other words, I've married a wife. Enough said. Not anything, no comment about wives or women, ladies, but I think it teaches us that when we marry somebody, man or woman, that mate becomes a very, very integral part of life for us.

It takes time to cultivate and work at that relationship. And we all want those to be good, but all three of these are things that take one's time. Oxen was a means of livelihood. It was their job. The piece of ground in that setting, the things that occupy our life in making a living, and the people that come into our life, all of this, they take up our life. And how we manage them, how they contribute, how we contribute to their life, how they all make us, is very, very important, and Christ is showing here, look, that life and people and relationships can, if not properly managed, keep us from attending the supper, keep us from being there and involved in what we should be doing.

So in verse 21, that servant came and reported these things to his master. So the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in here the poor, and the maimed, and the lame, and the blind. And you have to think, why this category? Well, I immediately think of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1, about not many wise men now are called, not many noble brethren, God has chosen the poor and the weak of the earth to confound the mighty.

From time immemorial, the first century all the way down to our time, in the church, you will see God, the church of God has not been made up of the mighty and the wealthy. It is made up of working class people. It is made up of people who perhaps are able to recognize the need to be in their mind, through intellect, or through their own abilities.

And they don't need the kingdom. They don't need the hope of the kingdom. They've got their McMansion. They've got it made. They have their kingdom now. The poor, the lame, the maimed, and the lame, the blind, are the ones who can see the hope of the kingdom.

And that was the same in Christ's day as it is today. And so they were invited in, and the servant said, Master, it's done as you've commanded it, and still there is room. Then the master said to the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. So when the supper is ready at the end, those invited, we see, there will be distractions, there will be indifference, there will be things that will keep them from fulfilling a commitment or accepting an invitation. Notice that in this particular parable, as with many others, it is at the time when the work is finished that we're focused on.

Many of the parables are like this. And among the many lessons of this and other parables like this is this one key point. It's important how we finish. It's important how we finish, not so much how we begin. It's important that we be at the table, as much as we accept the invitation, but that we stay at the table. He said, my house will be filled. And we're told here that there will be some that will not accept the invitation. And so others are invited. Again, the work goes on. But it's important how we finish. Many of the parables show this, the importance of how we finish, how we come to September in the time of the harvest, how our lives look.

Are they burned out, brown, dried up, not bearing fruit? Or fruit's kind of halfway there and not fully mature, developed, opportunity missed? That's a key lesson to learn from this parable, and others like it. Let's go back to Matthew 20 and look at another. Matthew 20. This is the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The kingdom of heaven in verse 1 is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

So we have kind of a day of work that is laid out here in this parable. Again, starting out early, bright and fresh, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of energy. You know how you are in the morning? A lot of us are morning people. We get our best work done in the morning. I know for me, if I got writing to do, usually the morning is the best time to get it done. Because by 2 or 3 o'clock, I'm brain dead as far as that is concerned.

I have to move on to other things. The morning is the beginning of the work. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius of day, he sent them to his vineyard. So he calls the workers. He agrees to the pay. They agree. They go to work. And he went out about the third hour, and he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And he said to them, you also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, I will give you.

So they went. And he went out about the sixth and the ninth, and did likewise. So he continues to add workers to the garden, to the vineyard. At about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and said, why have you been standing here idle all day? And they said, well, no one's hired us. So he said, you also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right, you will receive. It's almost like he just said, look, you go on, we'll take care, we'll settle up, and I'll pay you later on.

Go to work. There's always work to be done, notice, throughout the day. Again, the work continues. There's vines that need to be tended, pruned, picked. Verse 8, so when the evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to a steward, call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.

And when those who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. And when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more, because they worked longer. And they likewise received each a denarius. And when they received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.

In other words, we've been here since the beginning. We worked the longest. We had the most knowledge. We were faithful to you from the first hour all the way to the eleventh hour. But he answered and he said, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?

Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things, or is your I evil because I'm good? So the last will be first, and the first last, for many are called, but few are chosen.

Interesting parable. Everyone gets the same amount of pay. Eternal life is going to be the same for everyone, whether they start to work in the morning or happen to come in just at the tail end. God is going to give eternal life. Now, if you've worked through the heat of the day, you've endured persecution, doubt, problems because of your time in the faith.

Over 20, 30, 40 years? 45 years? Do I need to go more than 45 in this room? Do with me. 50 years? Been in the church? 50 years of keeping the Sabbath? 50 years of getting time off for the holy days? 50 years of living among people who don't appreciate your faith? And you have to deal with that. 50 years of just overcoming our own selves and staying alert, staying faithful. Or whatever number of years for us. We still get eternal life. That's the bargain.

That's the bargain. Someone who may come in toward the end, or someone along the way who was only in the church for a short time. I often use this example. There was a gentleman, about 17 or 18, it was just before I left home and went to college. He was a relative of a neighbor, just lived behind us in my hometown. He was a brother to the wife, one of my neighbors, a lady there. And he got interested in the church.

He came into the church. He was baptized in the church. And he was in the church for a few months, and he was a very fine gentleman. Had no reason to doubt that the man was not converted. Called. I remember coming back home after I had spent the summer in Jerusalem and showing him pictures of Israel and talking to him about the dig. But I had to do it because he was in bed, because he contracted cancer.

He was in the church less than two years. If that long, and he died. In the faith. This was 1971-72. I have no reason to suspect that that gentleman will not be in the first resurrection. But in the meantime, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since 1972, isn't it? For those of us that have been around that long, we've been in the church, then out of the church, then back in the church. You know, we've had our ups and downs emotionally, spiritually, physically, to remain faithful, to endure. And in the resurrection, we make it. We'll be right there. And I expect this gentleman to be right there, too.

But he didn't work through the heat of the day. And there'll be many others like that, too. Such as it is. Why? I don't know. God in His wisdom, grace, knows it all and works with us. He gives us these things to learn certain lessons. Again, it's important how we finish.

It's important how we finish. Now, this parable of vineyard is full of all kinds of lessons and questions we could ask, I suppose. Why didn't the landowner hire enough workers in the early morning? Obviously, either the work increased or some of the workers didn't stay. Maybe by the sixth hour, some of them had thrown down their pruning hooks and worked and they walked off. It was too much. So they had to go out and get more. Or there was just more work to be done.

The harvest was bigger. More workers were needed. There was work. And again, the point, the work continues through the day to the eleventh and the twelfth hour. It never stops. Why do people drop off? Why would people have walked out of his vineyard? Well, you think about it. Why have people that you've known walked out?

Why do people walk back in? You know, we all have our stories. The Church of God experience in our lifetime is one conglomeration of stories. You have your story as to your faith, your walk. You have yours, what you've been through. And you know, sometimes we share those stories as we get to know one another, as we let our hair down and we fellowship and get acquainted. Those stories are quite fascinating. I always enjoy just listening to a person share their story of their faith in a quiet, right, appropriate manner as we tell our story. We sit down and we listen to one another.

It's kind of like sitting on a rocking, on a porch with a rocking chair. You need two of them right there. And sometimes we just need to say to one another, sit down, take a load off, rock a spell, tell me your story. And we listen to one another. And we have that opportunity to... that's what the Church is all about.

That is the depth of the relationships that we develop through the years. As we work in this vineyard, go through the heat of the day, we all have a story to tell us, to what we have learned, what we have been through.

And when we share those stories, it draws us closer to one another. And it encourages us in the faith and helps each of us to realize we're not alone. Others have gone through the same things. And we can make it too. We draw closer to one another as we open up to one another. And we share our stories. As people are called into the Church, as they become acquainted with us, you, they will need to hear those stories. And that will build our love.

That will keep the love, the flame of love, if you will, burning. And keep it from growing cold for any of us. As part of sharing those stories. The parable tells us people will drop out. But we can learn from other examples that people drop back in. And the door is always open. The front porch is there. And the rocking chairs is there. Individually, we have a responsibility to make sure that our lives are tended.

And the weeds don't come in. And we keep them from becoming the proverbial, typical, September gardener. So how do we finish strong? How do we finish strong? Let me give you one point. I could give you three, five. If I really worked at it, I could give you seven. But I don't have time. And you've already set through two services, most of you the other day. And one point probably will be sufficient for us this morning to focus on. Let me give you one point as to how to finish strong. Turn over to Acts 10.

And the point is this. Be like the Bereans. Be like the Bereans. I'm sorry it's not 10, it is Chapter 17, Acts 17. My spellchecker didn't catch that. Acts 17, beginning in verse 10. This is where Paul and Silas had to leave Thessalonica in the middle of the night because of persecution. And they were sent to Berea in verse 10. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. And here's the description of the people that they met there.

These Jews, they were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. In that, they received the word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. So here was a group of Jews in a synagogue that had a different temperament.

Berea was different from, it was a smaller city from Thessalonica. These were small-town folk. Thessalonica was a port city, more cosmopolitan, more ideas for people flowing in and out, kind of like New Jersey, Newark. And they fled to a small, more rural, Midwest town, kind of like Fort Wayne. I'm just a little bit too far from the story here, but Berea was much smaller. And as towns differ and as regions will produce different people, they just had a different mindset in Berea. And the people there searched the Scriptures and received the word, and they put their nose into the Bible every day. We have always used this, and it stands here in Acts as an example of what we should be.

We need to be a Berean. I use it this morning as an example for us to use to help know how to finish. Be like the Bereans. Now, there are many different ways to really parse what we're told here in these few phrases about this group of people. First of all, they did search the Scriptures daily. The Old Testament is what they had. They didn't have the New. They were writing the New by their own example.

But what they were, what it tells us and what we can learn, is that these people had a regimented discipline in their life of study of the Bible. They opened up something, and in their case they unrolled a scroll on a regular basis to read from the Bible, their Bible, what we would call the Old Testament.

They had a discipline to do that every day. And they had a discipline because they had a love for what they read. And they had a love for what they read because they fed on that. It nourished them. As much as the loaf of bread they ate or the water they drank each day, it nourished them and kept them alive, kept them going. And they needed that, and they knew they needed that. So they disciplined their life around a reading of Scripture every day. You know, in John chapter 10, Christ made a statement about our relationship with Him.

John chapter 10, verse 3, as He is talking here of Himself as the shepherd of the sheep. And John 10, verse 3, He says, To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. The shepherd. The sheep hear his voice. And you study into the art of keeping sheep, and sheep do know the voice of their tender, their keeper. That's just the way it does work to this very day. They know his voice, and they'll follow it. They'll gather up around him in the fields.

Christ is showing that we will hear his voice, we will know him, he knows us by name, and he leads us.

To hear the voice of Christ, the point is, we must study His teachings. We must study the Bible. If we're going to hear His voice. The Bereans studied it every day, some part of it. Whether it was a Scripture reading, there's all kinds of Scripture reading plans one might choose to put themselves through a disciplined, regimented study of the Bible. We can do it ourselves. Through our own design, our own message, our own method. But to hear the voice of Christ, the shepherd, we have to study His teachings. And that's what the Bereans did. And that's what gets us through each day. That's what gets us through each week and each season. And year after year, to endure to the end. To finish and continue working in the vineyard. To be sitting at the table at the supper, figuratively. At that time, we have to be like the Bereans. In John 6, verse 63, Christ said that it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing.

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. The words I speak are spirit and they are life. In other words, they nurture us. They feed us.

And if we are to maintain a spiritual life that continues to bear fruit and will not be overtaken by weeds, or by the heat of the day, or by inattention and continue to bear fruit, we will look at God's word and relationship with Him through prayer and all the attendant tools as something we have to do and we know that we have to do it. And we will know when we are lapsing in it because we will feel spiritually hungry and we will be able to recognize the signs.

A Berean keeps his eye on the gold. A Berean has a vision and looks to the future.

A Berean seeks first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and knows that God will add everything else.

If we are to follow in the spirit of these people who are called Bereans, that's what we will do. Look around your own neighborhood. If you are like me, you don't have to look any further than your own backyard to find an example that might tell us something at this time of year of a garden or a plot of land that needs a bit of attention, some weeds pulled, some preparation.

Look at the turning of the seasons, the changes that are taking place as we are in this period between trumpets and atonement leading up to the feast. You see that indeed they are beginning to show the change. The light is bent at a different angle. The shadows are a bit longer.

That's a good thing. That should teach us something. That should teach us that we are to finish and stay there and stay with the faith, stay with God until the very end. Tomorrow I'm going to plan to clean out my garden and get it ready for next year.

As I pull a few of those plants up and pull some of the weeds out and clean it off, I'm going to think about my own spiritual life and what lessons I might need to apply in that way. Perhaps you can do the same thing as you may look around at what you have to do or just observe if that's all that is before you to do.

Let's keep our lives from becoming weed-choked, barren, burned-out, unfruitful gardens that we might see at this time of year. Let's learn the lesson that we have to finish. It's important to work through the day and to remain at the table so that God can continue to feed and nurture us. Let's do that and avoid our own September gardens.