Isaiah 5: Lord, What Do You Expect From Me?

Introduction

When you set your alarm, you expect it to ring. When you flip the light switch, you expect the light to come on. When you ask the Lord for something, you expect to receive it. This is how Alessandro Mungai opens his message at the youth service of Chiesa Roma: "We live a life made of actions and expectations."

Yet something is missing from that list, and it is the most important thing. Reading Isaiah 5:1-7, the parable of the vineyard, the preacher was struck by one phrase: God looked for justice. We expect a lot from other people and from God, but we forget that God also expects something from us.

Hence the question he invites every young person to ask that evening: "Lord, what do you expect from me?"

Message Outline

1. A Life Made of Actions and Expectations

The preacher starts with very simple examples: the alarm that rings, the light that comes on, the car that starts when you turn the key (unless you forgot to fill the tank or left the headlights on).
He goes further: when you are generous with someone, you expect gratitude. When you finally find the courage to tell someone how you feel, you expect to be loved in return.
And when you come to the Lord with a need, a healing or a blessing, you expect him to answer you.
"I take an action and I want exactly what I have in mind to happen." But one essential expectation is missing from this list: God's expectation of you.

2. God Has Expectations Too

In Isaiah 5, the prophet sings the song of his beloved about his vineyard. The vinedresser chooses a fertile hillside, digs up the soil, clears away the stones, plants choice vines, builds a tower and hews out a winepress. He looked for good grapes, and the vineyard produced wild ones.
The vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and in Isaiah 5:7 God looked for justice from his people. This phrase kept echoing in the preacher's mind all week.
He also reads Isaiah 6:8: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then Isaiah says: "Here I am. Send me!"
"You are here because you are called." Called not to live passively, minding only your own business while the days slip by, but to bear fruit.

3. The Fear of God: Fearing to Displease Him

Alessandro Mungai confesses one of his weaknesses: the fear of disappointing other people's expectations. For years it was almost an obsession. As he grew older, he understood that you cannot please everyone and that you should not overestimate other people's opinions.
The Christian is called to a different kind of fear: the fear of God. It has nothing to do with the image of a God ready to hurl thunderbolts. The world is afraid of God because it feels judged. We do not have that fear.
"The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil" (Proverbs 8:13). Put more simply: to fear God is to fear displeasing him. It is not dread, it is respect.
Do you have, from the moment you wake up, this desire not to disappoint the Lord? At school, at work, in the street, and even behind the wheel in Rome's traffic jams, where the preacher admits he has to pray to stay calm.
In the late 1990s, many young Christians wore a "WWJD" bracelet: "What would Jesus do?" He wore one for a while. Whenever he was about to do something wrong, that bracelet often made him stop and think, and held him back. Today you no longer see it, and the fear of displeasing God seems to have faded.
"We were not better back then." But society has become more complicated, it calls evil good and good evil, and social media fills us with bad examples.
Ecclesiastes 10:10 speaks of someone who does not sharpen the edge of his iron and has to work harder. The preacher thinks of the knife that cannot cut a tomato: you get frustrated, and you risk cutting yourself. Tonight we may need the Lord to sharpen our spiritual sensitivity again. If our testimony no longer "cuts" and everything bounces off when we talk to our friends, it is not the Lord's fault.

4. The Vinedresser Did Everything, and He Did Not Throw Away His Vineyard

Like the vinedresser in Isaiah 5, God did everything he needed to do. He prepared the ground, formed man from the dust, breathed into him the breath of life and placed him in the garden of Eden. He loved him, kept him and provided for him in everything.
He gave him something extraordinary: the ability to choose. "Free will is sometimes underestimated." With it comes responsibility for our decisions.
As soon as man turned his back on the Lord, humanity failed. It ran after its own desires instead of trusting in God's Word. The vineyard produced wild grapes.
What do you do with a spoiled harvest? You throw it away. That is what we would have done in God's place: throw everything away and start over from scratch.
God did not choose the most logical and easiest solution. He offered what was most precious to him, his Son, who came to die on the cross, "crushed like a grape," so that his blood would be the ransom for all of us.
Jesus says: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer" (John 15:1). He became the vine, and we have been grafted into it. If you remain in him, if you receive his Word and put it into practice, you can bear fruit. "That inability no longer exists."

5. What God Expects: Not Changing Course

In Isaiah, God is speaking about Israel, his chosen people, who were not faithful to him. He expected justice, and he received wild grapes.
Uprightness is moral integrity, honesty, the inner consistency of a person who does not stray from the principles of justice. An upright person does not leave the right path.
"The Lord expects you not to change course." Let him remain your anchor, and follow his Word and the steps Jesus laid out.
One question remains: how do you walk uprightly in practice?

6. The Holy Spirit, Your Lane-Keeping Assist

Recent cars have lane-keeping assist: if you fall asleep and drift, it gives you a jolt that puts you back in your lane. The principle is sound, and it was designed for your safety.
Yet everyone the preacher talks to about it turns it off as soon as they get in the car. It is annoying, too intrusive. "If I want to turn, I turn." Without realizing it, we admit that we care more about our freedom than our safety.
The Lord gave us a spiritual "lane-keeping assist": the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. Jesus promised him: he would ask the Father, who would give you another Counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, who lives with you and will be in you (John 14:16-17).
When you fall asleep spiritually or are about to lose your footing, he is there to shake you and put you back on the right path. But you can grieve him and even quench him, the way you switch off a driving assistance system, to do things your own way.
The difference: the human system needs a camera to see the line. The Holy Spirit perceives invisible things and anticipates what may happen in your life. He is not Jiminy Cricket's conscience, he is an inner voice that gives counsel.
The preacher tells the story of an accident in 2011. A young driver in an old Opel Corsa with no airbag, he stops to pick up a friend, who gets in the front seat with a baby of four or five months in his arms. He senses something is wrong and insists: "Get in the back, it's safer."
A few moments later, on the ring road, the car ahead brakes suddenly. His brakes do not respond, and the car hits the other one at about 55 km/h (34 mph). His sternum slams into the steering wheel, his friend goes through the passenger seat and hits the windshield, and a little blood runs from the baby's mouth. "Lord, anything you want on me, but not on him." The ambulance takes the friend and the child away.
He still carries an immense sense of guilt, but also immense gratitude: if he had not listened to that voice, the situation would have been very different. "It was neither my skill nor luck, because luck does not exist. It was the Holy Spirit."
The Holy Spirit does this and much more: he comforts you when you cry, he convicts you of sin and brings you back to the foot of the cross, he supports you and gives you the words you need.

7. Here I Am, Send Me

We can never repay the gift of salvation: it is too great, beyond compare. But you can do your part.
The Lord is looking for people to entrust with something. Even today, he looks at this group of young people and asks: "Whom shall I send?"
Like a vinedresser, he sometimes has to prune: a dry branch, a weed, perhaps something you hold dear but that is not good for you. It can hurt.
Sometimes he allows a trial, tears, a hardship, so that you come back to him depending entirely on him, return to the cross, seek his Spirit again and that fear of God that may no longer be as sharp as it once was.
The message ends in prayer: "Help us bear fruit, Lord, not wild grapes that are good for nothing." A healthy fear, the fear of displeasing him, and the grace we have received, to be shared with others rather than kept for ourselves.

Key Takeaways

We expect a lot from God and from others, but God also expects something from us: fruit.
To fear God is not to be afraid of him, it is to fear displeasing him.
God could have thrown away his vineyard. He offered his Son, and in Jesus, the true vine, you can bear fruit.
Uprightness means not changing course: following the Word and the steps of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit brings you back to the right path. Do not switch him off to do things your own way.

Personal Application

Have you ever simply asked the Lord this question: "What do you expect from me?"
When you get up in the morning, do you want not to disappoint God during your day, or do you live your life as you see fit?
Is your spiritual sensitivity still sharp, or does your testimony seem to "bounce off" without touching anything?
Is there an area where you have "switched off" the Holy Spirit because his voice bothers you?
Which branch might the Lord be pruning in your life, and are you ready to answer him: "Here I am, send me"?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Isaiah 5:7 mean when it says God "looked for justice"?

The vinedresser did everything for his vineyard and expected good grapes from it. According to Alessandro Mungai, God has expectations of you too: that you stay on the right path, that you follow his Word and the steps of Jesus, without straying from your course.

What does it mean for a Christian to fear God?

It does not mean being afraid of a God ready to strike. According to Proverbs 8:13, "The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil." The preacher sums it up this way: to fear God is to fear displeasing him. It is respect, not dread.

Why compare the Holy Spirit to lane-keeping assist?

Like that safety system that puts the car back in its lane when the driver falls asleep, the Holy Spirit brings you back to the right path when you drift. You can switch him off to do things your own way, but unlike a camera, he perceives invisible things and anticipates what may happen.