It is amazing how valuable a vine can be. The vines, like the ones we saw here at Chateau Elan bring in $40 billion of business a year in the United States. Americans this past year bought 267 million cases and drank 800 million gallons of its fruit and that number increases every year.

Wineries and vineyards are the second most popular tourist attraction in California after Disneyland. The United States is the largest retail wine market in the world and this industry employs 35,000 people. As important as the economical value of this vine is, Jesus gave it a spiritual value above and beyond any other plant that God ever created, because it answers, maybe, the greatest question of life. Let me illustrate it with a story.

I used to pastor in Mississippi. When James and Jonathan were just to…