Majors In The Minors - Part 2 - Joel
by Lindsay Pierce
June 10, 2026 · Centerpointe Apostolic Church (Murfreesboro, TN)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Joel 1:1, Joel 1:4, Joel 2:25, Joel 2:12-13, Psalms 51, Joel 2:23-25, 2 Kings 8, Numbers 11, Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2, Joel 3:21, Romans 8, Revelation 21:3

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/lindsay-pierce--majors-in-the-minors-part-2-joel
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
We're continuing our series on the majors and minors, minor prophet last week. Um, brother Hank, I think, explained it pretty well. Um, that we're not we're not talking about u baseball. You know, in fact, for those of you who are going to be tempted, do not check the score. I know the Braves are playing right now. Don't I'm gonna I I'll know. Not really. Anyway, um also that joke didn't come out of left field. Hank did use it last week. So, oh man, tough crowd tonight, guys.

Left field. H I thought it was hilarious. So, anyway, we aren't uh we're not talking about baseball and we're doesn't mean that that Joel, who we're talking about tonight, is any less important than than anybody else. basically just means one book is larger than another book. So Isaiah is a novel, Joel is a short story. All right, that's just the easiest way to if you are ever confused on who's a major and minor. Just flip through the book. If you got more than like 13 chapters, you're you're you're moving to novel status.

Okay, so um I also before I really get started, I want to thank my husband. Um, he gave me a little bit of free time yesterday so that I could uh study just a little bit. He's he's an all-around good guy most of the time. Um, anyway, I'm thankful for him. But anyway, again, don't check the score of the baseball game. We'll find out in just a little bit. Um, so last week we talked about Hosea. Tonight we're going to move into Joel. It's only three chapters long and I think this is the longest set of notes that I've ever had in my entire life.

I normally preach from about six or seven pages worth of notes. Um, and I have 16 pages worth of notes tonight. So, you guys will get out of here roughly. No, I just didn't have the appropriate weed out uh time. So, good luck, guys. Buckle up. Um, Joel's only three chapters long and you can read it in about 10 minutes. If you don't have a toddler, if you have a toddler, it's probably about an hour because she's jumping into something you shouldn't be jumping into. Um, anyway, so about 10 minutes.

Um, but even with its uh, brevity and its shortness, it is um, it's a pretty powerful book. In fact, I think when we say the book of Joel in a church like this, some of us already know and get a little bit of excitement in our spirit because we know that this holds a lot of promise for us. And um but even though it was so small, Peter hundreds of years later thought it was important enough to quote. Why Joel? Why? Why? Why not Isaiah or uh Jeremiah?

Well, Jeremiah's a little sad, maybe. Okay. Why Joel? So, let's let's dig in and learn a little bit about about why. So, um let's start by understanding Joel's world, okay? Um before we could ever understand the prophecy, let's just understand what's happening and and all that. So, but before I do that, we've been watching a little bit of Little House on the Prairie. Is it okay if I just warm up just a little bit or cool down? I'm not sure what what the story is right now.

Anyway, we've been watching a little bit of Little House on the Prairie and um I know some of you are like, "How in the world are you watching a show from the 70s?" Guys, entertainment is trash right now. So, and I'm pretty sure all of you are baking your own bread and trying to homestead anyway. And I'm pretty sure that I bought Laura Engel's dress at Cracker Barrel last week. So, we all just need to calm down and stop judging somebody for watching Little House on the Prairie.

All right. Anyway, in one of the last episodes that we watched, um, well, I say we, Caleb falls asleep. It's way too action-packed for him. Um, anyway, they experienced a storm. a storm came through and um Charles Les is devastated. I mean, he's crying. And one of my qualms with the uh the little is is sometimes Caroline just has this face of I don't know what to do right now. Like it's just this dramatic face. It's like I know that this should be a moment of in you know intense intense passion or frustration or but it's just this face and I'm like would you just hug your husband like that would be helpful.

He's crying because he walked outside after the storm and everything that they had worked months for. Everything that they had planted and even their cattle, they had lost everything to a storm. And I just wanted to be like, can you just hug him? Like he is devastated and and he's being real. Haven't I honored God? Haven't I? There's just How many of you seen that episode? If we have any other people who are going to admit that they watch the radio. Okay, I've got a couple of you with me tonight.

We're going to have fun. Those two of you that are here. Um anyway, so I think we've all been there though when something unexpected comes and and we're just completely left with out breath almost just like a sucker punch. We've lost something that we've dreamed for. Maybe it's a relationship or maybe it's a job or a dream that's not come to pass or a financial plan or the season of life that you're in you would were expecting to look different like there's a lot of different things happening and in this the situation with Joel they're kind of walking through this the now you and I pastor said it on Sunday we have this luxury of grocery stores.

We have this luxury of putting in an order and having what we need delivered within 4 hours. I mean, and if you're willing to pay the express delivery, it could be there in an hour. So, that's the world we live in, but that's not the world that Charles and Caroline lived in. I mean, I can't think of Nelly's parents right now, but she could go, you know, do something. But why is Nelly the one that I remember like but that was that was that Charles and Caroline were living it but Joel and them even more so more so we don't survive we don't we don't depend on a field like I don't have to go home and and weed the garden thank God that I can go over to Kroger or Aldi or Walmart or Publix or this is the scenario that that we're finding Joel opening the book in is is there's been a situation that's that's happening and they've lost everything.

So, I'm kind of getting ahead of the ahead of the cart. Let's talk about Joel himself. Joel 1 verse one. The word of the Lord came to Joel, the son of Pthuuel. That is literally all we know about Joel. He kind of disappears into the background of his own book because he's kind of less about him and more about what's being spoken, the God of what's being spoken. And and that's not to say anything bad about any of the other prophets. I mean, some of them were majored.

Some of them were big deals. some of Okay, y'all come on, get with me just a little bit. Laugh. Make me feel better about myself. Goodness. Um, but anyway, that's that's that's it. He doesn't even tell us what king is reigning. Most prophets will tell you and give you a little bit of a historical, hey, this is this is who's reigning this. No, you don't get that with Joel. And most people don't really know when it's written. I' i've looked. There's been a lot of of of speculation.

Um, it could be before the rise of Assyria or the rise of Babylon, which I think most people lean more towards after the uh after the Babylonian exile. So, just some context for you. But the one thing that we know for certain is that Joel's focus is centered on Jerusalem. >> >> He is he mentions Zion. He mentions the the temple. He mentions the priests and the worship life of God's people. Um so everything about the book as far as who it's written to points us towards Judah and um though the exact date still remains uncertain.

And like I said, he disappears into the background of his own book, just proclaiming what the Lord is telling him to proclaim. And you know, this actually just hit me. One of the cool things about that is is we don't have a pedigree of Joel. We don't know who his father is, a Puuel. We know that. But outside of that, it's not like he was a prophet's son or there's no story. But God still saw fit to use Joel. And he's still using Joel today. So I don't know who in here thinks, "Well, God can't use me because I don't know I don't have the story.

I don't have the pedigree. I don't have the history." Well, we don't know anything about Joel, but God still saw fit to use Joel. So while we don't have the exact exact timeline, we do know this that there is something serious happening in in in Judah that during this time Joel describes a devastating plague unlike anything the people could remember. Joel chapter 1 verse4 and I chose to go KJV for most of these um actually all of them except one um just because that's how I'm most familiar with Joel King James version.

So that which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left, hath the cankerworm eaten, and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Now, there's a big progression here, but and I, you know, we could dig in. Well, what's the palmer mean? Or what's the the the locust and the cankerworm and the the caterpillar? Can we dissect and determine? And what we're seeing is blow after blow after blow is coming against the people. There is literally nothing left.

What one didn't eat, the next one did and so on. Maybe it's four different different waves. Maybe the point is nothing is left and the fields are devastated. The people and the nation are in trouble. They are hurting. They're stripped bare. The vineyards are devastated. The grain was gone. And the economy is suffering. Even the grain and drink offerings had ceased. Worship had changed because there was a plague. Now, I'm going to go ahead and let you know God sent this plague knowing that it would impact how they worshiped.

Maybe God was just bringing them back to the heart of worship, but we'll get to that in a little bit. But another thing I found really interesting about this is how God chose to send. What God chose. It wasn't a mighty army of people and men or another nation. It was it wasn't a flood. It was something tiny and small, little insects that came. While they're small, when they come together collectively, it's a big deal. It can be devastating. And so throughout scripture and and this is just another side point throughout scripture we we are learn are warned not to un underestimate small things that come into our life.

Small foxes, small fires, a little levan. There are some things that we need to be attent pay attention to and make sure now he's not teaching a lesson about small things becoming big problems. That's that's not what Joel is teaching here. But he is trying to help us understand that this crisis is beyond human ability to solve. In Joel 2 25, God refers to the insects as my great army which I sent among you. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not a bug fan.

I'm not a locust fan. When cicas come, can they be a little quieter? I mean, goodness. You know, I don't want to touch them. Spiders. Caleb's no help there. But, I mean, everything else he'll pretty much handle. His voice may get a little high pitched, but but he he'll take care of most everything else. But I'm not a bug. And if it looks like a great army coming at me, no way. I'm out. Peace. I'm going to go like hide in the house. We'll figure it out later, guys.

That's just me. But one thing I'm finding interesting is Joel's not presenting this as poor farming. Like he's not saying these guys are scared to deal with some bugs. He's not presenting it as negligence. He presents it a beyond about a crisis that's beyond human ability to solve. People couldn't organize organize their way out of this crisis. They couldn't work harder and solve it. They couldn't plant enough seed to overcome it. They simply just couldn't fix it themselves. And that's probably well, that's one of the most important lessons in this book is that we are dependent on God.

Everything we have, everything we the breath in our lungs, the food we eat, the ability to purchase the food we eat, it is given by God and God alone. You yourself did not earn it. You did not work hard enough for it. God gave it to you. God gave it to me. And in fact, let's just take a minute. Let's thank God for his provision. Thank you, Jesus, for being a God who loves us enough to provide, to give us the ability to work and earn.

God, thank you for for caring about your people enough to provide. Thank you, Jesus. Sometimes God will allow circumstances to reveal the limit of our own strength. Sometimes he allows us to encounter situations that expose the fact that we really are dependent on him. And it may also expose where we think our dependence lies. Oh, God has blessed me with this. Yeah. When's the last time you had a night's sleep? because you're working so hard to get what God may or may not want you to have.

Well, that's not in over here. So, I'm going to just plague revealed more than damaged crops. It revealed the spiritual condition of the nation. Now, Joel was a good preacher and I know good preachers open with questions. Pastor always likes to ask us questions. Joel said, "Hat this been in your day." He's saying, "Even in the days of your in in other words, he's saying, "Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Ask the elders, ask your mom and dad, ask your grandparents. Has anybody witnessed devastation to this extent ever before?" Now, ultimately, the answer is no.

appears to be but this was a once- in a generation catastrophe and and I believe every generation has a moment um that become reference points um for some people I don't think it's anybody in this room you might uh I don't think I think we're beyond this but the great depression would be a reference point u for me one of the biggest reference points was 911 like and the most recent reference point would be the pandemic. So, you've got these these reference points, but but even the reference point, what Joel's saying is nobody's seen anything like this before.

And every generation experiences a moment like that. But so Joel, if you go back to to the pandemic and and think about how that altered and changed our life, maybe we weren't going to grocery stores, but we sure were getting stuff delivered except for toilet paper. But Joel's generation was living through one of these moments. Do you feel the I mean, can you feel the weight? Like this is not just, yeah, I slide jokes in here and there, but this is a heavy moment in Joel's generation.

Mom and dads are wondering how they're going to feed their kids. Everything they had worked for was gone. And in the middle of that crisis, Joel steps on the scene with one of the major themes being the day of the Lord. And when many people hear that phrase, they immediately think of judgment. And it's definitely a part of it. Um, but Joel's use of the phrase is kind of broader than that. um throughout the book that the the the day of the Lord's like a a moment when God intervenes.

It's the moment when God's activity demands a response. And for some people, it brings judgment. For others, it brings deliverance. But for everyone, it becomes a moment of decision. In many ways, the entire book of Job is is built around that reality. The approaching day of the Lord exposes the condition of the people. The approaching day of the Lord calls them to repentance. The approaching day of the Lord becomes the backdrop for some beautiful promises. In Joel, the day of the Lord is not merely a warning of judgment, but it also becomes an invitation.

um an invitation to move away from devastation and towards God's presence. And that brings us to what I believe is the heartbeat of Joel's message in Joel chapter 2 verse 12 and 13. I'll be reading from the NIV. Even now, declares the Lord. Return to me with all your heart. With fasting and weeping and mourning, rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

I love the timing of God's invitation. Now, he doesn't say after the fields are recovered, come back to me. He doesn't say after you fixed everything, come back to me. Not after you prove yourself, come. He says, even now in the middle of crisis, return to me with all of your heart. And that is a picture of God's mercy. Even in the middle of consequent con consequences, failures and judgments, God is extending an invitation. In fact, the invitation seems a little brutal because he's using devastation to get attention, the attention of his people, because he desires their heart.

Return to me with all of your heart. It's not necessarily a call to return to religious activity. They couldn't even offer the appropriate sacrifices. He's saying, "Return to me. Return to me with all of your heart." Because the the fact is God always it has always been and all of you in this room know this. It has always been about relationship. And for the person in this room who feels like you have to earn God's love, you don't. There's nothing you can do that will make him love you any less.

There's nothing you can do that will make him love you any more because he is a God of love and he loves you and he wants you. He wants you. He wants your heart. He doesn't want your uh in the in the words of pastor, he doesn't want your behavior management. He doesn't want you. I mean, okay. Yeah. Let me quote pastor again. Can pastor, you just won't come take the mic because I feel like I'm quoting you a lot. And I forgot what I was going to quote.

Oh, you can't earn your way into heaven, but you can misbehave. Or you can't behave your way into heaven, but you can misbehave your your way into hell. So, he's not he's not asking you to earn his love. He's just wanting you. It doesn't mean you don't need to act right. All right. This isn't this isn't Hey, all right. Sister Lindsay said, "Go on out there and just act any way you want." No. Because if you're doing that, he doesn't have your heart. out there has your heart.

He wants your heart. Return to me is the call of Joel. Return to me with all of your heart. Now, that message is not unique to Joel. In fact, it's it's a big theme throughout the entire Bible. Have you read the Old Testament? Israel was a mess because every time they thought they that God came in and saved them, they they'd wait a few, I don't know, weeks, months, years, and God would be coming to save them again. But the heartbeat of God is to come to me.

Relationship, that's the heartbeat of God. In fact, one of my favorite scriptures, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven. Then will I forgive their sins and will heal their land. He didn't say if the enemy uh if the economy recovers, if the enemy disappears, if the drought ends, if everything gets fixed. No, he says, "If my people, if my people humble, if my people pray, if they seek my face and not my hand, if you seek his face, you're going to get his hand." And that for the notetakers is a pretty good one.

That wasn't even in my notes, so maybe somebody should write that down for me. Then will I hear, then will I forgive. then will I heal. The crisis was God's way of getting their attention because he wanted them. And Joel stands in the same stream of scripture and cries out to devastated people. Even now, even now, come back to me. Ren your heart and not your garments. There wasn't anything wrong with the garments back in in in that day. The rending of the garment was a symbol of of repentance and grief and and and God wasn't saying, "Okay, don't necessarily do that.

There's nothing wrong with the garment." But it's your heart that's the problem. Rend your heart and not your garments. David would li write later in Psalms 51 that sacrifice fact the sacrifices of God um are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. And Jesus would later rebuke the elders that honored God with their lips, but their hearts remain far from them. God has always been chasing after your heart. And we learned that last week and we see it again mirrored in Joel. He's not after your appearance.

He's not after your performance. He's not after your ceremony. He's wanting your heart. The problem wasn't the garment. The problem was when outward expression existed without genuine inward s surrender. But I'm going to tell you this. When God's people respond with genuine repentance, the story begins to shift. when you rend your heart and you don't rend your garment only when you when you when you bow down in genuine inward uh repentance. He said, "Okay, I've got their attention. I'm I'm getting their heart. Let's let's move past chapter one.

Let's move chap past chapter one." So, the day of the Lord no longer appears only as a warning warning. Now it begins to reveal God's mercy because the God who called them using devastation begins speaking about restoration in Joel 2 23 and 25. You know that's one thing I love about our God is he's not going to just leave us in chapter one of our story because chapter one of our story is you were born and fashioned in sin and iniquity. We are all sinners. And he said, "No, I I can't leave you there." I love that he won't leave us in chapter one.

So Joel 2 23 ble be glad then you children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God for he hath given you the former rain moderately and he will cause to come down for you the rain and the former rain and the latter rain in the first month and the floors shall be full of wheat and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil and I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten and the cankerworm and the caterpillar and the Palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Some of our favorite words. I will restore to you the years now. That sounds impossible because time really just goes in one direction, right? Sure, money can be reearned, property can be rebuilt, crops can be replanted, but years, that seems like an interesting promise. Before God ever speaks about restoring though, in verse uh 23, he talks about, the former rain and the latter rain. In Israel's agriculture cycle, the those rains normally came in different seasons. The former rain prepared the ground for planting and the latter rain helped bring the crop to maturity before the harvest.

So there was this waiting period between them. U can we read can can we pull put verse 23 back up on the screen? It says for he hath given you the former rain moderately and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain. Now, Brother Bounds preached an incredible message one time. I can't even I couldn't tell you the title of the message. Uh, if I dug a little bit, I I probably could have, but I I just didn't look for it.

But I want to give him credit for this thought. Okay. Brother Aaron Bounds, he connected this passage to 2 Kings chapter 8, the Shounomite woman. And in the the the Shounomite woman's story, the prophet gives the woman a word. She has to leave because there's a famine coming. And uh she leaves and she's uh gone for seven years. And when she gets back, she's like, "Okay, I'm going to go back and I'm going to go get my place." and she goes into the king's court and uh talks to to Gahhesi actually and talks to the king and she ends up getting her house back.

Now that's exciting, right? But if you read that story in 2 Kings chapter 8, she gets more than her house back. She gets everything back. um to the point everything that she would have made had she not ever gone was given back to her. So he is way more eloquent in in how he explains this and in fact he takes a whole hour and 15 minutes. I'm trying to do it in two. So it's an incredible message. I wish I could tell you which one it was.

But he's saying it doesn't matter what comes. God is a God of restoration and he will make it as if you never left. As if you never everything that you would have made had you been there, had you been in right standing, had you been where you should have been, I'll give you everything back for the time that you were gone. Now, the rain, uh, the former rain and the latter rain, to me, that says three different time periods. the rain, current, the former, what was behind the latter.

What? And he said he's going to give it all in the first month. In the first month. So there's usually a process, a season, a timetable, but Joel describes God sending all the rain in a in a in a in a short period of time. Now, the loss was real. The famine happened. The years were gone. But God's favor reached into her situation. Now, the Shunomite woman lived an honorable life, obedient to God. The people in Joel were not necessarily living that way, but they had turned their heart back to God.

And he said, "You know what? I'm going to make it look like that that famine, that plague never happened. I'm going to give you the rain, the former rain, the latter rain in the first month, in the same month. Now, that's a that's a wet that's a wet month. But you know what that's going to do? It's going to produce a crop. That's going to produce provision because God is a God of restoring the harvest. Now, here's another thing that I noticed is God, and I'm going to I'm going to try to to speed up.

We got enough time, maybe. What what I noticed is God doesn't just say, "Hey, I'm going to restore your harvest." What he does say is he goes, "What the cankerworm ate, what the what the the caterpillar ate, what the locust ate, there's another a palmer worm. What what he ate, I'm going to give it all back." He said, "I see. I took inventory of what you had. I know what was eaten and what was consumed and I will give that back to you. You think all this was He said there there's some crops that you may not even know were destroyed that that you didn't know were growing.

He said I'm it's okay. I know what's what's been eaten. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. So he didn't say I'll restore your harvest. I believe that he was letting people know that he was fully aware of everything that they had lost. Every loss, every disappointment, every painful season, every year that's felt wasted. I'm telling you, God sees and God knows and he has a desire to restore. The question is, are you willing to return to him with not just action uh or uh performance alone, but with your heart?

He said, "I will restore." Doesn't necessarily mean the clock's going to turn backwards and I'm going to have a few less wrinkles. Fewer gray hair. Now, that may not be what it looks like, but I'm going to tell you this. God refuses. And I feel the Holy Ghost. He refuses to let loss have the final word. >> Joseph lost years in prison. Job lost years through suffering and Peter lost confidence through his failure. But every story that I just mentioned, God wrote redemption into it. And I think that that's why this promise of restoration speaks so deeply to us because we some of us carry regret over things that that we feel were wasted, over years that we feel were wasted.

Maybe they were lost to fear or poor decisions or bitterness or wondering. Others carried grief over what had been over circumstances that had been done to them they had no control over. Years lost to sickness, years lost to waiting or disappointment. Joel's promise is not that the past never happened. His promise is that devastation doesn't have to be the end of the story. That same day of the Lord that exposed their need is now revealing the mercy. I've said it before. The same God who got their attention through crisis is now demonstrating his ability to restore.

And that is a beautiful promise. Again, restoration is not pretending. It's not God pretending that loss never happened. It's proving that God will not let it have the final word. But I'm going to tell you this. As cool as the promise of restoration is, and everybody's been waiting for this moment cuz we're Pentecostal. We know. We know. We're excited. Lindsay may shout. The next promise that Joel gives reach reaches beyond a generation, beyond that generation, beyond Judah and ultimately uh beyond the New Testament itself. And it says or the Old Testament itself.

Joel could have stopped right there and it would have been a great book. Praise God. Restoration, but he doesn't. He starts talking about something bigger than rain or a different kind of rain. He starts He starts talking about something bigger than crops. He starts sharing God's promise of his spirit. Joel chapter 2 28. And it shall come to pass afterward after the the devastation after uh you've returned to me after uh the restoration afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your old men, well, glory to the Lord, I hit the wrong moment. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And upon and also upon the servants and upon the handmmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. So let's understand how revolutionary this promise is because and to do that we we need to understand how it operated in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the spirit came upon specific people for specific purposes. Um, it came upon prophets. It came upon priests and kings and judges.

But Joel looks ahead to something different. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. That statement alone should have shocked everybody in the audience. Not just prophets, not just priests, not just kings, all flesh. And then Joel continues to explain what he means. Your sons and your daughters are going to prophesy. Not just men, sons and daughters. Your old men shall dream dreams. Not just the young, the old people, too. I think some people say, "Amen." Hallelujah. Your young men shall see visions. So, not just the old, the young people, too.

and also upon the servants and upon the handmaidadens, even those society overlooked. That's who he was opening this promise to. The promise just keeps expanding. It just grows. It's no longer just a field, a crop. It's it's a people and it's more people and and then it's more people. And that that's exciting to me. It just keeps expanding. It means that the spirit's not going to be limited by age or gender or social standard. And in centuries earlier, Moses, I would to God that everybody that the spirit of God would move on everybody.

That's what he said. Numbers chapter 11, if you want to go look it up. So Moses expressed a desire. Well, Joel prophesied it. He prophesied a promise and Acts records the fulfillment. Which brings us back to the question that I asked at the very beginning. Why Joel? Why did Peter choose Joel? Because Peter needed a prophecy to explain what was going on. He needed somebody to back him up. In Acts two, when the spirit was poured out, people spoke with other tongues. The crowd was confused.

Some were amazed. People were mocking. And Peter stood up and said this is that not this looks like what not this is similar to. No, this is this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel. This is what Joel saw. This is what God promised us through the prophet Joel. This is what Joel prophesied. And notice the story is no longer in def devastation. It's it it it came it came to a place of repentance. And then we came to a place of of restoration.

But now God is pouring out his spirit. The day of the Lord is never simply about judgment. It's always moving people closer to him if you choose to move closer to him. But I want to say this. We got just Wow, guys. We're doing good. I got 10 minutes. We're on page I don't know what. But as we're coming to the end of Joel, I believe there's another promise. And this one excites me as well because I don't believe Pentecost is just the final destination. I'm thankful for his out outpouring.

I'm thankful that he desired to come and live inside of me. I know me. I know me better than you know me. And the fact that Jesus wants to hang out with me. That's humbling. It's amazing to me that the God who hung the world, who breathed the stars, would choose me to fill Does it ever just take your breath away? I hope it just hasn't become some protocol or experience because we go to church that, oh, I've got I've got the spirit of God living in me.

Oh, the spirit of God lives in me. The outpouring of the spirit of God. But it doesn't end with Pentecost. And he doesn't end with insects. He doesn't end with famine or devastation. He doesn't even end with that restoration. In Joel 3 21, it concludes with this. So the last phrase of that verse, for the Lord dwelleth in Zion. It ends with God's presence. And from where we stand in time and our vantage point in Joel's writing is different than from the original audience. We know that the spirit Joel prophesied about was poured out on the day of Pentecost.

And we know that that spirit still fills believers today. We know the same spirit that leads, convicts, empowers, and trans transforms. That's God's spirit. But I'm going to tell you this, that spirit was never meant to just be an experience. That spirit is promise of relationship. It is the evidence that God dwells with his people. And that spirit is a reminder also that our story, even though we're filled with him. Hang on, let's go back. We had empty fields at the beginning and now we have filled souls.

>> God never wants to leave anything empty. >> He doesn't want to leave you empty. He wants to fill you. And that spirit, that promise of relationship that that is not, that is the reminder that our story is not finished yet. Paul wrote in Romans 8 that the spirit of God dwells within us. And he also teaches that that spirit bears witness that we are the children of God. And the scripture also tells us that the spirit is an earnest, a guarantee, a down payment of what is still to come.

In other words, the spirit that Joel saw poured out is not only for this life is preparing us for the life to come. One day the same Lord who filled his people with his spirit will call his people home. One day the church will be caught up to meet the Lord. And one day faith will become sight. One day every promise, every chapter, every dot, every line in this book is going to be fulfilled. And as we walk down those streets of gold, as long as we've repented and turned and as long as we have that spirit that fills in fills us so that we can be called his children.

Oh, there shall we ever be with the Lord. It's about presence. It's about his presence. to prove it. Let's go to Revelation. I always love doing that. The right hook with Revelation. Revelation 21:3. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and he be their God." When Joel began, we're starting about we t started talking about those empty fields.

When Joel ends, they're standing at a they're standing and staring at a faithful God. Because one thing Joel teaches us is that God can use crisis to get our attention. Not, and hear me, not because he delights in our pain. Not because he enjoys our struggle, but it's because he desires our heart. He desires our heart. The plague awakened them. Repentance redirected them. Restoration renewed them. The spirit promised empowerment to everyone. And through it all, God was drawing them closer to himself. Devastation is not the end of the story.

And the God who called Judah is still calling people today. And one day that trumpet's going to sound >> and those who are alive and remain and and are well and remain will be caught up together with those in the air because the dead in Christ shall rise first. I don't know but over the last few months there's just been this c I want to be caught up and that's what Joel promises us. He says the end promise is dwelling with him. One day we're going to be caught up with him.

One day faith will become sight and one day we're going to dwell forever. Now crisis may be a chapter, but God's presence can be the final chapter. And we stand to our feet. Sweet Jesus, I love you and I feel your presence. I thank you for all the promises that fill your word. I thank you that you found a prophet named Joel and he began de to declare all the things that you desired for us. that you desired us for us to turn and and walk away from the things that would be uh displeasing to you, the things that would separate us from you.

I thank you, God, that you didn't just leave us in devastation, even though you can use it as a tool, that you won't leave us there as long as we return to you. And Jesus, I pray God that we would recognize the things that you've restored in our life and know in faith and stand on hope and belief that you are going to continue fulfilling the promise of restoration. The things and the situations and the circumstances that seem lost and broken and empty. God, you're not going to leave them that way.

As long as we put them in your hands, we recognize you. Our dependence is on you and we need you, God. And I thank you for filling us with your spirit. I thank you, God, that we can receive and and experience an earnest of what we will experience when we tread down streets of gold. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for your promises. And Lord, if I may be so bold, even so, come quickly, Jesus. Come quickly, Lord, because your people long to see you.

In the name of Jesus, I pray Lord that you would bless this congregation with peace the rest of the week, God. That they would be ke kept safe as they travel and bring us back on Sunday to experience more of your promises in Jesus name.