Joel

What's going on, Port City family and friends?

My name is Tanner. I am one of the pastors here at

Port City. And if you're listening this

right now, chances are it's because of the snow in the 757

or maybe you're listening to it at another time.

But this is a great time to remind us all that church is

more than content and worship music, although we love those

things. The church is a people that

gathers as God's people. God created us to be His

children who gathered together to hear from him and then to be

scattered out during the week on mission together.

I know many Christians who still just kind of do the Bible, Jesus

worship music thing and occasionally attend the Bible

study. And if that's you, we just want

to invite you to join us. God wants you to belong to a

family where when you don't show up, somebody notices.

He wants you to be a part of a mission that's bigger than

yourself. That's why we take membership

and the mission seriously here at Port City.

I hope today's teaching is a blessing, but may we all be

reminded that we miss something when we're unable to gather

together. So let's pray over today's

teaching from the book of Joel, and we'll dive in.

Father, use this time. Thank you for your word.

God, what we know not right now would you teach us.

What we have not would you give us, and what we are not, would

you make us? And let the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, our

rock and our Redeemer. Everybody who agree with that

said Amen. Chicken Little came out in 2005

and is one of the few Disney movies that slipped through the

cracks of my adolescence. I probably thought I was too

cool for Chicken Little in 2005 anyways, which is silly of me

because it's a good movie. In the movie, the main character

is a little chicken who becomes known for thinking something big

is about to happen. Early in the film, something

hits him on the head. Chicken Little insists it wasn't

just anything. He says it was blue and shaped

like a stop sign, but he can't find it.

His dad picks up an acorn and says this is what hit you.

And that explanation becomes the story everyone believes.

Chicken Little is mock dismissed and his credibility is gone.

But later in the movie, something really does fall from

the sky again. Chicken Little finds that same

blue stop sign shaped piece and realizes he was right all along.

The future had already broken into the present, but no one was

ready to believe it. And from that moment on, Chicken

Little is uniquely positioned to be the hero.

What Chicka Little understood is that when the future pops into

the present, you start living in that future as if it's already

here because by it breaking in, in a sense, it is here.

Today we dive into the book of Joel and explore a topic known

as the Day of the Lord. At a base level, the intention

of the Day of the Lord is to get our attention by bringing the

future into the present. Although there are layers to the

Day of the Lord, and much of it is encouraging, it's also going

to be talking about a day of decisive judgment.

And that's something we can be allergic to in our cultural

moment. But if we let God's timeless

Word speak to us in this moment, we will see that the Day of the

Lord fits within a larger story, and that deep down we want this

to be true. As hard as some of the

implications are, we want things made right by a judge we can

actually trust. My hope for us today is that we

will all leave living like Chicken Little.

Not panic, but awake as if the day of the Lord is already upon

us because y'all in Jesus, the day of the Lord has already

begun to get there. We're going to have two points

about the Day of the Lord. First, we're going to understand

the day of the Lord, and second, we're going to respond to it.

If you're ready, wherever you're listening to this, say out loud,

I'm ready. Point #1 Understand the day of

the Lord. There are three angles on the

Day of the Lord. We need to wrap our minds around

1st. The day of the Lord is about

judgement. I'm going to read chapter 2

verses one through 3. Blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an

alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the

land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.

It is near a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick

darkness like blackness. There is spread upon the

mountains of great and powerful people there like has never been

before, nor will be again after them through the years of all

generations. The fire devours before them,

and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of

Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and

nothing escapes them. The minor prophets use a lot of

poetic language and images to highlight themes like judgement.

And remember, we're supposed to read the prophetic books next to

the historical books. So the historical books, King's

Chronicles, that's like what's going down.

And then the prophetic books are God's way of commentating on the

corruption he sees in his people, nations.

It's him kind of pulling back the curtain and saying how he

really feels about it. And Joel's primary contribution

from the Lord through history to his people, to the church now is

around this imagery of the day of the Lord.

The day of the Lord is a day where God's judgement occurs.

To get a visual of what a locust plague looks like, you can

actually check this out in the the Netflix series Our Planet 2.

The first episode there's like this locust plague that, you

know, just travels around some, some African countries, Middle

Eastern countries and and European ones.

And it's just staggering to watch 50 to 200 billion locusts

moving from country to country, eating everything in their path.

That locust plague is the imagery that Joel chapter 1

Joel 1 · chapter mention

launches out with and then is assumed here in chapter 2.

That's the image of God's impending judgment that He drops

in our imagination as we read Joel.

Joel kind of assumes we understand why judgment is

necessary. You see, the Bible teaches that

God created all things good and full of potential, but when

humanity was deceived by the serpent and fell into sin,

everything was cursed. At its core, sin is rebellion

against God, and its main side effect is brokenness.

Sin is rebellion that leads to brokenness.

Sin is at the root of all kinds of everyday problems, y'all like

domestic violence, workplace gossip, adultery, the lust for

power, among many other things. Once we see how pervasive sin is

and its effects are, how pervasive God's judgement will

be makes sense. Now the question is, who are the

recipients of that judgement? Looking here at Joel 21, we see

a a reference to Zion. Anytime you see Zion, that's

equivalent to Jerusalem. This is God's first recipient of

the judgement. As the capital city, Zion should

have been the epicenter of where God is most loved.

And what's interesting about Joel is that he didn't write his

book in such a way that you can pinpoint exactly when it was

written or what historical things were going on.

And scholars do their best, and I have a hunch of when I think

it was written, but it's not like during the reigns of these

kings, as many of the other prophetic books are.

And that's very intentional. The purpose of it is so that the

people of God, at any time in their existence, can pick up

Joel and take it seriously. We can get an image of what it

looks like, of what God's saying to us.

And we can recognize that the day of the Lord starts with the

people of God. Judgement starts with the

household of God first. Peter 4 Now from the New

Testament, Peter says it like this chapter 4 verse 17 for it

is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.

And if it begins with us, what would be the outcome for those

who do not obey the gospel of God.

You know, the the people of God were and are supposed to be the

most aligned with reality, exemplifying who God is to our

neighbor in our cities, loving people the way God loves us.

And it is our failure to be that and fulfill that vocation that

leads to judgment starting with us.

But that's not where it stops. Chapter 3, verses 11 and 12 say

this. Hasten and come, all you

surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there.

Bring down your warriors. O Lord, let the nations stir

themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there

I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

In addition to serving to wake up His people.

The day of the Lord is a day where the nations will be judged

as well. The Valley of Jehoshaphat is not

an actual location. It means the Valley of Decision.

Friends, God is the ultimate judge who decides.

He is the one with all authority.

Authority has that word author in it.

This is God's story He's writing, not ours.

Our culture used to assume a biblical story about where we

came from and destinations like heaven and hell.

We've developed an allergy to those concepts in a little bit.

I get it. Years of TV preachers or church

corruption or grandma who didn't articulate this well could put a

bad taste in our mouths. You know, I really do get it if

that's you today. And there's just a bit of an

allergy to like decision day and and you know, God judging and,

and let me just ask you this. Don't you want somebody good and

trustworthy to decisively make all things right one day?

Don't you long for all injustices to be undone, for all

evil to be absorbed and defeated?

I'll long for that too. God will start with His own

people, but He will be the judge of all people.

He's the ultimate final word and authority.

He gets to make those calls. Heaven is real.

Hell is real. Just because this is hard

doesn't mean we should ignore it.

In fact, we should listen a little harder.

At the center of all reality all is Godfather, Son, Spirit.

He made you in his image. He's the ultimate father and at

the end of days he will be the final decider not of who is good

and bad. Listen to this.

Y'all check in. If you checked out, check in.

Hey, He will be the final decider not of who is good and

bad, but of who knows him and who doesn't.

You see, ultimately the day of the Lord is relational.

The nations reject God. The next thing about the day of

the Lord we need to see, y'all, is that the day of the Lord is

about the Spirit. In chapter 2, verses 28 to 32,

some really famous verses about the day of the Lord, how it

relates to the Spirit of God are fleshed out.

Let's check it out. And it shall come to pass

afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, Your old men

shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions even

on the male and female servants. In those days I will pour out my

spirit, and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth,

blood and fire and columns of smoke.

The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood

before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name

of the Lord shall be saved. The day of the Lord leads to His

spirit being poured out on all flesh.

Somebody say all flesh y'all? In our era of radical

individualism, what can be lost is that for thousands of years

in most societies things ran through kings and priests and

positions of power, and even biblically the concept of

anointing and God's presence being with you was uniquely

relegated to positions. All of the people were in a

covenant relationship with God, but they were not anointed with

the Spirit of God all in the same way.

So the day of the Lord points to a day when all people would

become recipients of the Spirit directly and then would

prophecy. A day where hierarchy and

mediated access are gone. Instant access to a personal

intimate relationship and empowerment from God himself.

And here's what's so unique about what the New Testament

adds to this conversation. In Acts chapter 2, Peter is

Acts 2 · chapter mention

delivering the first sermon after Jesus leaves the earth and

the the Spirit of God falls on those disciples and then he

preaches and in that sermon he quotes right here from Joel

Joel 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. What Peter was saying is that

the day of the Lord had happened like right there in their midst.

Even as I say that that kind of rubs a little bit.

Everything we were just talking about this decisive day in

judgement, all this stuff. I thought the day of the Lord

was a decisive day of judgement at the end for the people of God

in the nations. Well, it is somehow it's also a

day where the Spirit of God will be poured out on all flesh and

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Here's what we've got to, here's what we've got to grab.

To really understand this, to really understand the Bible's

view of the day of the Lord, you need a dual lens of its

fulfillment, a short term fulfillment lens and a

background lens that that sense of like kind of when you're

pulling up on the mountains, right?

Like you see some mountains in front of you and you see some

way off, and there's this dual fulfillment of the day of the

Lord, and it's partially been fulfilled.

When Jesus came, He died, He rose, He ascended and sent the

Spirit. But the day of the Lord will

fully be realized on that last decisive day we've been talking

about. Let me show you one more angle

on the day of the Lord, and hopefully these things start to

tie together for you. Third, the day of the Lord is

about dwelling. Look with me at how the book

ends in chapter 3 starting verse 17.

So you shall know that I am the Lord your God who dwells in

Zion. My holy mountain and Jerusalem

shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through

it. And in that day the mountains

shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk.

And all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water, and a

fountain shall come forth from the House of the Lord and water.

The valley of Shatim. Egypt shall become a desolation

and Edom a desolate wilderness for the violence done to the

people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in

their land. But Judah shall be inhabited

forever in Jerusalem to all generations.

I will avenge their blood. Blood I have not avenged, for

the Lord dwells in Zion. Twice in the text we read that

God dwells in Zion. God wants to dwell with people

who want him to dwell with them. Some of us, much like myself at

18 years old, have no category for a God who dwells.

God wants to dwell. God wants to live with me, with

people. When we first hear the day of

the Lord, we think of arbitrary judgment.

But you all, the point of it all is that God might live with

people who want to live with him.

And somehow the bridge between those two, between the dwelling

and the judgment, was the the peace about the Spirit being

poured out. So the day of the Lord will be

scary. At some level we should fear

God. He's God almighty.

He's the decisive judge and author, but for those who dwells

with His power is their comfort. The same God who is decisively

judging some and removing them from His presence will be the

one who is a refuge to others. He will dwell with some.

In hell, all we get is God's wrath and judgment in the

absence of His mercy. In heaven, we get relational

access to all of His love as we dwell with Him.

Friend, God's passion for you is that He might live with you now

and forever. Sometimes we just will not

listen. Unless he's intense, we are

going to die, but His goal is to live with us.

Which leads us y'all to talking about responding to the day of

the Lord. Point #2 respond to the day of

the Lord. Y'all, this day of the Lord

requires a response. If we think back to Chicken

Little, shout out to you Chicken Little, what happened in the

moment the piece of the sky fell is that he took it seriously and

ran with the implications. If the sky is falling, we can't

just keep doing what we're doing.

One way to think about that is that Chicken Little was more

sober minded than his peers. To be sober means to see things

accurately as they are, to not be intoxicated with something

that distorts reality as it really is.

But so often, unlike Chicken Little, we hear things that

should change us and they don't. This shows that we aren't sober.

God is like the kindest friend trying to sober us up.

What we are most drunk on y'all, is sin.

What sin does is it gives us a personalized cocktail that makes

us think we are our own God and we will live forever.

In our secular moment. We are drunk on energy,

language, and the universe. We're swimming in relativism.

But friends, the day of the Lord as described by Joel and taken

further in Revelation, particularly chapter 6 and 14,

tells us that on the decisive day, people will want to ask

mountains to fall on top of them.

Hide me under a mountain because the wrath of God and the Lamb is

about to be poured out. I have to confess that as a

minister of the gospel, I don't lead with God's wrath often

enough. Probably if you're a believer,

maybe you're like me in the caricature of the fire and

brimstone type. Old school preacher has made us

ashamed of this doctrine. We should learn from the

prophets that we don't have to scream, we just have to be

serious. We don't have to be jerks, but

we are God's realists. The apostles used to say save

yourselves from this crooked generation.

And here's the truth y'all, our generation is also a crooked

generation. We don't got to scream to say

that. But the truth is we won't live

forever. There is no energy out there

governing all things, only God. Truth is objective.

Jesus is real. This is not the white man's

religion. Open mindedness can't save

anybody. The world normalizes and

gamifies sin. This is God's story he's

writing. Every single breath we take

belongs to him. We are sinners.

We have used our agency as free human beings to ignore and

reject God and create a world of our own making.

His patience and mercy and love is so in our face if we would

but open our eyes. And here's the good news of the

Bible, y'all. The main way God opens your eyes

is not actually through trying to scare you.

It's not to threaten you with judgement if you don't become a

good person, which might be what your flesh has heard in this

message so far. Something's coming.

You better be good. That's really not how God rolls.

What will really change us, friends, isn't if we just dread

the ultimate day of the Lord that is to come check this

y'all. What will change us is if we

seriously consider the day of the Lord that has already

happened to Jesus. What will change your life is if

we really see the cross of Jesus Christ, which is the key to all

of this. You see in Jesus two things

happen simultaneously that otherwise would have been

possible to wed together. First, on the cross our sin is

taken seriously. If sin is so bad it evokes

locust plague imagery of devastation to be dealt with, we

need a solution that absolves sin at that level, plague level,

but also at the cross. God's love for us is genuine.

God wants to dwell with us. So somehow, you know, locust

level devastation has to be dealt with and God wants to

dwell with us and those two seem to not be able to go together.

If it's that bad and we're that bad, why would God want to dwell

with us? Y'all?

God came up with a plan where he wouldn't just swipe sin under

the rug and call it off like brokenness isn't a big deal.

And he also came up with a plan where he is able to genuinely

shower us who are still so broken and sinful, with his love

and mercy, His grace, The good news of the Bible, y'all.

And if you've been checked out, now's the time to check in.

Is not that God gives us the road map to avoid hell.

No, if everybody's going to get what they deserve, we all get

hell because all of us deserve hell.

None should be in Zion with God. If he's coming to dwell with me

and I don't have Jesus put the hills on top of me.

Now let's hide. I mean, this is God we're

talking about. He's holy.

He commands lightning. He created the sun, which I

can't even look at from like millions of miles away.

You know what I mean? But God had a plan y'all.

He had a plan. He had a plan to get us back.

His plan was to send the sun full of the Spirit to live as a

man, yet without sin. Jesus lived like us, yet he

didn't sin or doom scroll or watch Netflix 24/7.

He lived perfectly in our place, loving his neighbor, seeking the

welfare of his city, giving his life away for others so that at

the end of his life, when he died and was resurrected and

ascended, his life can count for ours when we put our trust in

Him. Don't you see today, my friend,

the reason God can relent from the disaster you and I deserve

is because He brought that disaster on His Son who didn't

deserve it. He takes the judgment we

rightfully deserve. We get the dwelling with God he

rightly deserves. Don't you see we trade places,

He takes our judgement, we get His dwelling.

He takes our death, we get his dwelling.

That's the good news of the gospel.

That's what we have the opportunity to walk in.

To be in God's good graces isn't through your actions, is through

what Jesus Christ has done on your behalf.

The one who lived full of the Spirit, the true human life, He

has already taken upon himself the judgement.

The day of the Lord is filling up.

Once we see that the day of the Lord has already come in Jesus

and the Spirit of God is available to us, it changes

everything. If we do follow Jesus, our lives

become full of neighbor love in seeking the welfare of the city.

Things like what the church that Thessalonica was struggling with

some of y'all Christians. I challenge you to go read First

Thessalonians. Y'all they were struggling with

laziness, idleness and that just becomes unthinkable.

They're like, yo go to work, love people, help people.

In our context, the normal just American lifestyle of just Uber

doom scroll and watching hundreds of hours of TV just

becomes unthinkable. We, we stop also being scared of

the big bad world, you know, and thinking we need to retreat or

get away or whatever. We also stop being those

Christians who blame everything on the church.

You know we we become those who jump in with the church,

although it is imperfect and we live on mission for the good of

cities and people and for the non Christian, God wants to

change everything for you too. If you see Jesus on the cross

taking your judgment so you can have his dwelling, it changes

everything. It makes you want to call on the

name of the Lord, makes you want to dwell with him, makes you

want to call on his name. What I want to do with the end

of our time here today, Y'all, is I want to read from Romans

10, which quotes the book of Joel, this idea of calling on

the name of the Lord. And y'all, I want to give you an

opportunity. If God is drawing you right now,

if you are not a believer and it's a snow day or some other

time, you're listening to this. God has drawn you to himself,

man, for real. And I believe maybe you're going

to call on the name of the Lord for the first time.

And I want to just walk you through what that could look

like. But first, let's start with

Romans 10. That's where that's the road map

for what we're talking about. Romans 10 verses 9 through 13

Romans 10:9–13

say this. Because if you confess with your

mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God

raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the

mouth 1 confesses and is saved. For the scripture says everyone

who believes in him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all

who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the

name of the Lord will be saved right now where you're seated.

If you don't know Jesus, this text gives you the path.

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in

your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be

saved. For everyone who calls on the

name of the Lord will be saved. Friend, the day of the Lord is

coming in fullness one day where judgment will occur.

Jesus has already partially brought the day of the Lord by

dying in the place of sinners like you and me.

If you will call on His name, the Spirit of God will apply the

saving work of Jesus to your heart.

The work is Jesus's yo, not yours.

He did it, we just receive it. He's the champion.

We just turn from our sin. We agree with him, we submit to

Him, we fall down before Him. We confess with our mouth.

We believe in our heart that guy raised him from the dead.

We confess Jesus is Lord, we turn, we call on his name.

So what I want to do is I want to lead you in a little prayer

here. And if you're going to be

putting your trust in Jesus for the first time, the second

you're done here today. What I want you to do is text

somebody at Port City, you know, and tell them you think you just

called on the name of the Lord, You think you're a Christian,

you want to talk to him about it.

Another way you can do that is you can go on our website, go to

church center, next steps, fill out a baptism conversation form

or you do both those steps, text somebody and fill out that form.

So what I want to do is I want to pray.

And y'all, your confidence isn't in the words.

I'm praying that you're copying me.

I'm just going to talk to God with you in mind right now and

try to let you and God have this conversation.

Maybe even when this this when, when this podcast is over.

But pray with me. Let's pray.

Father, just thinking about your church first.

Would you build up your church? We need to be sober minded God.

We need you to sober us to give us soft hearts.

We would rend our hearts on our garments.

God that we would be spirit filled as we live with you

awaiting the final day of the Lord.

God, please activate the good works you have in mind for your

church. God help us to love the mess out

of Norfolk and our neighbors. Wake us up from our American

slumber. Forgive us for how lackadaisical

we are. Forgive us for our being ashamed

of judgment in hell sometimes may we be just good witnesses to

the truth of your word. Would you save some of our

friends? Would you just by your spirit

convict our city and sober our city and God Now I do want to

pray thinking of those who might be putting their trust in in you

for the very first time and God, I want to give them some words

and and you know my heart in this God.

Their confidence can't be and what I'm about to say, but God,

I pray this would be a road map for them to just come to you.

Lord, may this remove just obstacles of maybe it needs to

be magical. God, would you just meet them?

Would you give them a heart of faith, pull out their heart of

stone, give them a heart of flesh?

So God, maybe they pray something like this.

Father, I've sinned. I admit that I was created to

know you, to love you, and to serve you.

I have not done that. I have loved sin more than you.

I thought I could run the show better than you.

I admit that I need to be saved. I believe that you sent your son

Jesus to save me from my sins. Believe that He died in my

place. I believe that He is the risen

and reigning King of the world right now.

He is alive. He died on the cross for me.

I believe that he sent the Spirit to dwell on earth with

your people. I confess that He is Lord.

I ask you to save me and fill me with the Holy Spirit.

Dwell with me God. I turn for my sin and I trust in

you. I love you and I pray these

things in Jesus name, Amen. If you just pray that prayer, I

encourage you to reach out to somebody at Port City, you know,

fill out that form. Hey y'all, may we all live with

King Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit until the final day of

the Lord. Grace and peace to you.

Hope to see you soon. Salute.