Shamelessly Rejoice in the Lord: Joel 2:18-27 (Sermon)
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It is great to be with you. Thank you Worship Team.
QUESTION
This morning, I have a question for us: “What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?” [PAUSE] I hate that question. People always have funny stories. Mine are... well… embarrassing. They still make me blush. I won’t tell you all of them.
In sixth grade, I called my teacher, Mrs. Lofler, “Mom.”
One Sunday morning, I got to sit in the studio for a Christian radio program. The disc jockey asked me something off the cuff. Trying to be funny, I said something that didn’t make sense, and we both knew it. He commented on it. I was mortified. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear forever.
Once, I recall asking a woman at the grocery store how far along she was, not knowing if she was pregnant. (Only after I had said this did I think, what if she already had the baby, or worse, she was not pregnant?)
Has this ever happened to you? Something upsets you. So, you write a response in email or text. Then, you think to yourself, “You know, I am pretty furious right now. I had better sit on that and not send it.” So you close out the email or text, but you accidentally send it? I have.
Recently, I drove too fast for the conditions and got in a car accident. I was so mad at myself.
The list of embarrassing things I have done goes on. I don’t want to obliterate my credibility before we begin totally. I am a work in progress. If you can relate, you are not alone.
COLLEGE
One of my college professors shared a hilarious story about his second most embarrassing moment in one of our chapel services. I can’t do his story justice, nor is it appropriate for our time. His story had us belly laughing, and he followed that up with his most embarrassing story.
I believe he began with a confession. He confessed that he had done so many wrong things, thought so many dirty thoughts, and said so many inappropriate words that two thousand years ago, the Creator of the Universe sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for him. That was his most embarrassing moment.
For some reason, we forget, or I forget, how bad sin is. My professor had us consider the cost of
giving up a child for an enemy,
sacrificing the most valuable relationship or possessions for a fiend,
undergoing the most excruciating torture for the benefit of traitors.
That is what God did in sending Jesus to die on our behalf.
How embarrassing.
How do we go on after looking in the mirror in such moments? How do we work through guilt and shame? In some cases, we are talking about mistakes. Those happen. We are not perfect. We have to get over not being perfect. We are not talking about sin but simple mess-ups. We can be thinking of a feeling. This is more than that.
Our passage this morning uses the word shame. This shame relates to humiliation. How was Israel shamed? They experienced plague, drought, and fire. These natural disasters were a result of supernatural punishment for sins. Israel was in a place of humiliation. It was like God was the teacher putting them in the corner for punishment. They were an example for everyone of what not to do. They were suffering for their mistakes. Maybe the phrase “Shame on you!” would fit. How do we deal with guilt and shame related to our sins? The world offers lots of solutions for shame.
You can drown your sorrows in alcohol or try to smoke them away.
Some will outright psychologize it.
People can try to punish themselves for it.
Many stay busy so they don’t have to think about it.
Others do good things to try to feel better about it.
Some try to disappear because of it.
How does God want us to deal with shame? In Joel, we see he wants us to go to him. He promises to remove it and calls his people to worship and rejoice in him. Let’s see this in our text. We will be continuing our series in Joel’s book.
CONTEXT
Joel was a prophet from some 2,500 years ago. He wrote to the people of Israel after they returned from Exile. Locusts had come or were arriving and going to destroy everything. After that came a drought, and after that, fire. This was the judgment of God on the people’s sins that I had talked about. In chapter 2, we see that some people have “deconstructed” their faith to use a modern expression. They were, in a way, living far from God. God wanted them to return. He sent calamity to get their attention. He called them to weep, wail, and lament. Joel modeled and instructed the people what that should be like. And in chapter 12 of chapter 2, we hear God speak directly to his people. He called them to return to their faith. Joel reminded them of God’s character and the potential of his relenting from the disaster he was bringing. Would he? Today, we will find the answer.
SCRIPTURE
I will have Y.B. come up here and read the Scripture for us. We are reading Joel chapter 2, verses 18 through 27. Please stand with me if you are able.
TEXT
18 Then the LORD became jealous for his land
and had pity on his people.
19 The LORD answered and said to his people,
“Behold, I am sending to you
grain, wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
a reproach among the nations.
20 “I will remove the northerner far from you,
and drive him into a parched and desolate land,
his vanguard into the eastern sea,
and his rear guard into the western sea;
the stench and foul smell of him will rise,
for he has done great things.
21 “Fear not, O land;
be glad and rejoice,
for the LORD has done great things!
22 Fear not, you beasts of the field,
for the pastures of the wilderness are green;
the tree bears its fruit;
the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
23 “Be glad, O children of Zion,
and rejoice in the LORD your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.
24 “The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
26 “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame. (Joel 2:18–27, ESV)
PRAYER
This is the Word of the Lord. [Thanks be to God.] Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, be with us now as we dive into your Word. We need your help to understand it. We come to worship
with distractions, focus us;
with depression, comfort us;
with frustrations, calm us;
with shame; lift us out.
Please help us to be shamelessly grateful and joyful in you and for you. We need your help. In Jesus’s name, we pray, Amen. You may be seated.
STRUCTURE
The passage has four sections:
18 God’s Disposition,
19-20 God’s Restoration
21-24 God’s Direction
25-27 God’s Benediction
We will walk through the passage, verse by verse.
MAIN IDEA
The point is in the sentence:
“When God restores the shameful, rejoice for God is visible.”
God wants his people to Rejoice Shamelessly in Him. Let me show you why I say that.
God’s Disposition
God’s Disposition
This first section is about God’s disposition toward his people. If you have a Bible, look at verse 18. (I will also have the words on the screen behind me.)
“Then the LORD became jealous for his land
and had pity on his people” (Joel 2:18, ESV).
God is a jealous God. Isn’t jealousy bad? God wants us to be grateful in all things. Yet, Joel tells us that God became jealous. Are we sure we have the right word? Yeah. I am sure. Let’s take a moment to ponder jealousy. When would jealousy be good? [PAUSE]
LOVER
I was listening to the Moth Radio Hour this week. An eighteen-year-old told the story of dropping out of college, moving to Seattle, working at a bank, and finding a boyfriend. She didn’t know anyone else. One day, she met another friend. She helped her get a job, and the three became buddies. After a while, her girlfriend asked to meet with her to talk about something serious. What was it about? Was she moving, sick, or worse? She confessed to stealing her boyfriend. The storyteller was livid. She left their meeting to confront her boyfriend directly. At first, he pretended he didn’t know what she was talking about, but then he confessed. She was jealous of his affection, and rightly so.
REACTION
I found her reaction curious because she didn’t seem to be a person of faith. Innately, she had a sense of right and wrong. Her friend did, too (after the fact). The boyfriend probably knew what he did was wrong because of his desire to hide the fact, or it might have just been his girlfriend’s fury. Unlike most animals, God has made us for monogamous relationships. God created us for a singular love, between one man and one woman for life. To go against this can incur righteous anger and appropriate jealousy. That is how God built us. He made us in his image or likeness. And this story illustrates how jealousy can be right, good, and appropriate. That is the kind of jealousy God has for his people, name, and land. He is jealous of our devotion. Why would Joel feel like he needed to say this? Other parts of the Bible tell us that Israel often would worship other gods. God’s people tended to combine, mix, and match religions. God wants 100% allegiance, not some polyamorous hybridization.
PITY
Verse 18 tells us that God is compassionate. He pitied his people. In verse 13 last week, we read: “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13, ESV). I was talking with a friend this week who believes that the God of the Old Testament is more of a tyrant than the God of the New. That is not what we see. We see a protective, good God in the Old Testament. His disposition is kind. God never changes. His Word is perfect, and he inspired it. In the Bible, we discover he is jealous of our worship and compassionate toward the humble.
19-20 God’s Restoration
God’s Restoration
We come to the second part of these verses, God’s Restoration. We learn about his disposition in verse 18. But in verses 19 and 20, we see how his disposition plays out. Jump to verse 19.
19 The LORD answered and said to his people,
“Behold, I am sending to you
grain, wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
a reproach among the nations.
20 “I will remove the northerner far from you,
and drive him into a parched and desolate land,
his vanguard into the eastern sea,
and his rear guard into the western sea;
the stench and foul smell of him will rise,
for he has done great things. (Joel 2:19–20, ESV)
SPEAKS
This is the second time God answered his people in Joel. Last week, we heard him utter his voice in verse 12. Now, God speaks up, and Joel fades into the background. The audience plays a supporting role. God is living, not silent. He is personal. He is not too busy for his people. Time and space do not limit God. He is jealous, compassionate, and powerful.
MESSAGE
In verse 19, God will send grain, wine, and oil. How? Think about the fire, drought, and plague that made God’s people starve earlier in Joel. How did God’s people get grain? How did they get wine? How did they get oil? We can buy it at Barney’s down the street. But for God’s people, they didn’t have grocery stores. They had to grow it, make it, or import it. For them to have domestic produce, time had to pass. The fruit had to mature. Then, it has to be harvested and processed. This blessing, in triplicate, represents the totality and extent of God’s restoration. The satisfaction is a result of power combined with his compassion. Together, these two qualities result in generosity. In verse 10 of chapter 1, we read that they lost their grain, wine, and oil. Here, in chapter 2:19, as well as verses 22 and 24, we see they get it all back and then some. People will find satisfaction once again. God will satisfy his people. Why? Because he is compassionate, generous, and powerful. How could he do all that? He can control nature. How? He is all-powerful.
“When God restores the shameful, rejoice for God is visible.”
REPUTATION
Notice the word reproach in verse 19. God will take away the people’s reproach. What is a reproach? I don’t use that word. It means mockery, scorn, or disgrace. What comes to mind when you think of mockery? I think of memes, cartoons, the Onion, Babylon Bee, the Simpsons, and Saturday Night Live. The nations were mocking Israel. They were making fun of them. And it wasn’t funny. They were the butt of the joke. They were a disgrace.
FOREIGNER
In verse 20, we have an echo of the future. God will remove the invading force. Joel could be referring to locusts, the army, or any combination. It could be a point in time, but I believe it is layering the future events looking toward the culmination of human history. He had been talking about a literal swarm of locusts. The locusts typically came from the south. Joel mentioned this force came from the north. Was he talking about an army? Assyrians, Babylonians, the Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans came from the north and conquered Israel at different times. This book has layers. It is like a mapping app where you can pull up the terrain or street view. At times, it zooms in; other times, it is a bigger picture. I believe that is why the verb tenses change so much. God had been talking of the Day of the Lord. Now, he is talking about a day of restoration. Israel’s restoration means a judgment on the punishing force. God will drive the enemies away. And after that comes rot. And after rot comes a stench. One commentator I read wrote.
Many observers have also noted the stench from the putrefaction of the millions of locust bodies when a swarm dies. Contaminants from this decay easily entered water supplies, so that pestilence and disease epidemics came also to be associated with locust outbreaks in antiquity. In The City of God (3.31), Augustine remarks that when Africa was a Roman province it was attacked by an immense number of locusts. Having eaten everything, leaves and fruits, a huge and formidable swarm of them were drowned in the sea. Thrown up dead upon the coast, the putrefaction of these insects so infected the air as to cause a pestilence so horrible that in the Kingdom of Masinissa alone 800,000 and more are said to have perished. Of 30,000 soldiers in Utique, only 10,000 remained.
The bodies of drowned locusts have on a number of occasions been observed piled three to four feet high on the coasts around the Red Sea (Baron, Desert Locust, p. 4). A similar stench has been noted on many battlefields. (Raymond Bryan Dillard, “Joel,” in The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary, ed. Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 287.)
So, bugs stink, and rotting humans stink. God may be talking about both. God has the power to bring cataclysmic forces to bear. He can destroy with a destroyer and then destroy the destroyer. God is jealous, compassionate, and powerful.
21-24 God’s Direction
That brings us to the third section:
God’s Direction
Look at verses 21 through 24. Here, we see the only commands in our passage. In the past, God told the people to lament and return. Here, we read something else.
21 “Fear not, O land;
be glad and rejoice,
for the LORD has done great things!
22 Fear not, you beasts of the field,
for the pastures of the wilderness are green;
the tree bears its fruit;
the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
23 “Be glad, O children of Zion,
and rejoice in the LORD your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.
24 “The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. (Joel 2:21–24, ESV)
Our all-powerful God commanded fear to cease in the land and joy to replace it. How does the land stop fearing and start rejoicing? What does that look like? We can picture animals feeling. I have seen:
A playful dolphin,
A raging bull,
A friendly golden retriever,
An aloof cat,
And a flighty sparrow.
But the land? Is this like the rock people in Frozen or the Ents in the Lord of the Rings? What is this all about? Poetically, it tells us that God is abolishing fear in his land and filling it with deep, lasting joy. That is the goal. And for his people, he wants them to rejoice. Didn’t he want them to do the opposite: weep, wail, and lament? Yes. There is a time for grief and joy. God’s people suffered physical consequences because of their spiritual adultery. They had sinned. All of them were sinners, some more than others. God called infants, prophets, and residents to lament and seek the LORD. He is jealous of his people’s hearts. I believe the ambiguity of what they did wrong in Joel was intentional. God wants to turn the gaze of the reader to him. He wants us to focus on his identity and hear what he will do. In the uncertainty of what his people did wrong, we can connect with our experience of shame and the need for a proper relationship with God.
REPENTANCE
God is holy. That means he is pure, above us, and transcendent. In verse 27, it says there is no one like him. The Bible tells us that God has no competition from beginning to end. All the other gods are worthless. They are fake, fraudulent, empty imitations without divine power. God alone is the King of the Universe. The fact that God says this in Joel points again to their forgetting who God is.
OTHER GODS
I don’t think we in the south county or northwestern Indiana really struggle following Baal, Aphrodite, or some Norse god. However, we can make idols out of anything. We can treasure things so much that it consumes all our waking thoughts. We can fight each other over inheritance. We can nag our spouses or kids to manipulate them to do our bidding. We can jump into a room and seek to suck all the attention. We can talk in such a way, drop hints, to try to get some recognition. We can lie to make ourselves look better. We can spend money to find a bit of diversion from life’s monotony. Many things in life are good, but too much of it and it becomes demonic or enslaving.
RETURN
Joel called God’s people to grieve their old ways and turn to him. He wanted them to lament and repent. Repentance is a turning from sin to Savior. Could it be that there is a sin we need to turn from? Repent and find joy. What does God write here besides the command that might provoke joy? He lists who he is and what he has done. Not only did he promise to restore everything he took in verse 22, but he also promised they would overflow with provisions. Friends, let us not forget God’s blessings. The passage catalogs some of the things they experienced. What blessings has God given you? Think of all those blessings for a moment. Let’s pause. Take a moment to write down some answers from the past, and you look forward to the future. I will give us a moment. [PAUSE] Those are gifts from God. Let us shout them out to each other and God. [PAUSE] Friends, those are tokens of his love. Will you recognize them as such?
25-27 God’s Elimination
God’s Benediction
As we come to our final verses, we hear God’s Benediction. Benediction means blessing. God blessed his people. He restores what he has removed and desires, and they rejoice. The proper response is the right to worship. God promises the removal of shame. He banishes it forever:
“When God restores the shameful, rejoice for God is visible.”
Look at verse 25 and recognize the parallel between the first chapter and what the locusts were going to do:
25 I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
26 “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame. (Joel 2:18–27, ESV)
God will restore the years of loss. Look at verse 26. God says they are satisfied and praise him. Not only that, but God will remove their shame. He says that twice. We see this word dozens of times in the Old Testament. The psalms talk about it a lot. God’s people were full of shame because of their sins. He promises in verse 25 to remove it and restore what was lost. God does that for us, too. We don’t need to live in shame anymore. We don’t need to be embarrassed to come to church. God is jealous, compassionate, powerful, good, generous, and calls us to rejoice. When we confess our sins, he forgives our sins and purifies us from all unrighteousness. We remember this good news in the communion and will celebrate it in a moment. The result will be satisfaction, praise, God’s presence, knowledge of God, and joy. Joy was making a comeback. When we consider the wonderful works of God, our lips should be full of thanks. We want to be grateful. A way to say thanks is to praise.
VERESE 26 AND 27
On the last day, every last bit of shame will disappear. Before that time, we might feel guilty when we mess up. We don't need to be embarrassed by it if it is just a mistake. That is being human in a broken world. We can lament, repent, and go to God for mercy, forgiveness, and grace if it is a sin.
KNOW GOD
As I conclude, Joel 2:27 sandwiches the removal of shame with the visible presence of God. That is so incredible! Revelation 21 states,
21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:1–5 (ESV)
God came near earlier in Joel, and that was scary because they had not turned from sin. Once they did, his nearness was a comfort. Where are you with God today? Have you repented? Have you grieved your sin? God is jealous of your attention. He is compassionate. He is powerful and good. He wants to restore us to a proper relationship with him. He wants us to embrace a life of happiness in him. Psalm 34:7 states, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Delight yourself in God. Think of all he has done.
BENEVOLENT
Invite worship team up. One response to all the blessings of God is to give back to him our praise. He has blessed us so generously. Our blessings over flow. Each week, after our sermon at Converge we take an offering. We pass bags. The money is collected and counted. Some of us give online. The resources help keep the lights on, give us pastors the freedom to study God’s Word and meet with you. We also have a designated fun called Benevolence.
BENEVOLENCE
That fund is what we use to give out gift cards to people who need money for food or gas. It is what we use to help people pay their bills when they are down and out. When they are in a place of shame. We try to give them some dignity through your generosity. If you give cash, that is where the money will go on the first of the month. Or if you designated it to go to benevolence. We give about 30k a year away. I say that, not because we are hurting financially. In fact, we are doing well. I say that more as an explanation. So, as the ushers come forward, let’s pay for the rest of the service.
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