In His Steps 1

It Was My Sin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c3jgHcTiZ8

Psalm 143 NIV

A psalm of David. 1 Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. 2 Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. 3 The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in the darkness like those long dead. 4 So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. 5 I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. 6 I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land. 7 Answer me quickly, Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. 8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. 9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, for I hide myself in you. 10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. 11 For your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life; in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. 12 In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.

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The Steps to the Cross

Theodor Seuss Geisel—better known as Dr. Seuss—published over sixty books in his lifetime. Seuss filled his books with funny words, peculiar pictures, and lots of green-egged silliness. His final book—Oh, the Places You’ll Go—was different from all the others. This one was Dr. Seuss’ final farewell to his readers. This book was the culmination of Seuss’ wisdom and experience distilled into thirty-three stanzas.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go begins with hopeful words of congratulations. Readers hear that today is their day and that they are off to great places. With brains in their heads and shoes on their feet, the reader is told to embark on the journey of life. The story remains hopeful and light until the reader hears about a place where the streets are not marked and confusion abounds due to too many roads that can be chosen. Suddenly, this cheerful story has turned bleak: should you continue forward or turn right or left? Even if you choose to go right or left, which fork in that direction should you take? In this confusion and unknown, we find ourselves lost without knowing the way out.

At the deepest moment of confusion, we are told that we will escape...somehow. But how?! If you were reading Oh, the Places You’ll Go for actual advice on life, this would be an unsatisfactory answer. If you were reading this book and were actually lost in life, wanting to know the way out of this confusion hearing that you’ll escape somehow doesn’t do you much good.

This is the place we found the Kingdom of Judah when we left off last Wednesday. They have lived the good life. Things have been so good and prosperous enough that judgments from God had come and gone without too much notice. In fact, they have literally drank their way right through them. There decadent lifestyles and drinking had been confronted by more than one prophet. Prophets like Amos and Hosea convicted them for such behavior and now Joel calls them drunkards to their faces.

Now they confront a terrible plague of locusts. They have come in and destroyed all the crops and every living plant and tree across the land. We know from Joel’s description that the locusts have remained through all the harvests. In fact, for all we know, this could have been over years. Such is the case at times with locusts. We do not know exactly when this was or for how long it was, we just know that it was long enough to take out every crop they would plant in a year.

And what are the people doing? Some are in a drunken stupor of shock. What is worse, they no longer have any crops to produce more alcohol so they cannot escape the reality of it. Farmers are in a panic and do not know what to do. The priests, who were sustained by the sacrifices of the people are also hurting as there are no sacrifices to be brought to the Temple. There is no way any of them can ignore this judgement of God.

Into this situation we find Joel. He is a prophet of God. He knows God’s word. He has studied God’s word. We are not given many details about Joel other than what we can conclude from what he has written. He is a messenger to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and many believe he came during the time of King Joash. This would place him in the early 800 BCE, which is 200 years before Habakkuk. Yet, others point to the fact that he never names a king and that he appears to quote from many of the prophets, therefore they would place him after the return from exile.

Into whatever era he spoke is not so material. It does not change his message. This morning I am taking up from where we left off on Wednesday.

Joel 1:13–20 NIV

13 Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. 14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. 15 Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. 16 Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. 18 How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering. 19 To you, Lord, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. 20 Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

I. Darkness & Judgement (Joel 1)

I believe Joel was a man of action. I can identify with him. I can sit and listen to complaints for only so long and then I am ready to do something to bring change. In fact, usually as people are sitting talking about their frustrations, my mind is already working on a plan to alleviate the problem.

However, there are some problems that are beyond our ability to do something about. There are many inequities in our world that are frustrating to me because I cannot do anything about them. I may have ideas how to bring change, but I do not have the public forum, nor the call from God directing me to do so.

The people of the kingdom of Judah were in despair as they felt there was nothing they could do to fix their problem of locusts. However, there was something they could do. They either were ignorant of the way, or unwilling to do acknowledge it.

In steps Joel. He had a handle on the true nature of the problem and exactly what was needed to rectify the situation. You see, the ones who should have spoken up and taken action were the priests, but they were in as bad a state as the rest.

Joel 1:9 NIV

9 Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord.

Now...

A. Joel recognizes the true problem is a spiritual problem. Deut 28:15-68

Joel had studied the historical writings of Israel. He knew God’s covenant laws and promises. He kn ew that God had made it clear that this would happen if the people did not obey His laws and failed to keep the covenant they had agreed to between them and God. Here is a portion of what God had said.

Deuteronomy 28:20 NIV

20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.

If that were not enough, God gave a very detailed list that included but was not limited to “locusts” and “droughts.”

Deuteronomy 28:23–24 NIV

23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

Deuteronomy 28:42 NIV

42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

You see, not only did the locusts invade the land during Joel’s day, but by the end of chapter 1 we find a drought has ensued leaving the animals panting. Between the drought and locusts, the land lay with brittle kindling that was easily put to flame causing even further destruction. Some believe these were made worse by Judah’s enemies. They say that her enemies saw her weakened state and took advantage by increasing it through damming up water supplies and laying fire to her lands.

It is certainly possible as God also declared He would make her weak before her enemies.

Deuteronomy 28:25 NIV

25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.

So, how do you fix this kind of problem? Once again, Joel knew exactly what Judah needed to do. Being the man of action, he spoke up, speaking first to those who were the ones that were supposed to know what to do and calling them to take action.

1. Joel calls for the priests to intercede on the people’s behalf. Joel 1:13

Joel 1:13 NIV

13 Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

It is sad that someone had to call the priests to do this. It was their job to begin with. They should have recognized the problem and called for the people to repent. They should have been praying for the people. But they had not. Joel now calls for them to do so, and to do so day and night! That is how bad things have become.

Next,

2. Joel calls for a sacred assembly to fast and pray to God. (Joel 1:14)

Joel 1:14 NIV

14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

Keep in mind that these are not new measures. These were well known steps for the people of Israel when they had lost their way and strayed from God’s direction. They should have known to do these things. However, they had fallen into such darkness due to their sin, that it took Joel to awaken them to the truth.

Joel considers this a bad day, but he warns them of a coming day that will be worse He calls it a “day of the Lord.” This term is used for actions of God taken in judgement. This term can be used for past, present, or future actions on God’s part, but they are always acts of righteous judgement. There is only one way to stop this kind of action.

3. Repentance is required!

The locusts and drought were conditions of unrepentant hearts that were focused on their own personal desires. Joel knows the only way to stop the calamities taking place, was for the people to confess their sin and repent before the Lord. Joel leads the way by beginning the prayer.

One quick side note here. Have you ever noticed how all creation suffers because of our sin? The earth is scorched. The cattle groan. The sheep suffer. The wild animals pant. Because of Judah’s sin, the earth and animals around them suffer. It reminds me of how the first animals were sacrificed to provide both clothing and sin sacrifices for Adam and Eve.

God gifted us this earth and its creatures. When we sin, they all suffer!

When we read these passages, we are reminded of how dark and destructive is sin. It also reminds us of our own failings. No matter how hard we try to do right, we still seem to fail.

Where does that leave us? We are right back at the beginning of this message. Oh, the Places You’ll Go, has not brought us to a very fulfilling spot. It has lead us into a mass of confusion and frustration. According to the book, we will escape…somehow.

That “somehow” is not much of an answer. It really gets us nowhere. Unfortunately, that is the answer most people believe in. They just keep moving through life hoping that someway, somehow, they will land in the right place.

However, there is another book that gives us the direction. It moves us from the darkness demonstrated in Joel to...

II. Light & Salvation (John 14:1-6)

This book is of course, the Bible. God’s life map given to help us. If Judah had been faithful to follow the directions God have given them, they would never have found themselves in such a disastrous place. Thankfully they had Joel to remind them and point them back to it because Joel understood that the situation could be fixed and reversed.

In the Bible we read about another man who really wanted to understand and know the right directions to get to where he wanted to go. His name was Thomas. He is often given a bad rap for doubting Jesus, but the truth is that he was very sincere and wanted to make sure he was following the right person to the right place.

One day, Jesus was telling His disciples about where He was going. Jesus said, (John 14:1-4)

John 14:1–4 MSG

1 “Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. 2 There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? 3 And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. 4 And you already know the road I’m taking.”

These words of Jesus left Thomas confused, so he asked Jesus for clarification: (John 14:5)

John 14:5 MSG

5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”

It is easy to remember Thomas as just a doubter due to his reluctance to believe in the risen Jesus until he literally touched Jesus’ wounds. Yet, Thomas had some very commendable characteristics such as we see here. Thomas wanted to be sure he was taking the right road. He was a detail-oriented person who didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So, he was asking Jesus to lay out the step-by-step path that would lead him to be with Jesus, whom he truly desired to follow. In our world, there are so many false teachers that such actions are not bad. We do need to question and test to make sure we are following the right path. Thomas was wise to ask for clarification. And because he did, we have a more detailed explanation from Jesus for us today.

Jesus gave answer to Thomas and it was recorded in the Bible so that we all could know how to navigate life and end up in heaven with God.

Jesus gives us what we need to make it through that place where the streets are not marked and confusion abounds. When we are lost in this place of confusion and the unknown.

John 14:6 NIV

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is where we find our direction away from darkness and judgement. You see...

A. Jesus is the means to find light and salvation. (John 14:6)

Unlike Dr. Seuss, Jesus gives us the crucial answer to our question about what direction to go and how to escape darkness and judgement. Jesus does not tell you that you’ll escape somehow. Jesus does not skip over that important question regarding how we will know the way. Instead, Jesus gives us all that we need when we are lost in the wilderness of the world and regarding eternity? Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus bids us to come and walk in his steps. Jesus invites us through faith to embark on a journey with Him to all the places he’ll go!

To where does Jesus go? Jesus goes to some mighty strange places. And he goes to these places for you! Jesus came into this world to bring newness of life to this world.

Philippians 2:6–7 MSG

6 He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. 7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!

Jesus did this to establish the path to eternal life for you. After coming into this world, Jesus set His eyes on the cross. His entire life and His ministry were aimed at this mighty strange tree where He would shed His blood for your sins. Yet, even death on the cross would not be the end of the places he’d go for you. Jesus went to the tomb and then left the tomb empty so that He could be the way, the truth, and the life for you and for the world.

Oh, the places Jesus would go for you! And because of the places that He’s gone, you now know where to turn on the confusing roads of life that will inevitably come your way. Walk in His steps and follow Jesus, The Way. Far better than hoping that you’ll escape “somehow,” Jesus promises the fullness of life to all who walk in the newness of life through faith in Him. As we hear in Romans 6:4.

Romans 6:4 NIV

4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Darkness/Light, Judgement/Salvation. You choose.

This Lent season, we will continue to look at these two subjects as we follow in Jesus footsteps toward the cross and hopefully, we will find a greater appreciation for Jesus and the sacrifice He made on our behalf.

It is appropriate, that we should kick of this season of Lent with communion. Some partook of communion Wednesday night, but it is okay to do so again with our fuller body of church family. As you arrived today, you should have received your communion elements. Did everyone who wanted one get one?

Communion

It was Passover and He and His disciples were gathered in an upper room which had been set for this traditional meal. To the disciples it was just “another” Passover. However, for Jesus, this one was special as He understood that He would be the Passover lamb. He began the evening in an unusual fashion, for he took on the mantel of a servant and began to wash their feet. This startled them all, most of all Peter who wanted to refuse until Jesus explained, then he begged for Jesus full cleansing. In time, Peter would receive that full cleansing despite his own actions that one would expect would invalidate him, when in fear, he denied knowing Jesus later on in this critical night.

Once that was done, Jesus took the bread and explained how it represented His body. He broke it, distributed it among them and encouraged them to take it and eat it.

Then He picked up the cup of wine and explained how it represented His blood which would be spilled for all of us, and he drank from the cup and passed it around for them each to drink.

At that time, Jesus said that this was to be commemorated on a regular basis. As we do so, we enter into that sacred bond of Savior and believer with all the body of the church. Please, take your elements and lift them before you as I pray. (Pray over elements)

At this time, please join me as we likewise partake of this sacred meal. First the bread…then the cup.

Prayer:

Jesus, life can leave us lost and confused. Like Thomas, we often feel like we do not know the way. Yet, You have come to us to be the way, the truth, and the life. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us so we can walk in Your steps through faith in You. When we find ourselves in a place of confusion or in darkness, teach us to trust you. Strengthen us to follow you, knowing You will never mislead us or abandon us. Amen.

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