Return to the Lord

Introduction:

Diluted worship causes a diluted message. Pure worship leads to a pure message. Not knowing how to worship is just as bad as not worshipping at all, and corrupted worship is arguably worse. We can show up on Sunday mornings, sing a few songs, give some money, listen to a preacher, and at the end of the day, if we come into God’s presence empty, we will leave empty.

True worship requires that we truly know who God is, or can ate least grasp the concept of God. From observations, I think too many times we (generally speaking) have come into God’s presence not really grasping who God is (too small a view of God) or even just because that is what we have always done and we don’t know any different (complacency and habitual). When we look at scripture, we see that anyone who has ever had a face-to-face experience with God has been changed in some way. It’s unavoidable to be changed by the presence of God.

Joel 2:12–17 ESV

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

Worship is not an outward expression only, it is an outward expression of what is going on inside us, and one day, we will have the purest form of worship we could ever imagine. The book of Revelation paints a glorious picture of what worship in the future will look like in Revelation chapter 4. I don’t have time to read the chapter, but I encourage you to go home and look it over and let the words paint the picture of what true worship looks like.

John 4:24 ESV

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Worship is not an outward expression only, it is an outward expression of what is going on inside us, and one day, we will have the purest form of worship we could ever imagine. The book of Revelation paints a glorious picture of what worship in the future will look like in Revelation chapter 4. I don’t have time to read the chapter, but I encourage you to go home and look it over and let the words paint the picture of what true worship looks like.

So what happens when our worship gets corrupted? Anything can cause worship to become corrupted. Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the fact that you don’t have to pick up a hymnal, perhaps some piece of furniture in the worship center has been moved and you didn’t like that. That should tell you something about your worship. It means your worship has become about something other than focusing on God, but because God is gracious and merciful, He invites all of the guilty and separated to return to Him even in the midst of judgment.

The Hebrew people faced a similar issue. They had been so ingrained with idol worship (Baal worship) that their worship to Yahweh had been diluted and adulterated. Even when they weren’t corrupted with false idol worship, they never really worshipped with a pure heart and God calls us to worship God fully.

John 4:24 ESV

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Today, we are going to look at the book of Joel. More specifically, if you have your bibles, go ahead and turn to Joel chapter 2 verses 12-17. While you are turning there, let me tell you a little bit about Joel:

All we know about Joel is he is the son of Pethuel (1.1) and his name means “Yahweh is God”. Other than that, there is no Old Testament record of him or even his father. We don’t even really know when the book was written. Some scholars suggest it may have been written just before the exile into Babylon, and others suggest that it may have been written just after the exile and the reforming of the nation of Israel but before the rebuilding of the temple, but in the end, we just don’t know, and truthfully, the time frame doesn’t matter much because the teachings in Joel are not context specific, and are timeless.

The theme of Joel focuses on “The Day of the Lord.” The phrase itself appears in Joel five times (1.15; 2.1, 11, 31; 3.14). This is not a specific time frame in linear time. There are no specific events leading up to this ultimate consummation, but more a period of time, and it is a period of two things: (1) judgment of God’s enemies, and (2) redemption for God’s people. This day will reveal God’s full character as mighty, powerful, holy, and sovereign. It will also culminate in His loving and kind aspects for His people.

Joel is a relatively short book (just three chapters), and to be honest, if you have your bibles, and read at a decent pace, you will probably finish reading it before I get to the application part of the sermon.

Chapter one begins with a call to repentance, this particular call is given to the elders specifically. Joel draws their attention to four types of locusts, and most scholars would agree that these are very real locusts, but notice what the locusts cause:

Four groups of locusts cause a total destruction. Remember that the early Hebrew people were agrarian people, and when a natural disaster like locusts happens, it destroys everything. If they can’t grow crops, then they can’t make money (affects their wealth and physical lifestyle), but also remember that offerings from their crops were required according to levitical law, so not having crops would also affect their worship because they could no longer offer those types of sacrifices, and not being able to feed the livestock, they would then have imperfect animal sacrifices as well. This was a complete devastation that happened to them (not only physically but spiritually).

God issues some commands in verse 14 of chapter 1, and they will be repeated again in chapter 2, and verse 15 introduces us to the phrase “The Day of the Lord.” Many of us may be familiar with that term, but in order to clarify just a bit, let’s look at that for just a moment.

The Day of the Lord carries two tones to it. It is a theme that is very prominent among the minor prophets, and carries a tone of judgment in it, yet it also carries a tone of redemption. To put it into a historical context, the Israelites thought is was a day that God was going to pass judgment over everyone else but them. They thought that since they were God’s chosen people, they wouldn’t have to worry about God passing judgment over them, yet we see that since this becomes a theme in the New Testament as well, that is simply not the case, and it is when God will pass judgment over all of His enemies. It also represents God’s immediate judgment on sin. It is not just a phrase that focuses on the end times. It can also be used in reference to God passing judgment on sin, which then gives it a connotation of being involved in redemption. God is in some way dealing with the sin of the people in order to bring them back to Him.

In the case of Joel, we can say that this particular day of the Lord is in relation to a sin of the people that has redemption as its ultimate purpose. In this case, the worship of the people had been compromise. It had been adulterated and corrupted. We are talking about a people that, as a whole, had violated the very first commandment of “You shall have no other Gods before me.” They had turned to a system of false gods and worship of Baal, and even when they did turn away from that, it never really went away. In time, they still carried with them house idols and that became their default that they would return to the worship of the false idols.

Chapter 2 then deals with the call for the leaders to call the people to repentance. Once the leader have repented, they were then to call the people back to worshipping God. Joel paints a very different picture in chapter two where he talks about an army that is going to be sent to destroy the people, and we see from the narrative of the Old Testament that God can use whatever means necessary (even an outside pagan army) to get His people’s attention, and we find our text this morning in the middle of chapter 2. This is very similar to the same call in chapter 1 (only this is now directed to the people and not the leaders).

Repent wholly back to God (2.12)

Joel 2:12 ESV

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

If we look at the preface to this first sentence here, it begins with a profound statement. “Yet even now,” declares the Lord. God basically tell the people, “No matter what you have done, no matter how bad it has been, you can still turn to me.” No matter what has gone on in our lives (even the life of a professing Christian) God says, “Yet even now.”

Repentance requires a change in heart

God doesn’t want just lip service, He calls us to actions related to those words. It is one thing to say we are turning to God and depending on him, but if our hearts are not turned to Him, then it is all just empty words. God call the people to return with all their heart. It’s not just lip service He is asking for, He is asking, in fact demanding, a return with all the heart of a person.

We tend to think of the mind as the seat of all thought and the essence of the human being, but in Hebrew thought, it was the heart. The heart for the Hebrew was considered the seat of all human emotion. IT was where the soul of the person resided.

Repentance requires a change of heart. It is a complete change of focus for a person. We can change our minds on many things, but our outlook tends to stay the same, yet of our heart changes, it shifts our focus completely and thus repentance to turn back to God requires a whole heart change.

Repentance requires brokenness

Sometimes the only way to look up is if you’re lying flat on your back. Sometimes the only way to see God for who He really is, is to lose everything. It is then and only then that we can begin to rely on God for his provision.

The last part of this verse says, “with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” God desires that we face our sins head on come to terms with our imperfections, and then rely on Him for His provision in order to cling closer to Him, and it is then and only then that we will be able to have a true worship experience with the living God. Brokenness is our humility before God. That is when we can truly come to Him knowing that it is only God that can fix our transgressions.

Make repentance personal (2.13a)

Joel 2:13 ESV

and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Joel 2:13a ESV

and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Repentance is a personal issue. Verse 13 opens with a continuation of verse 12, “rend your hearts and not your garments.” This is making repentance internal and personal. It is only between God and the individual that true repentance can happen. David understood this in

Psalm 51:4 ESV

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Once we recognize that repentance is a personal issue, then we can truly come to terms with our insufficiency before God and rely on Him to provide what we need to get through life.

Repentance must reflect an internal change

We can say all day long that we have turned away from certain behaviors, and then go home and go right back to it. After all, who sees us at home? God. It has to be an internal change within us before God. We can put our Sunday faces on all day long, and show up to church and act like we have no sin in our lives, but God sees the inside of person.

Luke 16:15 ESV

And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

God knows our inner character. We cannot hide that from Him. No matter where we go, God sees his children. When we show up to church with our Sunday faces on saying all is well in our life, we may be hiding form others, but when we come before God like that, we are coming to Him impure and unclean, and when we do that, our offering of worship is rejected.

Isaiah 29:13 ESV

And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,

NLT

The new living translation renders this verse, “And their worship of me amounts to nothing more that human laws learned by rote.” God see our worship as either pure or impure, and how we come before God determines if God accepts our offering of worship or not. When we reach the point of deep internal change, then and only then can we truly worship from a pur heart unadulterated by the idols of the world’s expectations.

Remember God’s Character (2.13b-14)

Joel 2:13b–14 ESV

and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

There’s always good news with God. The last part of verse 13 on into verse 14 says that God is gracious (compassionate, kinds, etc.) and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. It is because of these character traits of God that we have the luxury of being able to turn back to Him without question. People say that salvation is not “license to sin” and I agree with that, it is however God’s character to receive the truly repentant for who they are. That is God’s character. Salvation was driven by love.

Too many times, we put God in a position that He is always angry with us for whatever reason. But let’s look at this verse again: gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. This never changes about God’s character. We are separated from God by our sinful nature, but His love for us is what drove Him to the cross. His compassion for us knowing that we would never be able to stand judgment for our sin drove Him to die for each of us, and with that in mind, it requires a response from us.

Respond with urgency (2.15-17)

Joel 2:15–17 ESV

Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

Notice in these three verses how many commands there are: Blow the trumpet, consecrate a fast, gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, and gather the children. Seven commands. There is a lot of urgency here. God’s word always requires a response, and in this case, it calls for a group repentance, but it doesn’t stop there it calls for the leaders to include everyone.

Everyone must be involved in returning to true worship.

Assemble the elders, gather the children (even nursing infants). Call the bridegroom AND the bride. Everyone is called to return to true and pure worship.

The end result:

We see in the latter parts of chapter two and on into chapter three what happens when the people turn back to God and worship Him and Him alone. There is a transition from verse 17 to verse 18, that says, “Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people.” Once the people repented of their adulterated worship, God promises to bless them by sending them everything they need to have that pure and unadulterated worship experience with Him. God promises to remove all of the affliction that is causing the corrupted worship, and verse 28 presents a familiar passage that Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all the believers in Jerusalem after Jesus’s ascension. This is what happens when the body as a whole turns back to God and finds true worship.

As we move into chapter three, we read that God will judge all the nations according to his righteous character, and that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God is a loving God, yet he is righteous and holy, and we are separated from a total worship experience by sin. We will never be good enough or say the right things, it is only through Jesus Christ that we can have the true and unadulterated worship experience that God desires us to have.

Verse 28 presents a familiar passage that Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all the believers in Jerusalem after Jesus’s ascension. This is what happens when the body as a whole turns back to God and finds true worship.

Conclusion:

How would you rate your personal worship? Better yet, take off the rose colored glasses and look at how God rates your worship. Do you put on your Sunday face and just play church each week? Or do you worship seven days a week? Is there something that has taken priority over your worship experience? Has your worship been corrupted?

“Yet, even now…” you can return to God and repent of selfishly driven worship methods and behaviors. Worship isn’t about what music or songs are being played, it is a frame of heart and mind. As you sit there this morning, are you focusing on God or are you thinking about where you’re going to eat lunch?

God is a good and loving God. He is slow to anger and steadfast in love, and because of that, we can turn back to Him and repent of our selfish motivations and tear down the idols that we worship and meet Him face to face.