Christ Memorial Church

Like a Tree

Week 45 

“It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone” says the play-by play announcer of the baseball game.  For one team that’s good news, but for the other it’s bad news. 

Israel’s prophets were called by God to announce the bad news of God’s judgment and the good news of God’s salvation.  In our memory verse, the prophet Joel tells us that Judah’s joy is gone.  For years God told them it was going and going and would soon be gone, but His people would not listen. 

How about you?  Do you feel like your joy is going, going, and almost gone? 

The book of Joel reminds us of a major theme in the prophetic writings:  Forget God, forget joy; return to God, return to joy. 

“Surely,” says Joel, “joy withers away among the people” (Joel 1:12).  How come?  

Forget God, Forget Joy 

If you forget God, you can forget about finding joy in your life. 

“Surely joy withers away among the people.”  When joy withers away there is a reason. 

Judah forgot God, so God sent a locust invasion to decimate their crops (1:1-7).  Their agricultural economy came to a grinding halt.   On top of this, God sent a drought that further devastated their fields.  The nation was in very tough shape, and their joy withered away. 

Is joy withering away in your life? 

God built certain laws of cause and effect into the fabric of our existence.  For example, in the natural realm, there is gravity.  What goes up must come down.  Or consider rain and sunshine, and how they always work together to bring growth to crops, trees, grass, gardens and flowers.  Think of how the moon affects the ocean’s tides.  If for some reason gravity ceased to exist or the sun was a little closer to the earth, the effects would be devastating. 

It’s similar in the spiritual realm in our relationship with God:  Sin withers joy.  A lack of joy is not always due to sin, but sin always withers joy.  This is a spiritual law of cause and effect. 

Joy is the blessing of God on your life, family, community and nation.  Yet when we, like Judah, turn our backs on God and God’s Word, we will forfeit joy.  God will send invading “locusts” to eat away the joy in our hearts.

A couple of weeks ago I heard retired Old Testament professor and seminary president Walter Kaiser say, “The more we drift away from God, the wilder, more insane, and out of control the world gets.” 

I sometimes think our nation, and the world for that matter, is more insane than ever. 

Forget God, forget joy.  It’s as simple as that.  “Oh, it’s only a small sin.”  No it’s not!  Every sin is a colossal affront to a holy God who withdraws a sense of His presence when we sin. 

Like a fragile eco-system, the joy pulls apart when we live with sin as our friend.  

Return to God, Return to Joy 

“Surely, joy withers away among the people.”  Is there a way back to joy? 

Yes, for prophets like Joel never leave us without hope.  When joy withers away there is an answer:  Forget God, forget joy; return to God, return to joy. 

Joy is more than a nice idea; it is very real. 

So where does joy come from?  Joy comes when you and I return to God.  Joel makes this very clear:  “Yet even now,” says the LORD, “return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). 

Notice that God doesn’t just say “return” or “return to me.”  God says, “Return to me with all your heart.”  That’s the key, your heart. 

What does this look like?  How do we return to God with all our heart?  Joel says: 

• Wake up:  “Wake up, you drunkards” (1:5).  We have to wake up and realize that we have indeed forgotten God and sinned.  We have to wake up and realize our sin is truly sin.
• Lament:  “Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth” (1:8).  Tears and grief are signs of genuine remorse and repentance (See Luke 18:13 and 2 Corinthians 7:9-11).
• Pray and fast:  “Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly…and cry out to the LORD” (1:14).  Sinful strongholds will break if we combine prayer and fasting.
• Take God’s holiness and our sinfulness seriously:  “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the  alarm on my holy mountain” (Joel 2:1).  Until you and I see forgetting God as a serious matter, we will not experience the joy of the LORD.
• Return to God from the inside out:  “…return to me with all your heart… with weeping… (and) rend your hearts and not your clothing” (1:12-13).  If you really want to turn to God, it has to begin with your heart, not the formalities of religious rituals. 

Forget God, forget joy; return to God, return to joy.  

There’s one more aspect of this Joel would want us to understand.  It is this:  Joy is a person. 

Maybe you are asking, “Is joy real?  Can I really experience it?” 

Yes you can, but you have to realize the most important piece to the puzzle of joy. 

God says we are to return to Him.  But who is God?  In 2:28 God says, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.”  And in 3:16 Joel writes that God “is a refuge for his people.”  Also, in 3:18 we read that one day “a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD.”  

All of this, my friends, points us to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ says, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.  Let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-39).

After the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, God the Father poured out His Holy Spirit through His Son on the day of Pentecost.  This indicates a number of things, but one thing we need to hear is that joy is a person and that person is Jesus! 

To be in fellowship with Jesus Christ is to be in touch with the source of joy.  “I am vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing… I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:5, 11). 

Forget God, forget joy; return to God, return to joy. 

Build your relationship with Jesus Christ and you will know the joy of His loving presence all the days of your life. 

Until next week,

Pastor Mike