Foretold / Prophets of the Bible | Part 6

It it was early morning and the heat of the Middle Eastern sun hadn't hit yet. The young Jewish boy had just completed his daily ritual of quoting the Shema. Shema Israel. He

finished his chores and so he left this little village that he had grown up in and walked down a winding path to the side of a hill overlooking a huge valley.

He found a place to sit and and he sat down and leaned back against a large stone and then he began to look from one end of the valley. His eyes slowly made their way across of the valley to the other side.

He he knew this place was significant for his people. He knew the history. He had heard the stories. It it was in this valley that many strategic battles had been fought. His people had won some of them and he'd lost some of them. But I wonder if this young Jewish boy had any idea that someday he would be involved

in the battle at that valley. You see this young boy's name was Yeshua. Most of us know him as Jesus. He grew up in a little village of a few 100 people called Nazareth. Just outside of Nazareth on the side of this hill, it was overlooking a valley called the Jezreel Valley. The Jezreel Valley would one day be known as

Armageddon. If you have your Bibles open to the book of Joel.

Joel is a little tiny book. It's buried in the older testament. It's only three chapters. It's like two pages long. So it might be easiest for you to just go to the table of contents at the very beginning. It'll give you the page number for Joel. You're you're gonna wanna watch this. You're gonna wanna see this what we're gonna go through. And so while you're looking up the book of Joel, let me connect the story that I just told. There's two elements of that story that you and I need to hold on to as we look at the at the book of Joel today. The first one is the Shema.

Now Shema is a Hebrew word. Remember the older testament was written in Hebrew. It was a Hebrew word that translated into English means listen or hear or obey. The Jewish people would call Deuteronomy chapter six four the Shema because the first word in Hebrew is Shema.

It became such an important verse to the Jewish people that the rabbis hundreds of years before Jesus came to earth, they began teaching the Jewish people that they should quote this every morning and every night. So every morning and every night for over two thousand years now, the Jewish people have been quoting Hear

o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Every morning and every night. Now there's a reason that they believe that's a foundational verse. Because in Hebrew, there's only about 18,000 words in in the whole language.

Compare that to English with about a 100,000 words and that means every word in Hebrew has to have multiple meanings or deeper meanings to it. So that last word of the Shema Deuteronomy six four, Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheino Adonai Echad one,

that one means multiple things. If you could read Hebrew and you read the entire Old Testament, you would see that word that Hebrew word used in many different ways. Sometimes it would mean one as in, before anything else. One, two, three, four, one is first. Sometimes it would mean one as in, a bigger,

greater, got first place. Sometimes it would mean one as in only. So for for thousands of years really, people have been arguing about, well, what does that mean in Deuteronomy six verse four?

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And the answer I think is yes. It means all of those. God, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is one as in he is before all things. He is one as in he is above all things. He is one as in there is no other God.

That's why it was such a foundational verse and they've been quoting it for all these years. Hear o Israel, the Lord our God is one. He is before all things. He is above all things. There is no other God. Now hang on to that because that ties to the book of Joel.

The other thing from the story I just told that ties to the book of Joel is the valley that Jesus would have most likely would have stood and looked out over many times. Nazareth wasn't very far from from the the edge of the hill overlooking the Jezreel Valley. That one day would be referred to as Armageddon.

Hang on to that thought as we look at the, the book of Joel. Now let me just get this out of the way. In a church this big, I know that there are some people here that you were drugged here. You are not here because you want to be here. You're you know, somehow someone made you come or they talked you into coming. And so you might already in your mind be crossing your arms going, oh, come on. Hold on. You how how in the world is some little book written three thousand years ago, how is that gonna affect me? What does a book three thousand years ago, written three thousand years ago, what does that have to do with me today?

Everything.

Everything. Everything. Let me show you what I mean.

Let me pray first. God, oh God we pray that you would speak to us. I pray right now that you would open our hearts and minds God that we would understand this. God that these wouldn't just be words. It isn't just something that we're learning, some new things that we're learning, but God that that you would put this deep into our soul. That we would leave this place changed.

That you would transform our hearts and our minds. We love you Jesus. Amen. So Joel is written by a guy named Joel. There's some of you awake. It's written by a guy named Joel. In Hebrew, you would pronounce it Joel. Joel is written by Joel or Joel, and the name actually means Yahweh is God.

Now remember the Shema. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheino Adonai Echad. Hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is before all things, he is above all things, there is no other God. Joel means Yahweh is

God. So right away, even from the title, the name of the book, the name of the author, we get to see one of the main themes. Now Joel, this will help us get it. Joel wasn't written to us, but it was written to us.

See, here's what I mean by that. Joel was actually written about three thousand years ago to the Jewish people. So it's not written to us,

but yet the principles that we're gonna see in this book, oh, they apply to us. Because here's what Joel is gonna do. Joel is gonna be standing in the crossroads of history, a little less than 3,000 ago, and he's gonna be pointing back to the past, and he's gonna be talking about some things that God did in the past, and then he's gonna point to the future and talk about things that God is gonna do in the future and he's gonna tell the people of Israel at that time three thousand years ago, if you understand what God did in the past and you understand what God is going to do in the future, it should have radical implications on how you live your life today.

Now you think about you and I all these years later, it was wasn't written to us, but it was written to us.

Because we could say the same thing. If we look in the past and we understand what God has done in the past, and we look in the future and understand what God is doing in the future, we'll do in the future, it should have radical implications on how we live out our everyday ordinary lives.

So let's jump into the book of Joel. Joel chapter one. We start off right away and it talks about this locust plague.

Now I think a lot of times because you and I probably haven't had a locust plague that we've been in, we think of a couple of you know pesky little grasshoppers. But to give you an understanding of what this might have been like, I'm gonna give you a grasshopper trivia.

Yay. We came to church for grasshopper trivia, but this will help us. K? Seriously. So I just have four little trivia questions for you. True or false? Locusts are a great form of nutrition. True or false? How many people say true? Raise your hand. Alright. How many say false? Raise your hand.

How many just aren't playing? K. Yeah. Some some honest people and they're good. It's true. There's 75% protein and 20% Yeah. You see that? Yeah. 20% fat. There's a lot of ways to eat them. You can grill them. You can fry them. You can boil them. You can mash them into a paste. You can eat them raw. Okay? Second question.

Number two, a single grasshopper every single day can eat a, a quarter of his body weight. Well, I don't know if it's just a he, it might be a she too. A quarter of its body weight,

b, a third of its body weight, or c, half its body weight. How many of you think it's a, a grasshopper every single day can eat 25% of its body weight? How many people think it's b, a third of its body weight? How many people think it's c? Okay. And how many people are still just not playing?

Okay. There's still some. At least you're honest. Okay. Half its body weight. That's true. It can eat half its body weight. I'm a little over two hundred pounds. That would be like me every single day eating a 100 pounds of food.

That's a lot of food. Alright. Number three, true or false, the largest grasshopper species can grow up to 10 inches long. True or false, the largest can grow up to about 10 inches long. Okay? How many of you say true? Alright. Yeah. It's true. Go back to number one. Remember how they can be a good source of nutrition?

Imagine 10 inch. Alright. Number four, relative to size, if you or I could jump as far as a grasshopper, we could leap a, across the basketball court or b, across the football field. How many think it's a, across the basketball court? How many think it's b, across the football field? It's

b, across the football field. Relative to size, if we could jump as far as a grasshopper, could stand right here and I could jump a 100 yards. Now these cute little creatures, these little creatures that are somewhat fascinating, when they swarm together, they can do incredible devastation.

In the late eighteen hundreds for four years, there was a locust plague plague in Southern Minnesota and it these locusts ate everything. They ate fence posts, they ate leather, they ate dead animals. They ate the the the the wool off of sheep. They ate tobacco.

I get a a weird little picture of one just sitting out in the field smoking a stogie, you know. Yeah. They ate tobacco.

I mean, was so bad that they actually had wanted posters basically for these. They started saying, listen, we'll pay you a dollar per bushel of grasshopper eggs that you collect. Can imagine seeing a a wanted poster of a grasshopper?

These these these groups of swarms of locusts can get so big that in the late eighteen hundreds over the Red Sea in The Middle East, they saw one that they estimate was 2,000 miles, 2,000 miles across. Now imagine 2,000 miles of grasshoppers that can eat half of their body weight every day.

So Joel starts out and he and he's looking back. Remember, looks back and he's looking for he's looking back and he's saying, remember this great locust plague? And then he describes it. And if you looked in verse four, says, a bunch of locusts came and they ate and then they left and another group came and they ate and they left and another group came and they ate and they left and then the fourth group came and they ate and it was utterly devastated.

But the question is why why is Joel talking about that? Why is Joel reminding them of this utter devastation? Now we're gonna just do a quick fly over the book of Joel. We don't have time to read all the verses, but later if you read all of chapter one, you're gonna find these words used over and over again. Wake up,

wail, weep. In fact, look at verse eight where Joel is actually gonna use an illustration of a bride dressed in black. In verse eight, he says, weep like a bride dressed in black, mourning the death of her husband. That's not a fun picture.

See a bride wakes up on the day of her wedding and she puts on her white gown, but but he's he's using this illustration of this bride that woke up, put on a white gown and then she found out her husband died and now she changes into a a black gown and now she's mourning what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life is now the saddest day of her life. And Joel is saying, you should have that attitude. He's saying this to the Jewish people.

You should have this attitude, but why? Why should they have this attitude? Skip down to verse 15 and we get the answer and also one of the most important phrases in the bible. Here we go verse 15. One of the most important phrases in the bible. Joel chapter one verse 15. The, the next four words.

You should circle these in your bible, you should highlight them, you should put a little star next to them. The day of the Lord is near. The day when destruction comes from the Almighty, how terrible that day will be. He's telling them, he's saying wake up, wail, weep.

You should be acting like a bride who's in a black dress mourning the death of her husband. Why? Because the day of the Lord is near. So then it begs the question, what is the day of the Lord? If that's one of the most important phrases in the Bible, what does that mean? We see it all over. Well today,

when we use that phrase today, where we're sitting right now in human history, when we refer to the day of the Lord, we're referring to the day where Jesus is going to come back.

That day that I hope you and I long for. The day where Jesus is gonna make all things new. The day where never again will we have divorce or rape or pillaging. Never again will there be cancer. Never again will there be a spouse saying I don't love you anymore and I'm out of here. Never again, gone forever.

Isn't that being a great day? And that's the day of the Lord. But but but to really understand the depth of the meaning of the day of the Lord, we we have to have a little history lesson.

You came and you got a trivia quiz and now you're getting history. Mean, can it get better than this? So so we gotta back up a little bit. We have to back up about thirty five hundred years. The nation of Israel is in slavery to Egypt

and it's a it's a desperate time near the end. Pharaoh is actually killing all the first born baby boys And again, sometimes we hear stories like that so many times, we don't put ourselves in the sandals of the people and try to imagine what it was like for them. Imagine if you and your spouse,

just had this brand new little baby boy and it was taken out of your arms and and and gone and and it was killed. Imagine what it was like. So they're they're crying out to God. They're saying, save us. Rescue us. So God sends Moses. He sends 10 plagues, and they're freed.

Long story short, they're freed and now they're leaving Egypt and they begin to sing a song about the day. The day. They sing the song about the day where God brought justice and freedom for them. And then every single year on that day, on the day, they will celebrate the day of the Lord. The day the Lord brought justice

and freedom to them. Well, hundreds of years later after they're celebrating this every single day, a prophet named Amos comes along. He's another guy that wrote a little book in here. Amos comes along and he starts telling the the nation of Israel, hey the day of the Lord is coming.

You know the day that we celebrate every year, the day that God brought justice? Except Amos is saying this time the day of the Lord is not coming on your enemies, it's gonna come on you.

Because you've turned your back on God, because you've run from God, because because you began to to worship false gods, because you're you're you're sacrificing your own children, because you're no longer taking care of the widow and the orphan, this judgment is now going to come on you.

And so the day of the Lord would fall on them, and then they would fall under the tyranny of other other nations. They would be under Babylon. They would be under Persia. They would be under Rome. And while they're in this tyranny, while they're under these other nations enslaved by them, they begin to cry out to God. The prophets begin to speak about this day where the Hamashiach, the Messiah would someday come and bring the day of the Lord. But Jesus came and it wasn't quite like they expected,

which is why now there's still evil that persists in our world, which is why now we talk about the day of the Lord being the day, the future day. But when Joel was talking about it, he was talking about the day of the Lord representing a day of justice, a day of judgment, a day of freedom. So look what he says.

He he talks about this day of the Lord, skip down to verse 13 chapter two. We're gonna jump over a bunch of verses, but this is where we get to the hinge verse.

Oh, this is what Remember Joel is standing there and he's linking the past with the future. He's saying, I wanna tell you what God did in the past, and then verse 13 is kind of the hinge where he's gonna talk about how they're connected, but they're the hinge for you and I because if you and I don't get verse 13, we're missing the whole message of this.

So see look what he says in verse 13. He's already told them, oh you need to weep, need to wail, you need to wake up and then verse 13 of chapter two he says, don't tear your clothing in your grief but tear your hearts instead.

Don't tear your clothing in grief but tear your hearts instead. He's saying, listen the typical way that you mourn, the customary way that the Jewish ancient Jewish people would mourn is they would they would get down and they would tear their clothes. And what God is saying is going, I don't want that outward stuff.

I want your heart. I want your heart. I want your heart. And all these years later, it's no different. God is still the same message to you and I. He's saying, don't want this outward show. I want your heart. I want your heart.

Oh, look at this next part of this verse. Keep reading verse 13. Don't tear your clothing and your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Then look at this, return to the Lord your God for he is merciful

and compassionate, slow to get angry, and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not to punish. Why should they return to God? Almost three thousand years ago, Joel was saying you need to return to God. Why should they return to God? Because Joel is saying because God is compassionate and merciful.

He's slow to anger. Why should you and I return to God? Because he is compassionate and merciful and slow to anger. Oh, that we would get this truth. That God is more willing to forgive than you are to confess. That that God moved toward you before you move toward him.

That God wants something for you more than he wants something from you. See that's what Joel is saying. Joel is trying to get these these people that are turning their backs on God and he's saying, go back to God. Why would you go back to God? Because he's merciful merciful and compassionate.

He wants something for you more than he wants something from you. So we get to Joel chapter three then. I told you we were gonna do a quick flyover of this book.

Joel remember has been looking into the past and he's been saying, this is what God did in the past. So turn back to God. Now he's gonna start talking about the future. So look at Joel chapter three verse two.

He says, I will gather, remember this is the future, I will gather the armies of the world into the Valley Of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat literally means the Lord judges, so it could read this way. I will gather the armies of the world into the Judgment Valley. Remember almost two thousand years ago when young Yeshua Jesus

was walking outside of his little village of Nazareth and stood on the hillside overlooking the Jezreel Valley where more battles have been fought than any other place in the history of this world and where someday the final battle would be fought. I will gather the armies of the world in the Valley Of Jehoshaphat,

there I will judge them for harming my people, my special possession for scattering my people among the nations and dividing up my land. Now jump down to verse 17 and look at some of these forever's. This oh, this is where the the such good news if you're a Jesus follower.

He goes, then you will know that I the Lord your God live in Zion my holy mountain. See what he did is he said, and in fact right next to this verse here in chapter three verse 17, if you like to write in your bible, you should write chapter two verse 27 in the margin right there. Write two twenty seven because if you went back, you flip the page back in two twenty seven, you'd see where Joel is talking about what God did in the past and God is saying, did this in the past so that you would know I'm God. Now in verse 17 of chapter three, he's saying, I'm gonna do this stuff in the future so that you will know that I am God.

Hear o Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is before all things, he is above all things and there is no other God. And he's saying, I've done stuff in the past and I'll do stuff in the future to display this truth. Oh, but keep reading verse 17.

He says, then you will know that I the Lord your God live in Zion, my holy mountain. And then he says Jerusalem will be holy for how long? How long? How long is forever? Forever. It's a long time. Jerusalem will be holy forever and foreign armies will, what's the word? Never. Never conquer her again.

Jump down some more verses to verse 20 and we read some more forevers. He says, but Judah would be filled with people for how long? Forever. Forever. And Jerusalem will endure through all generations. And then look how he wraps up this book. Look at verse 21. I will pardon my people's crimes

which I have not yet pardoned and I the Lord. Now this next phrase is gonna be familiar to some of you. This next phrase is gonna make a a few of you and you go, that sounds sounds like I've heard that before. And I the Lord will make my home in Jerusalem with my people. If you go to the very last book,

the book of Revelation, when God is talking about this future event when he comes back the day of the Lord when Jesus returns and after he wraps up all of that and brings perfect justice and righteousness he says, now I will be their God and they will be my people. In fact flip over there, Revelation chapter chapter

19.

Revelation chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19. Flip over there while you're flipping there. Let let me let me just set this up. I'm gonna tie it back to Joel in a second but I sometimes we're a little overwhelmed with apocalyptic literature. Revelation is apocalyptic literature. Here's why we're overwhelmed with it because there's a lot of symbolism,

you know, weird pictures, and the danger for us sometimes is we get we get down into the the nitty gritty of it. We get into such the details of it that we miss the big picture. There's nothing wrong with getting into the details, but just never lose the big picture of it.

Here's the big picture of this particular apocalyptic literature called Revelation. Some history, back up. John, one of the 12 disciples.

He was one of them that Jesus called. He was one of the 12 that spent almost every moment of every day with Jesus for the last four years of Jesus' life. Imagine what he saw. He watched Jesus walk on water. He watched Jesus heal the lepers. He watched Jesus heal the blind. He watched Jesus raise people from the dead. He watched Jesus die on the cross. He watched Jesus come back from the dead. He watched Jesus ascend into heaven.

And then decades pass and now those other 11 men that were with him that witnessed all that, they're all dead. Judas has killed himself. The other 10 have all been martyred. Jerusalem has been destroyed. The temple has been destroyed. The Church Of Ephesus where John had been a pastor of is under intense persecution.

And John now has been beaten and and thrown on this little island and left there to die in some ways. And you can imagine that maybe John is sitting there like you and I maybe have it sometimes. And maybe he's thinking, I know what this says, but it sure seems like evil is winning right now. Have you ever felt that way?

Have you ever looked around our world and and you've got, I I I know I know what this says but it sure seems like evil is winning. And so God sends John a picture, a vision of what's going to happen. And the big picture of the book of Revelation is God is saying John,

I know it looks like evil win but I wanna remind you, I win. That's the book of Revelation. Jesus wins. That's it. That's the summation of it. But Revelation chapter 19,

I I want us to look at this. We're gonna we're gonna look at this Jesus who's going to come back someday, the day of the Lord and we're gonna get a picture of this Jesus. But before I jump into that, about two years ago, I was sitting down with my son-in-law Brandon

and we were talking about something, don't even remember what it was and he made this statement. He said, I think a lot of believers know God as their savior but not many know him as their king.

I was like woah woah woah woah woah. I grabbed a piece of paper and pen. Say that again. I think a lot of believers know God as their savior but not many know him as their king. There's some truth there.

In fact, I think when you look at the totality of the book of Joel, what Joel is trying to do is he's trying to remind them.

Adonai Elohano Adonai Echad, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. God is before all things, he is above all things, there is no other God. And he's trying to remind them this this Jesus, this God back then to God, he is king. He is king.

So so look in Revelation.

This is the warrior king Jesus that we're gonna see and if you're half asleep or you don't get excited about this, man you've gotta be half dead. If you're half asleep wake up right now because this is good stuff. Revelation chapter 19 verse 11, this is what's gonna happen someday. This little boy named Yeshua,

that little chubby cheek baby in a manger, the beaten bloody battered Jesus that was hanging on the cross,

this is the one that's coming back someday. Revelation chapter 19 verse 11, then I saw heaven opened and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named faithful and true for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. Notice what happens. John sees heaven open. He doesn't see something, he sees someone.

And that someone is a warrior king riding on a white horse, not a little baby in a manger.

See Jesus came the first time as this cute little chubby cheeked baby in a manger. The next time he's coming as a warrior king on a white horse in the first century when a king would get on a white horse it was indicating that they were going to war. And in fact it even says the end of verse 11, he is going to wage a righteous war.

This is a reminder remember to John all those years or to you and I that Jesus wins. Evil does not win, death does not win, the devil does not win, Jesus wins because of who he is. Keep reading. Verse 12, his eyes were like flames of fire and on his head were many crowns.

A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. Jesus wins because of who he is. Jesus wins because his eyes are like flames of fire. He sees all things and he knows all things. Jesus wins because he doesn't just have a crown. What did it say? He has

many crowns. He's not just a king or a lord, he's king of kings and lord of lords. Jesus wins because of who he is. Jesus wins because of what it says so that that he has a name written on him that no one understood except himself. This is just my personal opinion of that. Okay?

Everybody get that? My personal opinion of that. You can go open up commentaries and they will spend pages explaining to you what that name is. I actually think that we can't know what that is because it says a name was written on him that no one understood except himself. So

so I might be wrong, but I I I I think what it's indicating is Jesus wins because of who he is. Because as the prophet Isaiah said three thousand years ago or twenty seven hundred years ago, he said his ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. How much higher? Higher than the heavens are from the earth.

Paul wrote it in Romans chapter 11. He says, who can know the mind of Christ? Who can advise God on something? Isn't it silly to think of you and me going, hey God, I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but I mean it's just stupid. Jesus wins because he is so great and so powerful and so unimaginable

that there are parts of him that we will never know. You and I will never graduate Jesus school. Do we get that? How long are we If you're a Jesus follower, how long you were in the new heavens and new earth? Forever. Think about that. Forever and there's parts of him that we will never be able to fully fathom.

Isn't that incredible? Jesus wins because of that. Look at verse 13. He wore a robe dipped in blood and his title was the word of God. Jesus wins because of who he is.

Jesus wins because his robe is dipped in blood. Whose blood? His own blood. It's the great mystery of history that two thousand years ago, this God that is beyond our imagination. This God that you and I will never be able to fully imagine or fathom that he left his throne in heaven and came to earth, compressed himself into a little human embryo.

So that thirty some years later he could let them nail him to a cross and take your sins and my sins and kill him. And they put him in a grave. But he didn't stay there did he? Three days later he came out of that grave proving that he had power over sin and death. Why does Jesus win? Because he's the great finisher.

Isn't that a great fight name? I mean if I was a professional fighter, I think I'd go with that one. Know, in this corner Patrick, the finisher McCullough. I mean doesn't it have a good fight name ring to it? But but here's the thing about fighters. They will all lose eventually. I mean even if you retire undefeated,

everyone knows that if you wouldn't have retired given enough time, you'd lose a step, you'd get a little slower, and someone would eventually defeat you. Every fighter will be defeated at some point except for Jesus, the ultimate finisher, the finisher.

Two thousand years ago when he hung on the cross right before he died, he said, it is finished. It is finished. Jesus wins because he is the great finisher. Alright. Keep reading. Look at this next verse, verse 14. The armies of heaven dressed in the finest of pure white linen followed him on white horses.

Jesus wins because of who he is.

And listen if if you know there's different views on who this is, but if that is you and I wearing white robes, guess what? They're gonna stay white because you're not gonna have to lift a finger because the battle's already been won. Jesus wins because he is the great finisher. Two thousand years ago he said, it is

finished. Look at verse 15. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. Does this sound like cute baby Jesus? He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God the Almighty like juice flowing from a wine press.

This isn't the cute little cuddly baby Jesus coming back. This is the warrior king Jesus on a white horse with a sword. Look at verse 16 then. Oh, I love this verse. On his robe at his thigh was written this title,

king of all kings and lord of all lords. Jesus wins because of who he is. He's not just a king, he's not just a lord, he's king of all kings and lord of all lords.

I think of what my son-in-law said two years ago. I think a lot of believers know Jesus is their savior but not a lot of them know him as their king. Oh that we would know him as our king. Joel,

less than three thousand years ago was pointing to the past and then pointing to the future and he was trying to get them to understand who this God was.

God gave this this this vision of the future to John to try to remind you and I of who he is.

He wins.

Elo hano Adonai, Echad, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He is before all things, he is above all things and there is only one God and someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess to him.

See this is where it connects with you and I. Because sometimes the Jesus that you and I need, it's it's the laughing Jesus. You'll see a picture on the screen. I love that picture by the way because I grew up somewhat legalistic. I grew up in a Christian home, but it was pretty legalistic.

And so I always saw the pictures of Jesus, you know, with the feathered hair, but he always had a really serious somber look on his face. So I remember as a young man, the first time I saw the laughing Jesus, and I go, oh, I love that. Because I think when Jesus was here on earth with his disciples,

sometimes he laughed so hard that maybe if he was one of those snorters that laugh, you know, he would have been like, I

mean, he would have done that. He would have laughed so hard. He would had tears pouring down his face. Why do I say that? Because he created humor, because he created fun, because he created laughter. And sometimes that's the Jesus you and I need. We need to run to this Abba father, this daddy Jesus who will welcome us on his lap and hug us and say, oh I'm so glad you're here and just love on you.

Sometimes you need this Jesus. You'll see a picture on the screen of the suffering servant Jesus. And and when you did that thing that you vowed you would never do again.

When you think that thought that you said, I'll never think that again. When you say those words that you promised to God, I'll never say that again. And you do that again and you run and you say God forgive me. This is the Jesus you need. The Jesus that two thousand years ago said I'm gonna take all of your sins past, present, and future.

But listen, when you're in the battlefield and you've been beaten and you're laying on the ground and you're bleeding out and you have nothing left and your enemy who John ten ten says he

wants to steal, kill, and destroy and you're laying there and there's nothing and he's about to kill you, he's about to end you, this is the Jesus you need. The warrior king Jesus. The Jesus who's coming back on a white horse someday. The Jesus,

Hear o Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The one who is before all things above all things and there is only one. The one that every knee will bow to and every tongue confess. That's the Jesus that we need sometimes. I think a lot of people know Jesus is their savior. But sometimes we miss the king part.

And that's part of what Joel was trying to get across all those years ago.

And oh that we would get that. See listen, if if this is true, if Jesus is the Lord of the past, present, and future, then relax. He's got this. Right? If Jesus is the Lord of the past, present, and future, then relax. He's got this. Here's my my challenge for us. Two challenges.

Number one, if if you're here and you don't know this Jesus, if you've never put your faith and trust in this Jesus, I'm I'm gonna beg you right now, don't walk out those doors. Don't walk out those doors without putting your faith and trust in this Jesus. Why wouldn't you?

What? Every knee will bow and every tongue confess. You can do it now or when it's too late.

If you understood this this Jesus that Joel described and he said why would you turn back to him? Because he's merciful and compassionate. Because he wants to display grace to you more than you wanna receive grace. Because he wants more for you than he wants from you.

Oh, if you're here and you don't know this Jesus, don't leave this place. Don't leave this place without putting your faith in him. For for those of us that would call ourselves Jesus followers here, here's the challenge for you and I. When you walk out their door, those doors, would you have a spring in your step today?

Would you would you have this renewed zeal and hope in your heart recognizing of who you serve? This isn't some little wimpy

savior who goes, I really wish I could help you but there's nothing I can do. This is our warrior king. This is the great finisher and so as we leave the anxieties that we sometimes hold, the fears that we sometimes hold, all the unknowns of your future. It's okay. Because if he's the Lord of the past, present and future,

it'll be okay. He's got this. You pray with me. As I pray I I just I I wanna ask again if you're here and you don't know this Jesus,

would you just now put your faith and trust in him? We're told that we're not saved by anything we do or don't do. It's simply by putting our faith and trust in him. And so right now, you can just cry out to him and say, I I want you as my savior and Lord. I wanna know you. I want this hope.

Would you do that right now?

Oh Jesus, we are in awe of you and we were reminded again today of how great and awesome you are.

That you are before all things, that you are above all things, that you are the one true God, that you are the great finisher and God as as we take the the the the the unknowns and the fears and the frustrations and the anxieties that we have right now, we wanna give those to you

because you are the Lord of the past, you are the Lord of the present, you are the Lord of the future. And so we're okay. We love you Jesus and all God's people said, Amen. Love Jesus, have a great week.