Who Knows? He May Turn | Joel | Jarryd Cole

Pastor Jarryd concludes our Who Knows? series teaching on repentance through the book of Joel.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Ambassador Church Podcast, a church in the city for the city, on Milwaukee's east side. We pray this message meets you where you are, challenges your faith, and draws you closer to Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Alright, all right. You guys can go ahead and find your seats. Take your seat, take your seat. Man again. Hey, welcome to Ambassador Church. Glad you guys are here. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Jared. I get to be the lead pastor here at Ambassador Church. And man, I'm honored you guys are here. There might be some new people in the room. If you're new in the room, uh, we just want to say welcome to you. Glad you guys are here. Uh, and we don't want you to leave this place without getting plugged in. And so if this is your first time coming, we want to get to know you. A couple different ways you can do that is on the QR code right in front of you. By the way, that's going to be your best friend, okay? If you're coming to Ambassador Church, you want to know what's going on here and when they're happening. That QR code has dates, events, all the things, okay? Um, but it also has a connect card on there, a virtual connect card. If you're new, I would love for you to fill it out for us. Give us your name, your number, your email address, and that just gives us a point of contact for you to say, hey, we don't just want you to come here on Sunday mornings and have this be a place where you come and you're not known and no one knows you, right? But we want to actually get a chance to sit down across from you outside of this space, get to know your story, know where you're from, share our story with you, and hopefully this place can begin to feel like family for you. We want to know if Ambassador Church isn't only a place where you can come and worship and like sneak out, but if this can be a place where you can plug in and get connected, okay? So we want to um engage in that with you. If you're more of a pen and pad type person, we also have pen and pads out in the connect station. Go back there after church, fill out one of those if you're more of that type, and we would do the same thing. We'd love to connect with you after that, okay? Well, hey, we're gonna be wrapping up a series that we've been in for the last four weeks today called Who Knows? And I want to give us a little run of what's coming up next uh throughout the summer as we finish up this series. We're actually beginning a new sermon series next Sunday, and we're calling it affectionately the Summer on the Mount, okay? Uh, which means we're looking at the Sermon on the Mount. It's a fun, borderline, cheesy way, okay, to say we're just gonna have fun with Matthew chapter five through seven. All right. Uh, it's gonna be a really fun time. So we take the next 12 weeks of the summer going through the Sermon on the Mount. And when we think about that, the Sermon on the Mount is really the greatest sermon ever recorded. It's Jesus' sermon that he gives to this large crowd of people before him. He has done this ministry, he's been baptized, all these kind of things. His uh cousin John the Baptist has now been beheaded and he's beginning his earthly ministry. And one of the first things he does is has this moment where he's addressing this crowd. And I think it's wise for us to sit down at Jesus' feet so we can hear like one of the first things that he ends up saying to the people who are gonna be following him. So that's what we're gonna be doing this summer. And along with the Summer on the Mount, we're gonna be giving out a discipleship guide uh that we're calling a summer workout. Any workout people in the room? You guys get in the gym, right? You guys run. I know there's a run club going on now Saturday mornings. If you don't, if you want to be a part of that, hit my wife Trisha up, she does a great job, organizes it at Water Beach. Um, anyway, we have a summer workout plan uh that doesn't require you to sweat. I don't know, maybe you sweat when you read your Bible, okay? Um, but it's a discipleship guide uh where we want you guys to go deeper into the sermon series that we're gonna be having, okay? We don't want this summer to kind of just float by and escape by until we get to the fall, but we want to give you guys an opportunity to go deeper even into the content that we're preaching from the stage on Sunday mornings this summer and say, hey, here's some additional weekly readings for you to go through uh as you're engaging with the Sunday morning content. Okay, here's some reflection questions that you can be answering. Here's a memory verse for you every single week that you can challenge yourself to get through. Okay. And listen, this isn't like homework or anything. We're not gonna be walking by and saying, Hey, did you finish the workout plan on your way into Sunday morning? Okay. But this is a way for us to give you something throughout the summer. Um, for you to say, man, if you're if if you're a devotional type person, this is something, a resource that we want to give you to help you and aid you in doing that. Okay, so um be looking out for those. We hope you take advantage of it. Don't let the summer coast by in your faith, but let's grow together in our faith this summer. You guys with me? All right. Well, hey, we're in the Who Knows series. We're shutting this down for now. And here's where we've been in this series, okay? We've been specifically examining four different instances in the scripture where we see this specific question asked. And I hope you've been encouraged by this series, and also challenged by this series. I mean, it's been truly powerful for me. I don't know about you, but I want to invite you if you haven't like listened to the other ones, or maybe it's your first time coming this Sunday, like go back and listen to those and and and and have your heart well up again with what it means to step out in faith. Like this reality of there's a lot of things that we don't know in our lives, what's gonna happen, what's going on, or why they're being the way they are. Um, what's gonna happen on the other end of me doing this thing in faith, including repenting? Okay. Um, like we have so many stories in the Bible that help us get through that. We've gone through them. You can see those messages on our website, ambassadormke.org. You can check out our podcast, anywhere you get your podcast. But I want to remind us kind of what's behind this question being asked. Okay, this who knows question. And the thing behind it is this is that all the characters where this kind of pops up, they're not taking God's justice into account. In fact, like these people back at this point in history, thousands of years ago, here's what they seem to have. They seem to have a much better understanding of who they were and who God is than we do today. They understood this that God is a just and holy God, and we we are a sinful and rebellious people. And so the stories always show, hey, the punishment fits the crime. So excuses aren't made for their sin. They don't start blaming the people around them, but they recognize what they deserve. And then they say this question, hey, but who knows? Maybe God, maybe God, out of the overflow of his mercy and overflow of his compassion, perhaps he will relent. His justice isn't called into account, but an appeal is made to his mercy. And central to this question that we've been exploring is this practice that has been largely forgotten, I believe, in the American church. We addressed this a couple weeks ago, and this is the word repentance. If you want to know what repentance is, it's gonna pop up here on the screen. Here's a working definition for us: repentance is an intentional rejection of your life before Christ, that is what your flesh naturally desires, and a turning towards Jesus. Repentance is basically saying, Hey, no longer my will be done, but rather God's will be done. When you repent, what you're doing is forfeiting your autonomy to say, Hey, I no longer get to call the shots of my life, but there's someone else who gets to call them. God now calls the shots, he is now my savior, and he is now my Lord. And so the fourth instance that we're gonna see this morning where this question appears comes to us from an Old Testament book titled Joel. Anybody here gone through the book of Joel before? Okay, it's easily missed in the Old Testament, but this is where we're going to be sitting. Now, these four weeks that we've gone through this, Joel might be um the lesser known to us. We've gone through a David's narrative and 2 Samuel, we've gone through Jonah's narrative, we've gone through Esther's narrative even just last week. All of these are popular Bible characters. But we think about Joel, not so much. So I'm gonna hit you with a bunch of context on the front end here. All right, the Bible nerds are gonna love this for a little bit this morning, but stay with me if you kind of veg out against this kind of stuff, all right? But within the Tanakh, we have to know this, which is another word for the ancient Hebrew Bible, which also is worth noting that our Old Testament is the Jewish Bible. Okay, it's literally the exact same thing, it's just broken down a little bit differently. But in the Tanakh are 12 prophetic works, and they're often referred to the minor prophets. Now, remember, a prophet was someone in the Old Testament times who spoke on behalf of God. See, God would pass messages for his people through specific individuals. But we have to know in the room, too, like here's the beautiful thing about this that because of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross, because we live on this side of the cross, like Jesus isn't just a message for a select group of people, but he's for everyone and the Holy Spirit. Now, God in spirit literally has now been poured out on everyone who claims Christ. And if you even read the rest of Joel, you just Joel chapter three, this is even prophesied, right? Or in the Joel chapter chapter two, this is prophesied that one day the Spirit of God will be poured out on all people, and the sons and the daughters will all prophesy, right? And you even see that in the book of Acts. It's literally related from the book of Joel when this is what happens at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes, okay? Like this is what happens, this is the way that we live right now on this side of the cross. And now every follower of Jesus can hear directly from God, which means this that God no longer speaks just a handful of people in a moment in history, but literally to the masses through the Holy Spirit. Like there is no JV Christianity, everyone has the same spirit. And here's my charge in the room. We shouldn't take that for granted because this hasn't always been true. This hasn't always been the case, and hence why the minor and major prophets are even a thing, and that's just an aside, okay? But it's important for us to know that God no longer just speaks through specific individuals, but because he died, rose, and ascended, he sent his Holy Spirit so that he can also speak through the masses. And now, very simply, the major prophets came from the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, these books are referred to as major strictly because of their length. They're simply longer prophecies. And the minor prophets, this makes up the rest of the 12, and in total, from Hosea to Malachi in our Bibles, are labeled as such, not because they're like lesser in content or lesser in like um just what they are than the major prophets, but it's because they're just shorter in length, they're not less important than the other prophets, and they're often referred to as the 12, and were actually designed as a single book within the Tanakh. And so Joel, a prophet who lived around 586 BC, and his respective prophecy is only a whopping three chapters long, and it happens to be the second of the minor prophets. Okay, you guys are with me on this? And so this short collection of prophetic poems is unique among the prophetic books for a couple of reasons. One, um, in prophetic literature, there's often uh something that Israel has done. There's been an indictment on them, it is specific, you can name it, but when it comes to the book of Joel, there's really no explicit indication of when it was written. Okay, it's most likely set during the time period of Ezra and Nehemiah after the return from the Babylonian exile, because he mentions Jerusalem and the temple, but not a kingdom. So we assume it was written during and after the destruction of Jerusalem around 586 or 587 BC. Another aspect is this is that the book is set apart, is that Joel is clearly familiar with many of the old scriptural books. Because you'll see he alludes to so many different prophets, Isaiah and Amos, Zephaniah, Nahum, Obadiah, Ezekiel, and Malachi, all of these, even the book of Exodus, okay? All of these Joel kind of um refers to. But then thirdly, Joel never accuses Israel of any specific sin. Here's what I want us to know. Right, like the other prophets, he announces that God's justice is coming to confront Israel's sin, but he never really says why. And as you read the book, this might be a little strange to us, but there's a reason for this. And the reason is this is that Joel assumes that, like him, you and I, we've been reading the books of the prophets and already know all about Israel's rebellion. He's assuming that. Like Joel is a biblical author who was himself immersed in earlier biblical writings, and his reflection on them helped him to make sense of the tragedies of his day and gave him a hope for the future. And I want to present to the room that hey, maybe this should be true about us too. Like as we read and study ourselves, I think this should be true of us. Like, this is a lesson for all of us. We should be people who are immersed into the Bible, the story of God. We should learn from those who've gone before us. Or there's anything that I desire for the people here at Ambassador Church, and listen, I'm a guy of vision and direction and all kinds of things. So I desire quite a bit for Ambassador Church, okay? But if I could name one thing, the primary thing. I think that I want Ambassador Church as a people to be a people of the Word of God. I want us to be people who know the story, who know what God has done, to know what Jesus has done, and to know where we are and where we stand in this grand narrative. Why? So that we can reflect and look back on the people before us to have life and give us something to look forward to and even apply to our lives now in the here and now. I want us to be a people of the word. And so now we're gonna get into the first and second chapter of Joel here. And as you get into the book, Joel tends to focus on something in particular, okay? There's a phrase that pops up whenever you read the narrative, and it's this phrase right here it's the day of the Lord. And this phrase is laced all throughout the prophetic books and in fact all of scripture. But when you see this phrase pop up, it's really describing one of two events. Okay, it's either describing a past event where God appeared in a powerful way to save his people or confront evil. Think about what God did in the Exodus in the context of confronting Pharaoh, rescuing the Israelites. Okay, this can be referred to as the day of the Lord, but it also points to a future event where again evil will be confronted and salvation will come for the entire world. And therefore, and there are, for instance, like many prophecies that talk about this. One primary one, think about Isaiah chapter 53, okay, that points to Jesus in this way. And there are also many other prophecies that are pointing even to the second coming of Jesus. That day is coming where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And that day can even be referred to as the day of the Lord. So chapter one is all about a previous day of the Lord, specifically the locusts that are levied against Egypt. But Joel is prophesying that these same locusts will now be sent against the Israelites. And it's a unique narrative, right? Because the narrative starts, and it's like, hey, destruction is coming, and Joel has his all this to say about Israel. And what he says is that there's going to be this plague of locusts that are going to come and devour everything in Israel. And so you see like a list of locusts that are literally named in your first chapter, the devouring locusts, the swarming locusts, the young locusts, the destroying locusts. And here's what they symbolize: they symbolize that the prophetic judgment that Joel is announcing to Israel would be completely and holistically devastating. That the intent is that anything that Israel has, all of it will completely be gone. Like this is what Joel is saying to the people of Israel. So we pick up our text today, Joel's calling the elders and the priests to lead the people, all of the people, in a state of repentance and prayer because of this indictment against Israel. And here's what this uh call to prayer and repentance looks like. Look at Joel chapter 1, 13 through 14. It's gonna pop up here on the screen. Here's what it says this dress in sackcloth and lament, you priests. Well, you ministers of the altar, come and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. Announce a sacred fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the residents of the land at the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. This is the call for prayer and repentance. And as you jump into chapter two, uh, it begins by announcing even another day of the Lord, except this time it's a future event, it's an imminent disaster coming for Jerusalem. And Joel sums it up appropriately when he asks in Joel chapter two, verse 11, at the end of it. He says, The day of the Lord is terrible and dreadful. Who can endure it? And so similar to the first chapter, and in fact, is an unmistakable theme throughout the major amount of prophets that Joel calls the reader and the listener to the same thing that he's calling Israel to, it's to pray and repent. And in Joel 2, 12 through 13, here's where we're gonna be today. It says, Even now, this is the Lord's declaration. Turn to me with all of your hearts, with fasting and weeping and mourning, tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. Why? For he is gracious and compassionate, he's slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster. Now I want to pause right here for just a moment, and I want to address this reality of tearing your heart. Right, Joel says, tear your heart and not just your clothes. You wonder what this means? This means that repentance can't just be a show you put on to get out of trouble. Like this isn't what repentance is. Joel wants us to know, hey, you can't fool God. God knows you deeper than you think you know you. He knows your motives, he knows your heart. He is seeking not just this kind of outward change where you're walking around, you're sad, you're all solid. No, but he's seeking genuine change of people who turn from evil, from selfishness and pride, and they seek deliberately and intentionally to have their hearts conformed into the image of Christ. He's not looking for just some fake show of sorrow. And so when Joel says, Hey, God is gracious and compassionate, he's slow to anger and abounding in love, he's actually quoting Exodus 34, 6. You guys remember our look at God series from last fall? This is what we went through. I want to remind you, here's what it says in Exodus 34, 6 says the Lord passed in front of him, Moses, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, is a compassionate and gracious God. He's slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. And I want to remind us like this is the occasion where God forgave Israel after they have made the golden calf. And Joel knows from scripture, past the events, that God's mercy and love are more powerful than his wrath and judgment. And so once more, he leads the priests in acts of repentance and prayer. And then in the very next verse, this is our infamous question that pops up here. It says, Who knows? It says, Repent, do all these kind of things. The Lord's grace and compassionate. But then he says in verse 14, who knows? If you repent, maybe God will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him so that you can offer a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord your God. This is the question. It's who knows? And the flash in the face of this reality that, hey, we deserve punishment, we have rebelled, we have sinned, we have defied the Almighty God, but maybe God, because of his mercy and because of his love, are more powerful than his wrath and judgment. Maybe, just maybe, he will turn and relent from his judgment and wrath. See, church, it's worthwhile to remind to remember that God doesn't owe us anything. Like, we are the ones who keep sinning, we are the ones who keep rebelling, we continue to stand in defiance against the all-powerful God. And when you look at the history of the Israelites, it's easy to wonder like, how in the world can they keep doing that? Like, how can they keep treating God's law with such callousness and yet continually come back expecting to be forgiven and restored? Right? How many of you often read the Bible and you look at the the characters in the Bible and you're just like, I don't understand, I don't get it. God is clearly good, God is clearly made away, God is clearly provided for them, right? Am I alone in doing that? Like I read the scripture and I'm like, how could Israel keep messing up? But here's what's true like we're not far off from them. Like, doesn't that sound exactly like us? Don't you often forget the goodness of God? Don't you often forget the provision of God? Don't you often forget what he's already done? And when you come into a place where you've forgotten that and you find yourself in sin, it's like somehow you just lose the characteristics of a God. You forget that he's merciful and compassionate and kind. Like this sounds just like us. And I want it to be noted, I've drawn our attention to this before in this series, that people back at this point in history they seem to understand the importance of repentance and obedience, regardless of the outcome, a whole lot better than we do today. God might turn and relent, he might not, but we're turning to him no matter what. This was the posture of the people in the text. You see, God is deserving of our wholehearted obedience, whether he, in his perfect wisdom and justice, chooses to restore us or not. See a right view of who reports to who. This is what they have, and we would do well to recapture the essence of that. We are to serve God, we are to love God, we are to worship God, not the other way around. So the second half of this verse, which is easy to breeze past, further emphasizes this point. In Joel 2, verse 14, we see our phrase, who knows? He may turn to relent and leave a blessing behind him, so you can offer a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord Jesus. Your God. Okay, remember that Joel is specifically talking about the plague of locusts here. Okay, a plague that is sent to destroy everything. And here's the picture he's painting. He's painting, hey, maybe God will turn and relent, meaning the locusts, maybe they won't devour everything. He's giving them a sense of hope. He's saying, Hey, maybe the locusts won't devour everything. And if we apply to our lives, this might mean, hey, there are some consequences for your sinful actions, and they will cause some destruction. But we can hold on to hope that, hey, maybe he won't destroy all of it. Maybe he won't destroy all of it. And this is actually true in the narrative of Joel. We can't read it all, but Joel records that God responds to their repentance in the rest of chapters two and chapter three. And here's what happens: God actually spares his people. There's a promise and a picture of cosmic restoration, not just in people, but like the world. Like there's fields and vegetation, like this kind of poetic language to say there's gonna be a holistic restoration and reconciliation because of God's response to their repentance. There's promise of God's presence, there's vision for a new day when the Spirit of God will pour out fresh on his people, the nations will be judged for all they've done to Israel, and God will gather his people, a new people of all people, to himself again. This is what the rest of the book says. That yes, Israel gets judged and called to the mat. They even experience some consequences, but they don't get everything that they should have got. You guys see that? Because of Israel's repentance, and more importantly, because of God's mercy, he leaves a blessing so that they can worship him again, and he responds with favor to restore his people. And I want to point out a basic principle we can kind of draw from this reality. And the basic principle is this that even within God's justice and wrath, there is usually still an element of his mercy and love. How many of you have experienced this? That even in the midst of yes, you experiencing consequences for your actions, maybe some type of judgment from God, he doesn't do all he could do. But he leaves a little bit, he leaves a remnant because of his mercy and compassion. Like we see throughout the prophets that here's what's true. We deserve bigger consequences for the things that we do. We actually deserve death for the sin that we commit. But God often stops short, and the Israelites show us what to do. They plead with God, hey, maybe God will leave behind a remnant as a blessing. Why? Because he should have destroyed all of the things. The locust should have come and devoured every single thing. The Israelites should have died off, okay? Like, not very sexually pleasing. They should have starved to death, all the kinds of things, no homes, they should have been ransacked by other nations, all this kind of stuff. And they experienced some of that, but God was so kind to leave a remnant, but they weren't entitled to it. They said, Hey, maybe, maybe a small remnant will remain, but even then they didn't assume that he would actually leave it. This is what the Who Knows series kind of stands for in this passage. And I would say it's the posture of faith that we should adopt even in our own lives. Like think of a truly repentant heart. A truly repentant heart is a shift from, hey God, would you just please bail me out of this? It's a shift from that to God, I deserve this. But out of an overflow of your love and mercy, will you turn and relent? And if you leave behind anything, you don't have to, you really should. But if you did, I will claim it as a sacrifice to you. Like I won't even assume it's for me. It is a gift, and I want to give it back to you because I recognize who you are and what you have done for me. This is what it means to have a true heart of repentance. Y'all just think for a minute. How different is that from how we typically tend to respond in times like this? Where we ask God to bail us out, and when he doesn't, we have the audacity to blame him. And even when he does, we hardly even take time to pause and say, thank you for doing what you've done. Like we should be people who are humble before God, who have the phrase, who knows, ready to be uttered off of our lips in the midst of our sin, because God, in his good or right judgment, has the right to do the worst. And yet he often, with his love, mercy, and compassion, leaves a remnant for us. And in our state, because we're human and he is God, we should look at him and say, thank you, thank you, thank you. This should be our response. And here's why we need to know this. Um, for those of you who know science in the room, Newton's third law of motion. And this might connect, it might not. I don't know, okay. But Newton's third law of motion, it says this for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So practically, for our faith, here's what this means: it means that the God of the universe, he humbled himself to a degree that we cannot comprehend. When he got off of his throne in heaven, he took on the limitations of humanity and became like us. And then after he came to earth, he lived the perfect life that we couldn't live. He died the death that we should have died. He went to the cross bearing the full weight and penalty of our sin. He bear it on the cross, on his shoulders. He took it all for all of humanity, the sin on himself, and he died the death that was owed to us, but then he triumphantly rose from the grave so that each of us might have the opportunity to be restored. And y'all, if that is the primary action, here's the reaction that should be a result of that. An action of that magnitude doesn't simply warrant us asking Jesus into our hearts and then making some kind of like minor lifestyle adjustments to whatever we do. But it warrants nothing less than an utter and complete submission to the all-knowing, all-powerful, almighty God. It calls us, like the people of Israel, to a place of repentance and obedience, regardless of what he chooses to do with our sin and rebellion. That even if only a remnant remains, after his justice is enacted, we still pour it out as a living sacrifice, a living offering at his feet. This is what this means that God did the most. And our response should be a right response, equal and opposite. When he gave himself for us, we should give ourselves for him. And when we do, here's what the Bible says: the pattern of scripture, that he is merciful and he is kind to meet us there and love us there and even draw him in, draws him even closer to himself. Here's the key takeaway for us this morning: mercy and compassion is God's response to wholehearted repentance. And I think this is important for us to know here in the room today. Church, full disclosure, like I was sitting down writing this message this week, and I was struggling a bit because I felt like a little bit of deja vu, right? Like if you've been here for the last several weeks, the first couple weeks, uh, we hit heavy on repentance. And I was writing this one, and I was like, well, maybe we'll get a break coming to the end of this uh series. Nope, we're diving back in back into repentance. It's like, man, haven't I given this message before? And I was writing and I got to this place where I where I sense the Holy Spirit say, Hey, um, that's exactly what I want you to preach on. Listen, there's a total of 16 books in the major and minor prophets, and all of them have this same exact theme that land on the same exact point judgment from God and a call of repentance from the people. And here's what I'm thinking, y'all. Maybe you're thinking this too. That if the people of Israel needed 16 books in the Old Testament with this theme, then surely you and I can handle a few weeks of this theme. And if the 16 prophets yelling and screaming at the Israelites didn't cause the masses to repent and respond in obedience, then I would even say it stands to reason that there's many of us in the room who've listened to these messages and you haven't even brought yourself to a state of repentance either. That what you've done in the last four weeks, instead of coming humbly before God, opening your hands in your heart, tearing your clothes, and not just that, but tearing your heart to God, not just in a sorrowful play, but in real, humble, heartfelt repentance towards God. Maybe you've been here last several weeks, folding your arms, theoretically, giving the bird to God because you won't soften your heart to come to Him in repentance. So I think God wants to give us another chance today. And I don't think I have to sit here and tell you all the 50 things that might be running through your mind that you need to bring before God. You know what they are. You were here week one, you knew then, and yet you chose to fold up instead of fall down. So here's the thing that I want us to do. I want you to bring that to mind. Maybe you swiped left on it in week one. I want you to swipe right on it here in week four. Would you today bring yourself humbly before God, bring it to mind, repent to Him and fall before His mighty cross? And here's some of the kindest words you will, if you ever do, from 2 Peter verses or chapter 3, verse 9. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to a state of repentance. Like God is waiting on you, He's waiting on you to repent. And for the believer in the room, this can be true for you. Because you know, like I know, that when you harbor sin in your heart and you live as if like you can just do all these kinds of things, and you live week to week, day by day, racking up sin, and you know what this is for you, and you go about your life as if, hey, no one's seen it. I don't have to go to God for it, I don't have to go to other people for it. Like, this isn't true, like repentance, like God's not letting you get away with that. I don't know if you know that. God does not let us get away with our sin. And so, would we be people who run to him quickly? Like some of us think that when we become Christians, like we we just won't sin. Maybe some of you knew in your faith, some of you who haven't come to the faith yet. This is what you think of Christianity is that's not true. Christianity is a faith that even when you do sin, you have a place to go, you have a place to fall before the holy God and confess and repent of what you're doing. And it's not a punishment on you, that is God's kindness leading you there to a place of bearing it all before God. And I want to charge the Christians in the room that this should be you today. When we pray and do communion, like this should be your reflection moment today. And for the non-believers in the room, I would submit, hey, maybe this is the first time in your life that you should be called to repentance. That maybe for you, the repentance in your life means that you are now receiving Jesus Christ for the first time. And I would love nothing more than for that to be true of you, that you call to bear that there is a savior, you are not him, you have sinned, you can call on him to take away your sin, whatever no sin you have to put before him and say, God, I laid this all before you. I no longer want to run my life, but I'm asking you, would you step in and would you save me? And would you be the savior and the Lord of my life? This is what you can do this morning. You can repent even for the first time. And God is gracious, God with his love, mercy, and compassion to wrap you up in his arms. He'll save you. This is a promise. So my prayer is that we repent and move forward in obedience. And who knows, like Joel says, he may turn and relent, and he may leave a blessing behind him. Why? So that you can begin to worship him again with whatever he has, with whatever he leaves. Will we be a people who see God like that in worship? Would you pray with me? Father, we love you, and we're grateful for this morning, and we're grateful for a challenging series. We're grateful for the people who've gone before us. We're grateful for the biblical people of Israel and their story, and we're grateful that uh you don't shy away from their wrongdoings, you don't shy away from their sin, but they serve as an example for us. That we can be people who repent and come to you, and it even shows us the kind of God that you are. That you are a loving and compassionate and kind God, and you even invite that. So will we be people who don't wait until we're at a place where we're not movable, we be at a place where we're not paralyzed by the sin in our lives before we come to you in humble repentance, but we go to you willingly and say, Who knows, God? I've been holding on for this for so long, and I don't know what would happen if I let somebody know. I don't know what would happen if I let you know this, if I actually acknowledge it in my life. I don't know. But when we say, Hey, who knows? Because of your love and compassion and mercy, maybe you are constantly behind a blessing, maybe you're constantly behind a remnant, and whatever it is, even though you don't have to, I will choose to worship you all the more because of it. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Will we be people like this who see you for who you are and see us for who we are, and that we fall before you humbly in repentance? Father, we love you and we're grateful for your kindness, we're grateful for your son. We pray this in his name. Amen and amen.

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Thanks for listening to the Ambassador Church Podcast. To learn more, visit ambassadormke.org or follow us on Instagram at Ambassador MKE. And if you're in the Milwaukee area, we'd love to see you this Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m. at 2308 East Bellevue Place. Grace and peace.