 |
Text: Joel 2:23-27
Title: “The Lord of What’s Left”
Subj: Serving God despite your past failures, your present sin, or your late salvation.
I think we all know the two stories of Jesus feeding the multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a few small fishes. What we sometimes forget is that after everyone had eaten their fill there remained either 12 or 7 baskets of fragments of bread and fish. Have you ever wondered what happened to those 19 baskets of bread and fish fragments? No, I hadn’t either, until this message. But Jesus gave explicate directions regarding those fragments. Jesus was concerned about those fragments. He said to “collect and gather together” all that was left over. And the reason to collect them was so that nothing be lost (“lose, destroy, render useless”). Each fragment was apparently important to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that, “…Jesus said unto His disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost’.”
Then there is the story of the shepherd who has lost one sheep out of 100, and he leaves the 99 in the wilderness to find the one lost sheep. And when he brings the sheep back, he rejoices more over that one animal than over the 99 who did not go astray. Of course in the story, the shepherd is Christ, and the sheep are the Nation of Israel, but the point is made of the importance of one sheep. Could we not apply Jesus’ words to this situation also?
‘Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost’.”
I wonder if any of you in this building today are a “fragment.” I mean that you came into the Christian life full of hope, vim and vigor. You were glad to be saved by the blood, and to gain a home in Heaven. But something happened between the steps and the church door, and you have never fully entered into your responsibilities and privileges as a believer--you are a fragment.
Or maybe you did enter in--for a time--but now you find yourself slowly, or not so slowly, slipping away from your service for Christ. Where once you eagerly anticipated church, now you begrudgingly attend. Where once your joy was to serve Christ through Grace Baptist, now the joy is gone. You too are a fragment.
There could even be one here today that is that lost sheep. You are wandering deeper and deeper into the wilderness and you don’t even know it! You are going the way of eternal death, though the Good Shepherd seeks for you. But you have never humbled yourself and placed your faith in Jesus Christ. You, also, are a fragment.
You see, a fragment is what’s left over. That’s all that’s left! The wasted days, weeks, months and years can never be reclaimed—they are gone for good. But you can take what’s left over, that fragment, and dedicate the rest of your life to the Lord, for my God is the Lord of what’s left!
I. THE LORD OF PROVISION (v23-24)
A. Who Has Provided for You--Fragment? (v23b)
1. The Lord (Jehovah, the self-existent, ever-present God) your God (Elohim: the supreme God in Tri-unity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
1. Former rain (“teacher”) moderately (“righteousness”) (Messiah)
1. The necessary rain (provision), both early (fall) & later (spring), just when you need it
2. [Threshing] floors full of wheat (but guess who has to thresh the wheat?)
3. Vats overflow with wine and oil (but guess who had to crush the grapes and olives?)
a. For the Jews this was physical provision. For you this is spiritual provision. You can have less of what you need physically and still be full of the joy of the Lord spiritually!
Phil. 4:11 “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
D. What Should Your Response to God Be--Fragment? (v23a)
1. Be glad (“rejoice, fear”), as proper children of Zion (“of God”)
2. Rejoice (“be glad, exult”) in the Lord your God (not your circumstances, good or bad)
3. Be glad and rejoice that there is One in the universe who is always the same; He perfectly and completely judges disobedience and He perfectly and completely blesses obedience.
A. What God Sent in Judgment (v25b)
1. His great army (God alone is Almighty and Sovereign)
a. Locust (“swarming phase of the grasshopper which feeds on crops”), cankerworm (a worm that feeds on citrus and shade trees), caterpillar (“consume;” larvae (butterfly/moth) form that feeds on fruits and other agricultural produce), palmerworm (“devour;” a caterpillar that suddenly appears in great numbers devouring herbage & hardwoods)
1) This is how God judged the Nation of Israel
2) This is how God judges the lost of any nation
3) But in the case of the born-again Christian, God simply leaves you alone, and you become your own locusts, devouring and wasting your own life.
My days are yellow in the leaf;
The flower/ of the fruit of life is gone.
The worm,/ the canker, and the grief/
Are mine alone.
1 Cor. 3:3, Paul writing to Christians, “For ye are yet carnal…” (“under the control of the flesh as if you were lost”)
1. The years that the Locust has eaten (the wasted years)
Note: God cannot bring back or change the years you have wasted, nor can He remove the consequences for your past sins, but you can start here and now to serve God with what’s left.
Paul said, “…but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before” Phil 3:13
You remember the story of the Jewish laborers that sought work in the householder’s vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16). The pay was a penny a day for the first laborers; then a penny for ľ’s of a day; then a penny for ˝ a day; then a penny for Ľ of a day, then a penny for the last hour of the day.
Jesus said, “So the last shall be first…” The subject is not “how much do I get for my labor,” but “how much will I serve the Lord with the time I have left.”
Ecc. 3:11 “He (God) hath made every thing beautiful in His (God’s) time: also He hath set the world (“eternity”) in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”
You don’t know what God can do with the time you have left!
A. What the Lord Has Done for You
1. Has dealt wondrously (“to be beyond your power, to be difficult [for you] to do; to be difficult [for you] to understand; to be wonderful, be extraordinary”) with you
2. God will do for you what you can’t do for yourself
1. You shall eat in plenty (spiritually)
2. You shall be satisfied (“filled”) (spiritually)
3. You shall praise (“be boastful”) the Name (totality of) of the Lord your God
4. You shall never be ashamed (“to put to shame [by God], be ashamed [at yourself], be disconcerted (out of sorts), be disappointed”)
IV. THE LORD OF THE PRESENT (v27)
A. What You Will Know
1. That I Am (the eternal, ever-present God)
a. In the midst of
1) In the midst (“inward part”) of His children
b. The Lord your God
1) v23 started with the Lord your God, and v27 ends with it
1. If you’re His child, you will never be ashamed (of God, of yourself, of your testimony, of your church or anything else), and God will never be ashamed of you.
The caterpillar may have eaten your life until there is but a fragment left. Give that fragment to God today. He alone is your provision. He alone can bring to pass your restoration. He alone will do for you what you cannot do for your self, and you will be satisfied. And He alone will be your constant companion and guide. Will you come today, confessing your sins and placing all your burdens on the only One who can carry them?
Lost friend. You have yet to bow your knee to the great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Have not the locus eaten enough of your life. Have not the caterpillar caused enough damage? Come today and put your faith and trust in the shed blood and sacrificial death of Christ.
Return to the top of this page