I Will Pour Out My Spirit | Joel
Brian Hedges | August 10, 2025
Let me invite you to turn in Scripture this morning to the book of Joel, the Old Testament prophet Joel.
While you’re turning there, I want to ask a question, and this isn’t just a lead-in to the sermon but it’s also a question I want you to actually think about for a moment and try to answer in your mind. How would you describe wellbeing? Think about the term “wellbeing”; think about wellbeing in your personal life, maybe wellbeing in your family, and then more broadly wellbeing in society, in the community and in the world. How would you define wellbeing?
I read a book a few years ago, by a man named Tom Rath, called Wellbeing, and he described five essential elements of wellbeing. He talked about wellbeing in these five dimensions:
1. Career wellbeing
2. Social wellbeing (that would be wellbeing in our relationships)
3. Financial wellbeing
4. Physical wellbeing
5. Community wellbeing
There’s an obvious missing piece in that list, isn’t there? There’s nothing there about spiritual wellbeing. In a lot of the secular approaches, that’s what’s missing; it’s any concern with our relationship with God.
But we could say that wellbeing does include all of these dimensions. If we think about really flourishing and thriving in our lives, these are things that all of us want to some degree: physical health, emotional health, emotional wellbeing, joy and happiness in our relationships. We want to be involved in purposeful work, financial stability. It’s not that we have to have everything, just so that we’re not in acute financial straits. We want to be part of a significant community. We want to see, more broadly, peace in the world. We want to see injustice taken care of, no violence and wars. Most importantly, we as believers want to have a vital, life-giving relationship with our Creator, with God.
All of that would be necessary for there to be something like real wellbeing, flourishing, thriving in our lives.
I think we know we need this, we know that the world needs this, and it’s a good place for us to begin this morning, because this is where the prophet Joel ends his book: with a picture of this kind of flourishing, thriving people of God.
This is the ninth in our series on the minor prophets, but you’ve probably already noted in your mind that Joel is actually the second in the list of prophets in this Book of the Twelve. There’s a reason why we waited until later in this series to deal with Joel: because it’s harder to pinpoint the exact date of this book. This may be the most difficult of all the minor prophets to date. There’s very little historical detail in this book, but some scholars believe that it took place sometime in the late sixth century or maybe even after the Babylonian exile. We can’t be sure.
But one thing that is remarkable about this book is that there are no specific historical references that we can name for sure. Even with the calls to repentance in this book, there are not specific sins named. It’s more of a general call to repentance, and that leads some scholars to believe that this was a liturgical text that was used repeatedly to call the people of God to these holy, sacred assemblies for times of seeking the Lord.
What is pretty clear in this book is that it begins, as most of the minor prophets do, with judgment, announcement of judgment, and with calls to repentance; and it ends with this marvelous promise of restoration, including a promise that God would pour out his Spirit on his people.
I want to focus especially on that this morning, so I want to begin by reading Joel 2:28-32, and then I want to read the last paragraph of the book, Joel 3:16b-21. Okay, Joel 2:28. You can follow along in your own copy of God’s word or on the screen.
“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
[most scholars think this is probably referring to an eclipse]
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the Lord has said,
even among the survivors
whom the Lord calls.”
Then at the end of Joel 3 we read these words:
“But the Lord will be a refuge for his people,
a stronghold for the people of Israel.
“‘Then you will know that I, the Lord your God,
dwell in Zion, my holy hill.
Jerusalem will be holy;
never again will foreigners invade her.
“‘In that day the mountains will drip new wine,
and the hills will flow with milk;
all the ravines of Judah will run with water.
A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house
and will water the valley of acacias.
But Egypt will be desolate,
Edom a desert waste,
because of violence done to the people of Judah,
in whose land they shed innocent blood.
Judah will be inhabited forever
and Jerusalem through all generations.
Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged?
No, I will not.’
“The Lord dwells in Zion!”
This is God’s word.
Maybe you noticed as we read that last paragraph the underlined portions. They really do give us a picture of flourishing, thriving wellbeing in the life of the people of God, such that the mountains drip with wine and the hills flow with milk and the ravines are filled with water and there’s this fountain, this river of water, flowing from the temple. It is a picture that we find often in the prophets, and we find it at the very end of Scripture in Revelation 22. It’s a picture of the Lord dwelling with his people and all of the life-giving results of the Lord’s presence. Central to this book is this promise, the promise that God will pour out his Spirit on his people and will restore them.
What I want to do is focus especially on that. I want to focus on these three things:
1. Our Need for the Spirit
2. The Promise of the Spirit
3. Life in the Spirit Today
For the last point, I’m really going to get into the New Testament and establish for us just some basics about what it means to live as people of the Spirit, live in the Spirit today. But let’s begin with our need for the Spirit, point number one.
1. Our Need for the Spirit
I think we can say that the need for the Spirit is implied in this book in the warnings of judgment and the calls for repentance in Joel 1-2, and also in this promised future that we just read in Joel 3. I’m not going to cover in detail chapters one and two, but let me just give you a summary of these two chapters.
As with most of the minor prophets, it begins with prophecies of judgment, descriptions of judgment. So you have a plague of locusts in Joel 1, and then you have the day of the Lord in Joel 2, but also the language of the locusts continues. So it seems that there’s army of locusts in chapter one, a literal plague, and then in chapter two perhaps this is then used in a metaphorical way to describe another impending judgment that will come on the people of God.
Now, it’s significant that Joel uses this specific language. This was probably a historical event that had taken place. We know this; in many parts of the world there are still plagues of locusts today, where locusts will come through and they will basically devour all of the farmland, they’ll devour all the fruits and vegetables, and it will lead to a terrible time of famine in the land. This had taken place. But can you think of another place in Scripture where there’s a plague of locusts? Right, with the ten plagues of Egypt, right?
It’s significant that, in the minor prophets, over and again the minor prophets refer to things that happened in God’s judgment over Egypt. It’s because God had made this covenant with his people, and he had promised them that if they would obey him he would bless them, but if they disobeyed they would be subject to the covenant curses, and essentially it would be a reversal of the exodus, where Israel would become like Egypt and they would suffer the judgment of God. It all goes back to those covenant blessings and curses at the end of the Deuteronomy.
That’s what the people of God here are experiencing. They are experiencing these covenant curses, and it prompts Joel to call for sacred assemblies, for the people of God to gather in repentance and fasting and prayer, to humble themselves before the Lord. You have this in Joel 2.
“‘Even now,’ declares the Lord,
‘return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.’
“Rend your heart
and not your garments.”
So he wasn’t just interested in the formal, outward, external aspects of religion; he wanted them to have broken hearts and to humble themselves as they come before the Lord.
All of this I think is showing us their need for the presence of God among them. They had lost God’s presence, and now he’s calling them to repentance as they seek the Lord again so that there will be a restoration of God’s presence. It shows their need for the Spirit.
Then that last paragraph of Joel 3, that I’ve already read, is really showing us a portrait of what Jerusalem will be like, what the people of God will be like, when the Lord dwells in Zion, when God is present with his people. Let me just read you the summary—I found this helpful—from Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. They say,
“This final picture [again, it’s the last paragraph of Joel] is overlaid with images of eschatological abundance: the lavish renewal of the land (v. 18), a fountain flowing out of Jerusalem (v. 18; you can compare that with Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22), Israel’s traditional enemies finished forever (v. 19), eternal habitation of Judah and Jerusalem (v. 20), and total removal of sin (v. 21). The ultimate basis for this is the return of God’s presence to Zion.”
So this book ends with these words: “The Lord will dwell in Zion.” It’s God present with his people.
Friends, in some ways we could say that the entire history of Israel and the entire storyline of the Old Testament and of Scripture is about our need for the Spirit. From the very moment when Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, they had lost the presence of God. They had lost the face of God. They were banished from his presence.
What does God then do? He begins to make promises, and he calls a people to himself through Abraham, and then the family of Abraham with Israel, and it’s all about God selecting a people in whom he will once again dwell. So he gives them these gifts, the tabernacle. Moses builds it, and the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle. Then the temple, Solomon builds it, and the glory of God fills the temple. What is this? It is God dwelling with his people!
But when they sin, when they rebel against him, when they turn away from him, the glory of God departs, God is no longer dwelling with his people, and they once again find themselves under the curse and under judgment.
Friends, this is an indication of our need for the Spirit as well. In fact, we could put it this way, that our need for the Spirit today is evident in the condition of the world and our own lives whenever God is absent.
Just think about the difference between God is present and when God is absent. When God is present, there is blessing; when God is absent, there is curse. Where God is present there is freedom, but where God is absent there is bondage. Where God is present there is peace, there is shalom, there is this flourishing in life and relationships; where God is absent there’s conflict, there’s breakdown, there’s dysfunction. Where God is present there is light; where God is absent there is darkness. In the presence of God is fullness of joy, but without God there’s only sorrow. The presence of God is like this river of the water of life—it’s refreshing, it’s satisfying—but the absence of God is like a desolate, desert wasteland. Without God, death; but with God, life. Why do we need the Spirit? Because we want life, because we want peace, because we want joy. We want all these things, but they only come when we are rightly related to God. This is our need. Just as it was the need for the people of God in the Old Testament, it is our need today.
Before we move on, I want you to just think about those parts of your life right now where you see dysfunction, where you see bondage, where you see darkness, those parts of your heart, your life, your relationships that are not flourishing; those are indicators of your need for God. It’s a call for us this morning to seek his face again.
2. The Promise of the Spirit
There’s the need for the Spirit, and then number two, the promise of the Spirit, which you have in Joel 2. I’ve already read it, but let me now just explain briefly the basis of this promise, the heart of the promise, and the fulfillment of the promise.
(1) The basis of the promise we could say is God’s character and his covenant faithfulness to his people, and we see this in one of these calls to sacred assembly in Joel 2:12-13. I read part of this before, but let me read it again now, Joel 2:12-13.
“‘Even now,’ declares the Lord,
‘return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.’
“Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for—”
Now it’s giving us the reason. This is the reason why they are to return to the Lord, and following this are the various promises of restoration that follow, including the promise of the Spirit.
“Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.”
Now, those words may sound familiar to you, partly because we sang them this morning. “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” is all based on Psalm 103, and it’s using this language.
But that language actually goes all the way back to Exodus 34, in one of the most important self-revelations of God that we have anywhere in Scripture. This is after the exodus, it’s after God has redeemed his people out of bondage in Egypt. He’s brought them to Mount Sinai, he’s given them the law, he’s made a covenant with the people, and the people have already broken the covenant. They’ve made a golden calf, they’ve started worshiping it, and Moses is up on the mountain interceding for the people of God. “Don’t wipe them out, God! Go with us into the promised land, and Lord, show me your glory.”
And the Lord takes Moses up onto a mountain, he hides him in the cleft of the rock, and he passes before him and proclaims the name of the Lord. This is what it says in Exodus 34:5:
“Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.’”
It is one of the most important revelations of God anywhere in Scripture, and the prophet Joel is recalling that! He’s saying, “This is who God is. This is the character of our God; therefore, return to the Lord.” It’s the basis upon which all the promises of restoration are made: God’s character and his covenant faithfulness.
(2) Then we see the heart of this promise in Joel 2:28-29. I’ve already read it, but let me read it again.
“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.”
What we have to remember, and what makes this so significant, is that the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, while it was present, it was occasional. It was not a widespread outpouring of the Spirit; rather, the Spirit was given on occasion to significant figures like kings and prophets, who would be anointed by the Spirit for a specific task or a specific ministry.
But there’s this interesting story that takes place in the book of Numbers where these two guys—we never really hear about them anywhere else in Scripture—these two guys named Eldad and Medad start prophesying, and Joshua is kind of upset about it. He’s complaining about it, and Moses in Numbers 11:29 says, “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them.”
It’s that story that’s being echoed here as Joel makes this amazing prophecy that there’s coming a day when God is going to pour out his Spirit. This is an abundant giving of the Spirit. In contrast to the famine and the drought that were part of the covenant curses, God once again is going to give abundance, including the abundant outpouring of his Holy Spirit.
Note that it’s not just for the kings and the prophets, but it’s for all people, it’s for all flesh. In fact, Joel lists the various socioeconomic distinctions of the people of that day and shows that this is for all people.
Listen to Ray Dillard in his commentary on Joel. He says,
“It is important that the modern reader not miss the radical character of what Joel announces. In the world of ancient Israel, the free, older, Jewish male stood at the top of the social structure. Most of Israel’s prophets had belonged to this group. Joel envisages a sociological overhaul: the distinctions between old and young (‘your old men and your young men’), slave and free (‘your slaves and slave girls’), and male and female (‘your sons and daughters’) are swept aside. This statement must have contrasted with the daybreak prayer of the Jewish male: ‘I thank you, God, that I was not born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.”
Here’s a promise for all people. Think about the apostle Paul’s words in light of that promise, in Galatians 3:28-29. After he has talked about how the Gentiles receive the promise of the Spirit by faith, he says in verse 28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” And the promise, we know from verse 14, is at least in part the promise of the Holy Spirit.
(3) So that leads us to the fulfillment of this promise, and the fulfillment of this promise is seen in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost. I’m not going to read it; you’re familiar with the story. But on the Day of Pentecost, when God pours out his Spirit on the church, the apostle Peter stands up and he preaches, and he quotes directly from Joel 2 to show that this promise was fulfilled. God pours his Spirit out on the church.
That means, friends, that you and I now live in what we can call the age of the Spirit. We don’t live in the same era of redemptive history as Old Testament Israel; we live in the age of the Spirit, where God has given the Spirit to the church, and we are now called to be people of the Spirit. We are recipients of this promise because God has given his Spirit.
3. Life in the Spirit Today
So I want to end by just thinking about what that means for us today. What does it mean to live life in the Spirit today? This is where most of the application is. What I want to do is just take a few minutes to establish the word of the Spirit in the New Testament. As we try to map this into the New Testament, I want to give you what we might think of as five sets of coordinates for how to understand the work of the Spirit in the landscape of the New Testament. These are really five passages of Scripture, five categories that I think help us understand how the Spirit works in our lives today, and then I want to end by asking three application questions.
(1) So, five coordinates; first of all, Christ himself. Look at John 7:37-39. Jesus here is at the temple, he’s at one of the annual festivals. It’s the last day of the festival, and Jesus stands up. Listen to what it says.
“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’”
Read that in light of this promise of Joel of a fountain that’s going to flow from the house of God, or of Ezekiel’s temple and the life-giving river that flows from the temple, and all of these promises of the Spirit. Read it in light of that. Then read verse 39:
“By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
But now we can say that the Spirit has been given, because Christ is resurrected, he is ascended, he is glorified, he’s at the right hand of God. Jesus ascended to the Father, and then ten days later he gave the Spirit to the church.
Now, all of this means that you get the Spirit by getting Jesus. There is an unbreakable bond between Jesus and the Spirit. In fact, it’s so strong that the apostle Paul can say in Romans 8 that “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to Christ.” If you don’t have the Spirit, you don’t have Jesus; if you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have the Spirit. There’s this connection between the two. That’s the first coordinate.
(2) Here’s the second: new birth. Jesus said, “You must be born again. You must be born of water and of the Spirit” (John 3). Then Paul explains this in Titus 3:4-7. Let me read it.
“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out [notice the language] on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
This is how the Christian life begins. It begins as you are born of the Spirit, as you receive new birth and the renewal or the regeneration, the washing work of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know whether you’re a Christian or not, you have to see whether there’s the evidences of new birth in your life or not. The way you know whether you’re a Christian—it’s not whether you’ve spoken in tongues or you’ve fallen on the ground or you’ve had some kind of ecstatic experience—it’s not that! It’s faith in Jesus Christ, and it’s love for God and for the people of God, because the Spirit has taken residence in your heart. Things have begun to change. The old has become new, darkness has given way to light, and you now follow Jesus Christ. That’s what happens in new birth. That’s the second coordinate.
(3) Here’s the third: the church. In the Old Testament you have this picture of the tabernacle, you have the temple; it’s the dwelling place of God. But did you know that in the New Testament that language gets picked up and it’s applied to the church? The church is now the temple of God, the tabernacle of God, which means that the Spirit now indwells the church. Look at Ephesians 2:19-22. He says,
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
God dwells in the people of God; he dwells in the church.
(4) Two more texts. Fourth coordinate: transformation. Second Corinthians 3:18 is one of my favorite verses in all the Bible, in one verse describing for us what we usually think of as sanctification, the process by which we are changed and become like Christ. Listen to it.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Once you are born again, once you become a Christian, you begin this lifelong journey, this process by which you progressively become more and more and more like Jesus. It’s the Holy Spirit who carries on that process, and he does it as you contemplate the glory of the Lord. As you gaze on the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ and reflected and revealed supremely in the gospel—as you do that, you’re changed. Transformation.
(5) That leads to the fifth coordinate: fruit. Galatians 5:22-23.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
What a picture that is of spiritual wellbeing, as we bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
Now, that’s, of course, just a summary of what the New Testament teaches about the Spirit, but I think that gets you the essence of what the New Testament teaches about the ministry and the work of the Spirit today.
So as we think about this, life in the Spirit today, this is the way I want us to end: I want us to ask some questions, and I want to give this to you for you to use not just in the message now, but use this for some self-examination this week. Maybe write these questions down and, in your quiet times, your devotional times with the Lord, ask these questions. Work through these questions in your own heart.
Question number one: Have you experienced the saving, life-giving work of the Spirit? In other words, are you born again? Have you really experienced new birth and come to saving faith in Jesus Christ?
Years ago, out of the blue, I got an email one day from a guy who lived four or five states away who had read a book review that I wrote about Arnold Dallimore’s biography of George Whitefield. It’s a wonderful biography that tells the story of George Whitefield, the great evangelist, revivalist of the eighteenth century. George Whitefield had gone through this period of being very religious, but he was lost, he wasn’t born again; and then he experienced new birth and it completely changed his life. Then the Lord used Whitefield to bring thousands and thousands of people to Christ over the next several decades of his life.
So I’d written a review of this book, and this guy, just out of the blue, emails me and tells me, “I read this book about George Whitefield, and as I read it I was deeply convicted and spent several months really unhappy because I realized that this had never happened to me. Then, praise God, it happened, and I’ve become a Christian now, and I’ve experienced new birth, and I wanted to write you to talk about the book review.”
Now, I’m summarizing. I don’t remember exactly what he wrote, but that was the essence of it. He actually lived somewhere in the east, and on a trip to Georgia, maybe five or six months later, he drove probably six hours to come spend several hours visiting with me, because he just wanted to talk to a brother in Christ who understood and experienced new birth!
Has that happened to you? Has something happened to you where you can say with John Newton, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see”?It once was darkness, but now it’s light. At one time there was no hope. “At one time in my life I was living in the darkness. I thought I knew God, but I didn’t know God; but now something’s happened in my heart and I’ve found Jesus, I’ve found Christ! He is the joy of my heart and my life.”
For some of you, that was a road-to-Damascus experience, where God saved you out of a life of brokenness and sin and completely changed your life. For others of you it was a slow, dawning realization that something had changed, something had fundamentally changed in your heart, and you’ve now begun to trust Jesus and love him.
Some of you, perhaps, have never experienced that. You come to church, you might be religious, but you’re not born again. You need that. So ask yourself that question. Have you experienced the saving, life-giving work of the Spirit?
Second question: Are you committed and connected to the church, the new temple of the Spirit? I word that in a very specific way. Are you committed to and connected to…? I’m not asking whether you come on Sunday morning. You can come on Sunday morning to church and not be committed to the church and certainly not be connected to the church. But what you find, again and again and again, in the Scriptures is that the locus of the work of the Spirit—the place where the Spirit works—is in the church. It’s the church that is the dwelling place of God! And I don’t mean the building; we could be in any building. It’s not the building, it’s the people. And it’s when you are connected to the people of God. Peter uses this language: you are living stones that are being built up into this temple, and that means that somehow we are cemented together, we are connected together in love and in service and in relationships, where we live life together as the people of God. That’s where you see the Spirit most at work.
For some of you, it may be that you’re Christians, it may be that you follow Christ and love Christ, but you’re not really committed to the church, you’re not really connected to the church, and you find that there is a lack of thriving and spiritual growth in your life. It may just be because you’re not really connected to the people of God in a way that you experience this fullness of the Spirit in your life. Ask yourself that question: Am I committed to and connected to the church?
Finally, number three, are you seeing gradual transformation in your life as you increasingly become like Jesus and bear the fruit of the Spirit in your life?
I think theologically most of us in this room would say, “Yes, I agree that’s what happens in sanctification. You gradually become like Jesus.” But I want you to ask it personally: are you seeing that in your life, where you can look over the past six months or the past year, or even the past three or four years, and you can see that there’s growth, there’s change, there’s transformation? “In these specific ways, I’m more like Jesus now than I was a year ago.”
I think it’s possible that you can be a believer and you can go through periods of time where you are stagnant, where you are stuck, where maybe you sort of want to be like Jesus, you believe in Jesus, you love Jesus, but you’re kind of coasting, and you’re not really thriving spiritually, and you’re not conscious of real progress being made in your life. Indications of that would be if you’re stuck in a habitual sin, if you find yourself trapped in some kind of addictive behavior, if you are constantly finding your heart is filled with negative emotions like anxiety or anger or rage, if you see all this breakdown and dysfunction in your family relationships. All of those can be indications of a real need for growth and being somewhat stagnant in your spiritual life.
It should prompt this question: Am I growing? Am I seeing change? Where are the specific places in my life that now, right now, today, God wants to change, because I’m not as much like Jesus in this particular area as he wants me to be? We should ask those questions, and we should be able to discern that growth in our lives.
Sometimes, you may not be able to see it yourself. This is another reason why you need to be connected to other people, because sometimes other people see it in ways that you don’t, and others can affirm, “Yes, I see that you have grown in patience, you are less angry than you used to be. You have grown in humility, you’re not as arrogant as you used to be. You have more compassion for others, where you used to be more hard-hearted. I can see growth in your life over the past two or three years,” or whatever. We need the community, and it’s part of our spiritual growth.
So ask these questions; maybe take these home this week and reflect on these prayerfully with the Lord.
In conclusion, let me just say this: Jesus, of course, made this promise, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly,” have it to the full, John 10:10. That’s really what we’re talking about this morning, and that abundant life—wellbeing, to use the secular word—that comes through relationship with God as the Spirit is resident in our hearts and our lives. And friends, it’s the only way to genuine wellbeing. It’s the only way that we flourish in every dimension of life.
We experience that in measure now, but there is coming a day when we will experience that in the fullest possible measure. Gradually we become more like Jesus now, but there’s coming a day when you’re going to be fully, completely transformed, made like Jesus in every possible way. We see the kingdom of God here in part now, but there’s coming a day when the kingdom of God will reign over all things in this world.
I want to end with these words from Revelation 22:1-5. It’s the very last chapter of the Bible, and it’s pulling together the various themes and language and terms we’ve talked about this morning. Notice as I read it, Revelation 22:1-5.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”
The book of Joel ends with this promise: “The Lord will dwell with his people.” The whole Bible ends with this promise. This is the vision. This is what we’re waiting for, the day when God once again will dwell with humanity. He will be our God, we will be his people.
Friends, we get to anticipate that now as we experience his presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit. Do you know him? Are you trusting him? Are you walking with him? Let’s pray together.
Gracious, merciful God, we thank you this morning for the promise of your word. Thank you for this great promise of your Spirit and the gift of your Spirit, given to us through Christ, your crucified, risen, exalted, and enthroned Son. We thank you, Lord, that so many of us can say with some degree of certainty and assurance in our hearts that we have experienced the life-changing power of the Spirit in our lives, and it’s our longing to experience it more and more so that we become more like Jesus. We do pray this morning that you would change us in all those ways that we still need. For those who are stuck and stagnant today, may it be a day of fresh beginnings, as once again they seek your face, turn to you, and find the power of your Spirit at work bringing change and transformation.
Lord, for those who have never believed in Christ, we pray today that it would be a day of salvation, that today would be the day that they are born into new life and into this living hope through the power of your Spirit. Would you give the gift of faith? Give eyes that see and ears that hear and a heart that understands, and draw each person to Christ.
Lord, we pray that you would help us be faithful as your people to use all the means of grace that you’ve given to us, to remain committed to and connected to one another in the church, and then to use these means of corporate worship and hearing your word and prayer and coming to the table. As we come to the table now, we pray that it would not be for us merely a ritual that we go through, but that in taking the bread and juice we also by faith would feed our souls on Christ, on the good word of the gospel, that we would trust in all that Christ has done for us, that we would trust in your grace and your mercy, that we would bring our hearts before you, and that we would experience real fellowship with you through the power of your Holy Spirit. So, Lord, draw near to us in these moments as we draw near to you. Be with us as we continue in our worship. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
