Come to the Valley of Judgment

In one paragraph

Before the sermon, Felix shared what God has been doing in his family. His wife Guadalupe had suffered for a long time with a condition that left her unable to walk or sleep, and after four hospital visits without a clear diagnosis, the church helped cover the cost of surgery. She is now walking and regaining feeling in her hands and feet. That testimony set the tone for everything Van preached...

Read together

1. Psalm 103:1 quoted to open worship: 'Praise the Lord my soul, all my inmost being praise his holy name'
2. Acts 3:1-10 read aloud before the testimony about Peter and John healing the crippled man at the temple gate
3. Psalm 34:8 Felix cited it while singing 'Taste and see that the Lord is good'
4. Joel 2:13 referenced twice as the call to rend your hearts not your garments
5. Joel 2:28-29 the promise of the Spirit poured out on all flesh, described as future for Joel but past for us
6. Joel 2:32 everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved
7. Joel 3:1 God restoring the fortunes of Judah and gathering nations to the Valley of Jehoshaphat
8. Joel 3:4 God addressing Tyre and Sidon for taking silver and gold into their temples
9. Joel 3:9 proclaiming war among the nations, beat plowshares into swords
10. Joel 3:13 swing the sickle for the harvest is ripe, trample the grapes, winepress full
11. Joel 3:14 multitudes in the valley of decision
12. Joel 3:16 the Lord roars from Zion, heavens and earth quake, but He is a refuge to his people
13. Joel 3:17 so you shall know that I am the Lord your God who dwells in Zion
14. Joel 3:18 mountains shall drip sweet wine, hills flow with milk, fountain from the house of the Lord
15. Joel 1:3 closing call to tell your children and let their children tell the next generation
16. Revelation 14:14 one like the son of man on a white cloud with a golden crown and sharp sickle, earth harvested
17. Revelation 14:19 angel swung sickle, gathered grapes into the great winepress of God's wrath, blood flowed
18. Acts 2 Pentecost fulfillment of Joel 2:28, Peter quotes Joel, seventeen nations hearing in their own languages
19. Acts 2:37-39 people cut to the heart, Peter calls them to repent and be baptized in Jesus' name, promise for all who are far off
20. Isaiah 2 quoted as the reversal of Joel 3:9, nations beat swords into plowshares and learn war no more
21. John 7 briefly noted that the fountain from the house of the Lord in Joel 3:18 echoes what the Thursday men's lunch is studying

Talk about it

1. Felix described a long season of praying for Guadalupe's healing and feeling like God wasn't listening, then looking back and seeing that God was working on His own timeline. Have you ever been in a season where God's silence felt like absence? What did that season teach you?
2. Van pointed to Joel 2:13, 'rend your hearts, not your garments,' and said the church is not a room full of people who have it all figured out but people who need Jesus. What does it look like in practice to come before God with a genuinely torn heart rather than just the outward appearance of devotion?
3. Van described what separates us from being on the wrong side of God's judgment as nothing other than Jesus, and connected that directly to what we are doing when we take communion together. How does thinking about the winepress of God's wrath change the way you approach the Lord's Table?
4. The sermon drew a line from Joel's prophecy through Pentecost in Acts 2, noting that Peter quoted Joel in that moment and that the gift of the Spirit was for all nations, not just Israel. What does it mean to you personally that the promise is for 'everyone whom the Lord calls,' including people far off?
5. Van closed with Joel's instruction from chapter one: 'Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children.' Felix also talked about going back to share with Hispanic neighbors and family who are curious but reluctant. Who in your life is curious about what it means to be a Christian, and what is one concrete way you could tell them this week?