July 5th, 2026 | The Forgotten Files - Joel | Jon Mason

Devotional

Day 1: When Darkness Meets the God Who Redeems

The locust swarm devoured everything – crops, hope, even the means to worship. Yet Joel insists God’s redemption thrives in the ruins. This isn’t about quick fixes but a love that enters the wreckage we create or inherit. Redemption begins when we stop hiding our despair and let God’s light expose what we’ve buried. He doesn’t need our solutions, only our honest surrender. [23:16]

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. (Joel 2:12–13, ESV)

Reflection: What broken place have you labeled “too far gone” for God’s touch? How might His mercy surprise you if you stopped hiding that ache?

Day 2: Rituals or Reality: Tearing the Heart Open

Israel perfected religious systems but kept their hearts guarded. Joel’s cry – “rend your hearts” – cuts through performative faith. God refuses to be managed through rituals that mask unyielded desires. True repentance isn’t a transaction but an unraveling, letting God reshape our deepest loves. Systems can’t heal what only surrender can. [33:17]

And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you substituted spiritual routines for raw, heart-level honesty with God? What might He want to rearrange if you stopped “doing faith” and started being known?

Day 3: The Unlikely Harvest After the Swarm

Joel’s locusts left barrenness, but God promised to restore “the years the locust has eaten.” His redemption doesn’t just replace losses – it multiplies. The same devastation that exposed Israel’s hollow religion became fertile ground for miracles. What feels like ending is often God’s invitation to depend on His resurrection power. [41:54]

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. (Joel 2:25–26, ESV)

Reflection: What “lost years” do you grieve that God might want to redeem in unexpected ways? How could surrender shift your focus from what’s gone to what He’s growing?

Day 4: Spirit Over Systems: Redemption’s Surprising Vessels

God’s promise to pour His Spirit on “all flesh” shattered expectations. No hierarchy, no prerequisites – just ordinary people becoming conduits of divine renewal. Systems control; the Spirit empowers. When we trade performance for surrender, even our weakness becomes space for His strength to overflow. [48:25]

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” (Joel 2:28–29, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you disqualified yourself from God’s work because you felt unskilled or unworthy? What might He do through you if you trusted His Spirit more than your resume?

Day 5: The Posture That Unlocks the Impossible

Surrender isn’t passive resignation – it’s active trust in the God who resurrects. Jesus’ cross proved redemption’s cost and power. When we stop clinging to control, we free God to move in ways that defy our logic. Miracles begin where our grip ends. [50:48]

He said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23–24, ESV)

Reflection: What are you still clutching tightly that God is asking you to release? How might your surrender create space for His “impossible” redemption to unfold?

Sermon Summary

Joel opens like a thunderclap. The locust plague levels the land and empties the temple storehouses, and the people are left with nothing to live on and nothing to bring to God. The judgment is not random. God strips away what seemed good and even necessary to expose what a covered heart could hide. Then the horizon darkens further. The day of the Lord is coming, the kind of day that makes the sun go dark and the earth shake. If things are this bad after exile and restoration, what is God after?

Joel gives the hinge: “Yet even now… return to me with all your heart… rend your hearts and not your garments.” The phrase puts two repentances side by side. Tearing the robe can advertise grief while keeping the will, the loves, and the desires unyielded. Rending the heart gives God the inside place where the real problem lives and where real redemption begins. Israel’s perfected system cannot heal a hidden heart. A managed religion can provide clean consciences and busy calendars while leaving the person untouched. Joel insists that God’s rule does not ride in on performance but on surrender.

God’s response to surrendered hearts is not half fix. He promises to restore grain, wine, and oil, to green the pastures, to make vats overflow, and to “restore the years the locust has eaten.” The restoration matches the loss measure for measure. Then the promise widens. God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. Sons and daughters, young and old, servants and free. No one is blocked by age, gender, class, status, or a messy past. God does not need a majority, a pristine institution, or powerful people. God asks for people who are humble, holy, and hungry, and says, watch what I will do.

Peter later stands in Jerusalem and says, this is that. Jesus lived the fully surrendered life Joel’s readers longed to see. Even at the point of deepest suffering, his posture stayed surrendered, not grasping. Raised and enthroned, he poured out the Spirit so that the same surrender that carried him to the cross and through the grave can take root in ordinary lives. The Spirit who made Jesus a conduit of God’s redemption now indwells the church to make it a living answer to Joel’s promise. Nothing is too dark. No story is too far gone. God is already moving, not by system, but by surrendered hearts.

Key Takeaways

1. Rend hearts, not garments Repentance that stays at the surface can look sincere while protecting the very loves that keep a life sick. Joel calls for an inward tear that hands God the will, not just the wardrobe. Real change starts where desires live and choices are born, and only surrendered hearts give God that access. [31:31]
2. God strips to expose and heal When God removes good things, confusion rises, but the aim is surgery, not spite. Loss can uncover what comfort concealed, so that what is hidden can finally be transformed. Divine subtraction often makes room for divine life. [30:27]
3. Restoration matches what was lost God returns grain, wine, oil, green pastures, and even “the years” the locust ate. The promise does not deny mystery, but it refuses resignation. Nothing lost escapes his notice, and nothing broken lies beyond his intent to mend. [47:43]
4. The Spirit democratizes redemption “On all flesh” means the ceiling is gone. Age, gender, class, status, and history do not gatekeep the presence or the gifts. The Spirit’s reach outstrips every human system’s boundary lines. [42:33]
5. Surrender, not systems, moves God Programs help, but they cannot breathe. God looks for humble, holy, hungry people who refuse to manage him and instead yield to him. The posture is receptivity, not performance, because God already wants to do the work. [52:58]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[20:52] - Opening and framing the question of redemption
[21:12] - Summer series and Joel introduced
[27:09] - Locust plague and emptied temple
[28:52] - The coming day of the Lord
[31:31] - “Rend your hearts, not your garments”
[35:54] - Systems cannot heal hidden hearts
[38:11] - God wants nearness, not mere participation
[39:27] - Surrender tested by honest questions
[40:37] - God’s detailed restoration promises
[41:54] - “I will restore the years”
[42:33] - The Spirit poured out on all flesh
[49:06] - Peter declares Joel fulfilled at Pentecost
[50:35] - The same Spirit enables surrender today
[53:27] - Communion and a posture of surrender

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Joel 2:12-13 (ESV)
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; he relents over disaster.

Joel 2:25-26 (ESV)
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.

Acts 2:17-18 (ESV)
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.”

Observation questions

What two types of repentance does Joel contrast in 2:13, and how do they differ outwardly and inwardly?
In Joel 2:25, what specific losses does God promise to restore, and how does this connect to the locust plague described earlier?
According to Acts 2:17-18, who receives the Spirit’s outpouring, and what barriers are removed in this promise? [42:33]

Interpretation questions

Why might God emphasize rending hearts rather than garments as the mark of true repentance? What does this reveal about His priorities for transformation?
Joel 2:25 says God will restore “the years the locust has eaten.” How does this promise address both practical needs (grain, wine, oil) and deeper spiritual longings?
The sermon states, “God does not need a majority, a pristine institution, or powerful people” to bring redemption. How does the Spirit’s work in Acts 2:17-18 confirm this? [43:14]

Application questions

“Rending the heart” means surrendering hidden desires and choices to God. What area of your life have you kept “managed” rather than fully surrendered? How might this hinder real change? [35:54]
The sermon asks, “Is there an area of your life today you’ve quietly decided is beyond God’s redemption?” What step could you take this week to bring that area back into prayer? [45:46]
Joel’s promise of restoration includes both physical and spiritual renewal. Where do you need to trust God to “restore the years” lost to pain, failure, or waiting? How might this reshape your hope? [47:43]
Acts 2 shows the Spirit empowering ordinary people. What fears or insecurities make you feel unqualified to be used by God? How could embracing surrender dismantle those barriers? [50:35]
The sermon warns against reducing faith to “participation in a system.” What habits or routines in your spiritual life risk becoming empty rituals? How could you reconnect them to a desire for closeness with God? [37:20]

Sermon Clips

66s

#RedemptionPossible

“``What kind of redemption do you believe God is really capable of? And I'm not just asking that in like an abstract sense. I mean, in our world, in our lives, in our contexts, in your situations, your story today. What kind of redemption do you believe God is capable of today? As I look back in biblical history, church history, revival history, in my personal experience of my own life and the lives of the people that I'm close with, one of the core things that I have come to believe is that in God's economy, in a way that I do not always understand, when he longs for the heart of a person or a situation, there is no darkness that is too dark. There's no situation that's too far gone. There is nothing in me or in you that is impossible to redeem.”

46s

#RestoreWhatsLost

“And what could happen here if we brought our whole surrendered to him? What if the spirit of redemption was here in this room right now and he wanted to restore things to people that the locusts had taken away? He wanted to redeem people who feel like they missed their chance or that there's too much brokenness to possibly be undone. Jesus surrendered his life and his heart so that this level of redemption for God's people that was promised is available for his church today, and it's available in full strength for you today.”

58s

#SpiritInUs

“The same spirit that made Jesus a conduit for God's ultimate redemption is the same spirit alive in each and every one of us, and his longing is to bring the kind of redemption that we could not find anywhere else. And it is available to us without cost, without qualification. God asks is that we surrender. When we began, I asked the question, what kind of redemption do you believe God is really capable of? But I wanna bring that question down to this room, the realm of the here and now for us. What would it mean if the God of redemption was dwelling in all of us today? What would that mean for us?”

47s

#SurrenderOverSystems

“So Joel outlines God's response to the surrendered hearts of his people. And do you notice when and his people match up together and all God's people bring is a surrendered heart and nothing else to the table, God doesn't need there to be an institution, a new set of laws, a majority. He doesn't need odds in his favor. He doesn't need powerful people. He doesn't need any of the typical things that we think need to be there for redemption and change to happen. God says, give me people who have a posture of surrender and watch what I will do. That's it.”

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July 5th, 2026 | The Forgotten Files - Joel | Jon Mason | MBC Online