Social Holiness

Announcement

Next Saturday…We are having a mens event that I am particularly excited about…Ax and Knife throwing. & A BBQ...

So Guys…This event is an event that is designed for you to bring a friend

Its not a front door to the church but its a side door.

Intro

One of the things that you have continually heard me say and preach here is that God wants to extend his life through you

This is core to what the Gospel is.

Jesus came proclaiming the availability of God’s rule and reign right now!

What he is saying is that he wants to extend his kingdom rule through you

And I truly believe this

That Jesus forgives you because of his death on the cross but that is just the start of it!

He wants to make you new

He wants to make you Holy as he is Holy and then he wants to extend that holiness through you to a world that desperately needs it

When I was in Seminary I had a class on the Old Testament Minor Prophets...And we looked at all of them but the one that we really did a deep dive on was the book of Amos.

So if you have never read the book of Amos let me give you the background so you can just understand why his words are just so harsh

About 150 years before Amos was born the northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel split off from one another....

And Amos is a fig farmer and prophet

So his king Jeroboam 2 was a really bad king...

he allowed idol worship

And because of all of this…The king didn't look after or care for the poor and neither did anyone else

So Amos travels to a temple in Bethel and he starts just getting really angry at the people who lived there and the leaders of Israel

He reminds them that they were called to be this great blessing to the world but they never were

He reminds them that they are supposed to be a picture of God’s holiness and God’s holiness through you should have a profound effect on the world!

SO I want to give you a picture of just one of the Judgments that Amos casts onto the people of Bethel:

Amos 4:1–5 NIV

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!” The Sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness: “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the Lord. “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings— boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign Lord.

I mean, Amos is Harsh…He would have for sure been canceled: He calls out these women who are basically getting fat on the backs of poor people and bossing their husbands around…He calls them “you cows of Bashan” These woman crush the needy

How are they crushing the needy?

Well there are starving people and they call for more food and wine

He asks hey what happen you were supposed to be a picture of God’s justice and righteousness on this earth what happened?

These women that Amos is criticizing are going and making offerings to God

They are doing all of the religious things but they are just neglecting people...

The forget that God’s people

and finally we get to the heart of the message of God here

I love how Amos says that God swears by his Holiness that this wont continue…To me it is this reminder that we as a people are supposed to be reflections of God’s holiness

The Holiness of God ought to extend through us to the world.

This is what Amos is lamenting...

That there should be a tangible effect of our own transformation in our communities

There ought to be new levels of compassion and love toward our neighbors

That these people who play like they are really religious…They go and give their offerings…They want God’s holiness for themselves but they don’t care at all about extending it to the rest of the world

So the whole Polemic kind of comes to a crescendo in Chapter 5

And as we look to Amos 5 this morning I just want you to think of how utterly shocking this would have been for the Jews to hear:

Amos 5:21–24 NIV

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Whenever I read this passage as a leader in the church it is honestly a bit jarring

Its like God is saying…when you gather and sing

when you gather and pray

when you gather and give offerings

I’m not listening

I actually despise your church service....why?

Because when God’s people failed to care for the poor and to extend his holiness out towards others!

God’s response is The worship you have for me just turns me off...

What God says to his people is…Instead of pretending to love me but oppress others

Just justice roll on like a river and righteousness like a never failing stream

Justice and righteousness are expressions of holiness

The term (Mishpat) or justice occurs 422 times in the Old Testament

and the word righteousness (tsedaqah) 157 times....They not only refer to God’s character but the way that the world should be...

Cries for justice and righteousness in the Bible are cries that the world is not as it should be

These terms are both terms that are used to talk in the old testament about Jesus when he comes to earth that he will rule with Justice and righteousness

And God clearly wants his people to embody justice and righteousness!

See often times we talk about things like sanctification in the church and we think of them in personal terms...

How God makes us a new creation

How God makes us new

How God makes us into better people morally.

But this is all for the benefit of the rest of the world!

If your sanctification only benefits you then maybe its not sanctification at all!

John Wesley, the founder of methodism rode his horse all over England to preach the gospel. And what he noticed is that so many people were hurting and suffering.

It started in the coal mines.

Children would work the coal mines because their little hands would be able to reach the coal veins easier than adult hands...

Countless children got sick and died from long hours and miserable work conditions

So Wesley…prompted by these scriptures calling for justice

He spoke out, he went to parliament

He wrote letters

He began campaigns advocating for children and he changed the laws...

Wesley Saw that the system itself was rigged to hurt the kids

In 1774 John Wesley published a Pamphlet called “thoughts on Slavery”

and in it he wrote “all slavery is irreconcilable to justice and to mercy”

In 1787 Wesley wrote in his diary “ God almighty has set before me two objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners”

In 1791 the year that Wesley died he wrote to Wilbur Wilberforce the man who would end the British slave trade: ”Go in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American Slavery (which Wesley considered the vilest that he ever saw under the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

In 1807 The slave trade in Britain was officially outlawed....One of Wesley’s disciples, Wilbur Wilberforce was there leading the charge...

And it is impotrant to note that hundreds of churches were involved in the struggle...

The churches prayed for an end to slavery, they boycotted products produced by slave holders like Sugar and cotton

The whole point is that we are called to be bearers of God’s justice and righteousness

Sanctification is not just for us to be better people but it is to bring about expressions of God’s justice and righteousness on this earth.

This is what I mean by the way when I share with you my favorite scripture: Romans 8:19

Romans 8:19 NIV

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

That the world is just waiting for people who are christlike to make an impact on the world!

They are waiting for you to put your holiness into action

One of the reasons why the message of Holiness spread like wildfire is because men and women were committed to transforming their world

Through caring for the oppress

Through bringing justice and righteousness to the powerless

Because Holiness wasn't just about personal piety but it was about remaking this world in God’s image

And this isn't just an old testament deal:

Jesus address this in what I think is one of his most disturbing passages

It is about when Jesus returns to judge the world: It is found in Matthew 25:31-46

Matthew 25:31–46 NIV

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

The last fill in the blank for today

Jesus will hold us accountable for the way we live out holiness

Its just as true in the book of Amos as it is in this parable of Jesus

The point of this parable is not that your salvation relies on you doing charitable acts...

But that because of your salvation , your transformed by God’s justice and righteousness and now you have a new set of eyes…The point of this parable is that we are going to get judged based on what we do with our salvation

This point that Jesus is trying to make is that we encounter him in the “least of these” and that we are to treat everyone with as much honor and dignity that we would treat Jesus

The point is that you can not be a follower of Jesus and not have compassion on others

Our salvation itself is an act of compassion by God…God had pity on us! We were the original “least of these” and the point is, now that we have experienced God’s forgiveness and grace…truly his Pity, then we ought to extend that to others

And Jesus says…Hey if you take the gift of grace but don’t care about others…then you don’t even truly understand

The point is that we are going to be held accountable for how we live out our salvation.

God’s holiness and love in us should not allow us to turn a blind eye and ear to suffering around us!

Application

This whole series has been about God’s perfecting love in us

It has been about God’s character of holiness extended to humanity

And the challenge I have for you today is this.

You might hear a message like this and think, ok…what is REC going to do…And from time to time we will have ministries of compassion and justice for you to step into

But this has to be a daily thing for you...

One coat drive a year is not going to turn you into the kind of person who regularly reaches the “least of these”

You need to ask the Holy spirit to give you a new set of eyes and to step into it

Already in our congregation

We have people who teach the Bible in prisons

We have people who reach out to refugees

We have people who tudor under privileged kids

We have people who provide therapy animals to special needs kids

The question is not, what ministry will we provide to you but what is already around you that you can step into

This isnt a 180 degree shift in your life, its a 2 degree shift

Maybe its the same homeless guy you drive by every day and you pack a little extra in your lunch

Maybe its that single mom at work that just needs a little extra in the holidays and you can help out

The question is how will you extend God’s holiness to a hurting world

Lets pray