Amos - Standing Up and Standing Out

Good morning, Journey, I want to thank you and welcome you into the house of the Lord on the day of the Lord that is this Palm Sunday of 2023. I want to remind you that next weekend is a big weekend in the life of the church across the nation and around the world as thousands if not tens of thousands of bible believing, Jesus teaching, Holy Spirit empowered Christian Churches will be celebrating and worshiping the resurrected, living Jesus Christ. There are thousands if not millions of people around the world that in one weeks time will be saved from their sin and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior and they don’t even know it yet. If this series has taught you anything it is that sin is serious and God takes it seriously and we should to. So you might be asking how can you be apart of this? you can play a part of someone’s eternal destiny being changed by one simple invite to our Easter Service. In our direct area of North Peoria we have thousands of people dead in sin and with an invite to our church they could be made alive in Christ through the power of God and the hearing and believing in the Gospel. We have been saying that believers are rooted in Christ, and they stand up and stand out in their communities as they are contributing to the Kingdom of God they are not consuming it all for themselves. Take the Easter Cards, make the invites, and let’s see what God is going to do in our midst.

With that I want you to open your bibles to Amos 8 and 9 we will be jumping around as we end our series today. Before I jump into the text, I wanted us to do a quick recap of the series as a whole so that we can see how we have arrived at this ending point today.

Weekly Recap:

In the first week we looked at Amos 1-2 where God condemned the nations surrounding Israel and then started calling out the sins of Israel, and we learned that people of God stand up and standout with zeal of righteousness to look different to people around them! In our community we should look different than people around us because we are Jesus followers.

Then in Chapter 3 we looked that how God is revealing the specific sins of the Nation of Israel. We also saw that God was saying the things he saw Israel doing even the surrounding nations that were not in a covenant with him were not doing those evil and wicked sins. We said the average Christian looks like the Average Pagan in our world. Most people can’t tell the two apart and yet we were called to live differently and be alive in Christ…so our challenge was to confess our sins, and repent. Live differently as ones called out.

Chapter 4 we wrestled with two major ideas. The first is what God says at the end of Amos when he tells the nation to Prepare to Meet your God. Their sin had reached a tipping point and God was telling them to prepare to meet him. Everyone meets God at some point and the only way we can be prepared to meet him is if we are saved from our sin and are in Jesus Christ. But also wrestled with the mystery in-between he Sovereignty of God and the Suffering of People. As God on many occasions said he sent plagues, storms and famines to Israel for the express purpose of repentance and return. But as we struggle with it, God is good, he is in control and we submit ourselves to him even if we don’t understand.

In chapters 5 and 9 we looked at God is telling us to seek Him and we live, if we like the Israelites seek other things besides God, we seek death!

Last week Pastor Carlyle gave a great message about how People of God are supposed to stand up and stand our by living righteously. But many of us are building crooked walls in our lives that eventually as we keep building on them, they will come crashing down. Living righteously is building straight walls, walls that will stand and be load bearing that wont come crashing down. So how do we build straight walls? We confess secret sin, and we build walls together.

So that leads us to today have you ever been warned about what would happen if you disobeyed or continually didn’t perform? Growing up if I’m honest I was not the best student in grade school, I once came home with a progress report with 2 D’s and 2 F’s and my dad warned me that if I didn’t get my grades up I would lose everything in my room except my bed and bible and on top of it I would be grounded from going outside and playing with my friends. So 2 months later I got my report card and I’m glad to report I had 3 D’s and an F. You know what my dad did? He got a big box, I put everything in it and I didn’t see it for 6 months and I didn’t go outside for 6 months and because of it I missed out on going on a student trip to magic mountain my parents and older brothers went and I didn’t and had to stay with my grandma. Which let me tell you, it was awful. My dad did exactly what he said he would do, and I didn’t think he would do it.

In the business world this is called a “PIP” a Performance Improvement Plan, if you have ever been on the receiving end of one, or you had to give them to your employees you know what I’m talking about. When you receive or give one of these plans you are saying if your work performance does not improve in the areas listed below within the set number of days…you will be terminated or fired.

In the bible this is called Judgment. We have seen all throughout Amos that God is warning the people of Israel that Judgment is coming. He is warning them that if they don’t get back in line, back to following his decrees and his law, destructing is coming, and God is being gracious enough to warn them decades ahead of when he would actually do it. Listen, this isn’t revenge on Israel. Revenge is about retaliation; judgement is about restoring balance. Judgement is not revenge but Judgement is the only way possible to usher in the restored order on which the heart of God is set. Revenge is making people suffer for their sin, Judgement is making people accountable to their sin. When God and Israel entered into their covenant together God set it up that if they followed his commands and law they will be a blessed nation. If not…well look at Deuteronomy 28:15, 63 - However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you; Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

And Leviticus 26:23-25 - “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands.

Funny enough a lot of people skip over these books of the bible where God clearly outlines what will happen to the nation of Israel if they disobey and are hostile towards God, and then read books like Amos and question why God would do such things. This is what biblical context matters. God has clearly outlined what will happen to his people and God always follows through. From the time God have the covenant to Moses and the Israeli people to this moment in time we have about 1,000 or so years of history where the Israelites have been following the law and not following the law back and forth.

We have seen this over the last several weeks where we have looked at the sins of Israel and then introspectively the sins of ourselves and just like the Israelites we think that the judgment that is coming for all of us is a long way off, however that is not so. This is what Amos says, This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. If you have ever had a ripe avocado, you know that you have about 8 seconds until that thing becomes unusable. Same goes with in-n-out fries, their shelf life is about 8 minutes. God is saying the the hour has arrived, the end is near for Israel and his judgment for their sins is about to commence.

All throughout this series you have heard all the things God will do to Israel, and re restates that agin it was the injustice of the people of Israel in their sin and how they treated their own people that has led to their judgment day. But no matter how many times they heard this warning and the reasoning they didn’t repent until God says this in Amos 8:7 ‘ The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob. I will never forget anything they have done.” That line got me thinking that just because I or just because you have forgotten the sins of your youth, or the sins of your past doesn’t mean that God has forgotten. In fact, God never forgets. Time does not heal all sins in the eyes of God, the only thing that the can cover sin is the Atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But listen church, God doesn’t isn’t only remembering sin, listen to what the Author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 6:10 “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. God never forgets the people you served.

Jump down to verse 11 I want to camp out there for a few minutes before we move on to Amos 9. This is what Amos 8:11 says, “The days are coming, declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land, not a famine of good or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord” God is saying that the worst famine that could ever possibly happen in the Land of Israel or in any land for that matter, is not a famine for food or water, but a famine from hearing the word of God.

The original language and meaning of the text wasn’t that God was going to withhold his word from being taught, rather, people wouldn’t be in such a state of digression, depravity and perversion, that they would not be able to understand the word of God. They would not be able to see it or hear it as truth. Friends we are not far off from having a culture of people who cannot hear or understand the word of God. In fact in a lot of churches these days they are not preaching or teaching the word of God they are teaching their feelings into he word of God and in doing so they are creating groups of people who think they know Gods word but in reality they are becoming deaf to the truth. Listen to the warning the Apostle Paul gives in 2 Timothy 4:3 “For a time will come when people will not put up with solid doctrine, Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teacher to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will truth their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. You’d think the Apostle Paul is writing to the western church in todays world, but that was written 2000 years ago and we are seeing it played out in real time. (Real quick, shameless plug on April 23rd, we are starting a seres called “Woke or Awake” where we will take on this topic head on as we look at how to have a biblical worldview in a woke world…don’t miss it, invite friends, we have cards…etc)

Last point on this I section before we move to Chapter 9 is this “When the Word of God is far, judgment it near.” That’s a true statement for individuals, homes, communities, and societies. I mean just look at any major society or empire that has rejected the word of God and see either 1 their overall destruction, or two their lack of moralism. It is because people have turned their back on God and they can’t even begin to understand the things of God. Anyway, moving on, we have a whole series on that coming up…..

In the beginning of chapter 9 God once again has a word for the Israelis about how the destruction of Israel would come about, he tells them that there is not a single place you can hide from the judgment that is coming, same its true for me, and for you also. Yet he says, that even in their destruction he would not destroy the entire nation for he will leave a revenant of people as God even though he has the right to destroy all of Israel, has a plan to release his amazing grace on the world.

Let’s look at Amos 9:11-15 - 11 “In that day “I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins— and will rebuild it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,[ declares the Lord, who will do these things 13 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes.New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile “They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

Amos here is speaking of a future time where God is going to restore all of Israel back into the glory of God. Because God is not a God who turns his back on his people even though his people turned their backs on him. Did you see where you fit into this prophetic word? Verse 12 says this, “so that they my posses the remnant of Edom (this word also means gentiles) and all the nations that will bear my name” Before God would speak about how Israel was his holy and chosen nation and now he is saying that remnant of Gentile and other nations will bear his name. This isn’t just a prophetic word of God rebuilding Israel, this is prophetic word of Jesus Christ arriving on earth to bring all people groups, all nations, and every tribe back to him through the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

It says that there will be such a harvest of people coming back to God that he uses an analogy that the reaper of the harvest, the plowman and the planter will be running into each other trying to harvest and plant on top of each other. This is a sign that we have been witnessing for over 2000 years after the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. Amos is a book of great warning, of great judgment, but it is also a book of the sweet grace of God that is giving his people something they do not deserve, the only one who can save from sin, the perfect Jesus Christ. That even though there is great sin, there is a greater savior, though we deserve every ounce of Judgment God would bring, Jesus received all of it while on the cross.

And it all started on Palm Sunday 2000 years ago as Jesus entered into Jerusalem while riding on a donkey and the people laid down palm branches on the ground while professing “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” And later on in the week, after this pronouncement Jesus would sit down with his disciples and he would have the first communion. Which we have today (lead through communion)

This series of Amos has all lead to this moment, we have talked heavily about sins and judgment, and we have talked more about Gods grace and mercy though all of it. We are a group of Jesus followers who stand up and stand out by building our lives on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. May we go forward in boldness and strength thankful and confident that Gods grace is greater than our sin, his mercy is greater than our mistakes, and his is a God who loves you deeply, and we honor that grace, mercy and love, by following him and his word. The People of God Stand up and stand out by Living in God’s grace and hope for the future.

- Amen