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Read our theme verse with me.
Psalm 34:12
We are in a series about how we can have the good life.
We have said in order to have the good life you need to fear God and deal with temptation properly.
Open your Bible to the book of promise you.
It is in there.
It is found in the minor prophets at the end of the Old Testament.
They are minor prophets, not because they are insignificant, but rather they are minor because of the length of their writings.
What I have found as I read the minor prophets is that their messages are so applicable to us today.
The book of Amos was written in the 8th century B.C.
The prophet Amos was inspired by God to speak against the the decay of the people’s worship and social structure.
The northern kingdom of Israel had grown wealthy.
Archeologists have performed excavations at the capital of the northern kingdom at Samaria.
In those excavations, they have found many artifacts which attest to the wealth of the people described by Amos.
As they grew wealthy, they forgot about God and his expectations.
They neglected to worship God properly.
They neglected to treat the poor justly.
They exploited people to increase their own wealth.
They were not seeking God and they were in danger of judgment.
Amos
This seems pretty straightforward.
Seek God and live.
If you want the good life, you are going to seek God.
Seeking other things and ways are tempting, but you only really live if you seek God.
If you forsake God, you end up on the path of destruction.
The people of Israel were on the path to destruction, the highway to hell, so to speak.
They thought because their finances were stable and they lived in a time of relative peace that everything was okay.
However, everything was not okay because they weren’t seeking God.
Likewise, today, people think, maybe even you think, “Hey, I’m okay with God because I am blessed.
My finances are pretty good.
I have everything I need and even some things that I want.
Generally, things are pretty good.”
However, if you aren’t seeking God, then you are on the wrong path.
Material blessings are not always indicative of God’s blessing in life.
Likewise, difficult times are not always indicative of God’s curse on your life.
God expects us to seek him.
Seek God and live.
Here is a principle and it is an important one.
It is one we don’t think of much, but it is vital.
Ready?
God cares about the way in which we seek him.
God demands that we seek him in the way he wishes to be sought and worshipped.
God doesn’t approve of ways which are outside of his approved way of seeking him.
The way in which we seek God is important.
The people of northern Israel deluded themselves into thinking they were okay in how they were worshipping God and seeking him.
The only place of proper worship was in Jerusalem where the Temple was located.
It was the only prescribed place to offer atonement for sins.
It was the place where God dwelled among men.
However, the kings of northern Israel didn’t want their people traveling to Jerusalem, in the southern kingdom.
They thought it would create of conflict of interest in the people of Israel, so they set up a new place of worship in Bethel.
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They set up an altar in Bethel and a golden calf for the people to worship and to bring sacrifices.
Bethel literally means “the house of God”, but now it stood for idolatry and external religious rituals.
God is not to be sought through idolatry or empty rituals.
Do you realize that you could be here this morning, just going through the motions of worship and it is worthless to God? Did you prepare to worship God this morning?
Did you just put it on autopilot as something you know you are supposed to do, but you don’t really want to do it?
Have you ever considered that perhaps you have set up a false image of God in your life and heart?
Perhaps you have made God into a genie who grants your wishes.
Perhaps you have reduced God to uninvolved clockmaker who wound up the world and just let it go.
Perhaps you have made God into a malevolent dictator just waiting for you to step out of line or you have gone the other way and God is your teddy bear.
You see, we can do the same thing the people of Israel did.
God is not to be sought through idolatry or empty rituals.
Amos 5:
Do not seek Bethel, a place of idolatry and empty ritual.
Do not seek Gilgal.
Gilgal was the place where Israel had originally entered the land after the Exodus.
It was a traditional place of pilgrimage and sacrifice.
Beersheba was another place where people would make pilgrimages to the shrine for the patriarchs.
Here the prophet is saying that God is not to be sought through empty traditions.
God is not to be sought through empty traditions.
This is not to say that traditions are bad or harmful.
Many traditions are helpful because they keep us focused and on track; however, simply doing the thing to earn merit with God is not the way we are to operate.
Simply following traditions can be a very dangerous thing.
There was a family who had a tradition of only naming their children after biblical names.
Anyone have that tradition in their family?
The newly married couple agreed to follow in the family’s tradition.
They wanted to use uncommon biblical names, so they chose Cain, Lucifer, and Judas.
I am sure the three boys are quite the blessing.
Be careful what you ask for, right?
We have traditions here.
We have things we do all the time and these things can become empty traditions.
These things can become ways we think we can use to manipulate God to work on our behalf.
Our tithes and offerings can become an empty tradition.
Are we supposed to give at least 10% of what we earn to further God’s work on earth?
Yes, God has commanded his people to give tithes and offerings, but the giving of tithes and offerings is not a way to manipulate God to bless you.
We should think, “Well, I gave my money, so God is going to bless me.”
We don’t give to receive.
In just a few minutes, we are going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Communion can become an empty tradition.
It can be just something we do, rather than something that brings us closer to God.
Really, any part of church life can become something we use to try to manipulate God to work on our behalf.
Check your motives.
Why do you do what you do?
God is not to be sought through idolatry.
God is not to be sought through empty traditions.
Amos said, “Seek God and live!”
He exposed how the people were seeking God improperly.
How, then, are we to seek God?
What does it mean to seek God?
The word seek, in Hebrew, is the word “darak” and it was used in hunting.
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