Worthless Worship

As we continue our study of the book of Amos, we recall that Amos was a man from the southern kingdom of Judah sent to the northern kingdom of Israel to prophesy against them. He wasn’t trained as a prophet. He was a country boy, a sheepherder and grower of sycamore figs. But God called him anyway to speak out against the sins of Israel. Among the sins of the people was idolatry. There was a religious resurgence, but it was not exclusive worship of the God who brought them out of Egypt. We see this in greater detail in chapter 5. The Lord calls Israel to hate evil and do good, and not to seek solace in the southern kingdom, for they too will not be spared. When it came to their religious observance, God had this to say:

Amos 5:21–27 NASB95

“I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. “But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. “Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? “You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves. “Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Israel worshipped God in futility. If you combine the worship of anything else with the worship of God, your worship of God becomes worthless. As we look at these few verses, I want to help us understand what makes worship worthless and what makes it worthy.

Worship becomes worthless when you conduct it in your own way.

One of the reasons Israel had come under the judgment of God was because of their worship practices. If you recall from last week, one of the things that characterized Israel was a religious resurgence, which sounds good on paper until you dig into the religious practices of the day. They had added false idols to their worship of the One True God, which is to worship nothing at all and violates their covenant relationship with the Lord. God called for exclusive worship from the Israelites and they abandoned that fidelity.

We do not get the luxury or the privilege of defining what worship is acceptable to God. He is in the place of authority and He alone gets to determine what is suitable for Him. When we worship God, we worship Him on His terms, not ours. Any time we try to worship on our terms, we create a false God by crafting God into our image rather than being conformed to His. Worship of God is not a free for all. He has a standard and we are obligated to come to Him according to that standard. Anything else falls short and does not accomplish its intended purpose.

We offer worthless worship when we cease authenticity with the Lord. We can put on a brave face and make it look like we have it all together. We can show up, sing the songs, drop the offering in the plate, listen to the sermon, and it amount to nothing if all we are doing is trying to impress God. It is an exercise in futility. Authentic worship requires change of heart that leads to change in behavior.

We also offer worthless worship when we make worship about us instead of about Him. This, I fear, is one of the greatest tragedies to befall the American church. Consumerism has swept the nation for longer than I have been alive. We have more choices than ever before, and the marketing machine is always vying for our dollars. The same mentality has crept in the church and it has had detrimental effects. We have built larger worship venues, added dark lighting, lights, and any number of other things that have changed the way church services function over the last several decades. None of those things are inherently bad. They can be of value. But if a church does these things for the purpose of attracting new people or keeping up with the church down the street, worship has a way of becoming more about them than it is about God. When worship is not focused on God but rather focused on us, our worship is worthless.

God finds Israel’s worship reprehensible. God does not have to accept their worship because they are not doing so in the proper manner. This was not a matter of function, that is the methods they used to worship God, but a matter of heart. They were involved with the worship of false gods.

Worship becomes worthy when your practice matches your profession.

Verse 24 presents a very interesting statement. “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” This presents us with a picture that is all too familiar to us. The waters of a river flow continuously with very few exceptions. Assuming that there is a consistent cycle of precipitation and the river is unobstructed, a river’s waters are always flowing. Remember that Israel’s upper class was denying justice to the poor among them. This is not just a terrible thing to do to other human beings, this was a violation of covenant law.

This is not only highly unethical, but it sheds light on a very serious problem. The upper class was involved in worship to God, yet their character did not line up with what they were professing. When you worship God, you are making a profession of some kind. When you sing the songs, join in prayer, amen the preacher, or partake in the Lord’s Supper, you are making a statement about what you claim to believe. However, if your lifestyle does not match with what you say you believe, inconsistencies begin to show. God is not pleased with outward expression if there is no change in character. Religious attendance is not God’s plan. Radical transformation leading to conformity to His Son’s image is. We should be growing in Christlikeness or something is wrong.

How can one say he is a Christian if his life looks nothing like the things he claims to believe? Profession without practice is meaningless. Profession coupled with practice is authenticity. Bearing fruit is the evidence of one’s profession. There is a very well known passage of scripture that deals with this topic:

James 2:14–18 NASB95

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

If we are not careful in our reading, we can conclude that James is presenting a works-based salvation, contradicting Paul’s teaching on salvation by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). This is not what is happening here. James is challenging the idea that one calls himself a follower of Jesus but evidence of such a claim is nowhere to be found. No work has demonstrated this is the case. What James is pointing out is that if you say you have the kind of faith that does save you, there will be evidence in your life to support such a claim. If there is none, that kind of faith is useless. Rich Mullins has a song called Screen Doors, which speaks to this passage saying that faith without works is as useless as screen doors on a submarine.

When you come to a proper understanding of who Jesus is, what He did for you, and you place your faith/trust in Him for salvation, it changes you. You begin to understand you cannot be the same person you were before that moment. You understand that change must come. It might be slow at first, and it might be difficult, but a change of mind or a change in perspective eventually results in a change of action.

For example, when I had come to faith in Christ, I had hundreds of illegally copied movies and video games on DVD. I slowly began to think about that collection and God began to show me I was in possession of property that I had not paid for. I was a thief. One day I made the decision that I could not call myself a follower of Christ and maintain my possession of illegally acquired material. So I grabbed a large black trash bag and threw every single one of them away. But in the process I either marred the discs or broke them so the stash would not end up in someone else’s hands. Doing so was liberating. Here’s what happened. I took seriously what the Bible had to say about theft. I agreed with God that I was in possession of stolen goods. I made the choice to destroy them so I would no longer be in possession of them, which is an act of repenting of my thievery. God identified a sin in my life, called me to forsake it, and gave me the necessary step to take action. A change of mind led to a change in behavior. How can you say you have faith, but no works? That faith is as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

But when your practice matches your profession, your worship becomes worthy. It is pleasing to the Lord rather than repugnant.

Religious profession without practice dishonors God.

If we are to be in right relationship with the Lord, and enjoy the blessings that stem from such a relationship, our practice needs to match our profession. It is all too easy to slip into a mode in which we say we love the Lord but stop serving Him. What have you stopped doing in service to the Lord that you need to start doing again? Maybe it’s that you never started at all and God is calling you from the sidelines. Maybe you have professed faith in Jesus for a long time but have never really produced works in line with repentance. Maybe you have never followed in baptism after making a profession of faith. Maybe there are habits to let go of or habits to form. What do you sense the Lord saying to you right now? What will you say in return?