Amos Seek & Live

Timmy just read Amos chapter 4 and beginning of chapter 5 out for us.

Amos 4 · chapter mention

And what Amos says there should really change our view of God.

I say that and I think it's really important because there's way too many people sitting in churches,

particularly I think in the Western world, where we believe that Christianity means that we should work hard at being really good.

And they believe that God exists to serve them and by helping them in life to make them feel happy and good and secure and at peace in life.

And they believe that even though God might have made the world, fundamentally God isn't active in his world unless I need God to come in and fix stuff,

which is when we pray, when things aren't going so well, God come and fix this situation.

The rest of the time, they work on the assumption that God pretty much stays out of the way as I go on with my life.

And when I need him, he'll come in and fix things up for me, bail me out.

The God that we find here in Amos, in fact, the whole book of Amos, but certainly clear in Amos 4 and 5, is not like that at all.

As we saw last week, Amos was sent by God to preach a message of judgment to the 10 tribes of north in Israel, about 750 BC.

Two tribes, Israel at this point has split into two, Judah down the bottom, two tribes, 10 tribes of Israel to the north.

Judah has got the temple and the city and the north has got naming rights.

Amos was sent by God from the south to the north to preach to a people who had become corrupt and complacent and self-centered.

That is, they were meant to be God's people, but they were no different than the nations around them.

The justice system was corrupt.

The rich exploited the poor.

Their sexual standards were no different than the pagan nations.

And yet at the same time, and Sam will probably touch on this a bit more next week,

at the same time, their religion was, they were really serious about it.

They were deeply serious and committed to their religious practice.

But instead of turning their creed into deeds, they've turned their creed into greed.

Money and security had become their God.

And at the beginning of chapter four, we get a feel for the state of this nation.

It says, 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.

See, Amos here is not being particularly polite to the ladies of Israel.

Bashan was the richest agricultural area in Israel.

It was the food bowl, if you like, of Israel.

And the livestock from that area were plumped and round and well conditioned.

They were the ones who got the best price at the market.

And in a time back in those days where the poor looked like they really needed to have a feed, sort of like supermodels,

the rich, on the other hand, displayed their opulence, displayed their wealth by their figures.

They looked like they were well fed.

And so what Amos is referring to here is the champagne set.

They've surrounded themselves in lives of luxury.

These are the desperate housewives of Samaria.

And the problem is not so much with the champagne and the caviar and the thermomixers.

It's in their luxurious lifestyles.

Sorry, I'm just picking the thermomixers.

It's just the theme of mine at the moment.

It's a cult.

So I read that.

Sorry, I read that somewhere.

I read it somewhere.

I know I've got one.

Sorry.

The problem is, it's the fact that in all of this, they've lost sight of the poor and the needy and ultimately God.

They walk over the needy and they don't even notice it.

Like they trample them under their feet.

So what's God's response?

The wall, the city wall, the walls of Samaria, the place of their fortress, the things that they had built up for themselves.

Their place of their fortune and their security are going to have gaping holes in them.

You see, what's described here is that Haman is up in the north, up above Samaria.

And what is described here is what we saw last week that happened 28 years after Amos preached this message.

Assyria, the greater nation of Assyria, up around where Turkey is nowadays, came down from the north and they destroyed the capital city of Samaria.

And they led 27,000 of the rich and the elite away into captivity.

And one of the things they used to do, the Assyrians did, they were fairly brutal kind of people.

And one of the things they used to do was they would attach all of their captives together with chains.

And they would attach the chains through the noses or through the lips of their captives and march them.

And that's what's described here.

You're going to be carted away like fish hooks.

Like if you've got a fish hook stuck in your mouth, you're going to be carted away through the walls of Samaria.

Now, it's just not the women that he's picking on here.

In chapter 6, verse 1, Amos says this about the men.

He says,

Woe to you who are complacent in Zion.

And then in verse 4 of chapter 6, he says,

You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches.

You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves.

You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.

You drink wine by the volfil and you use the finest of lotions.

But you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

You do not grieve over the ruin of God's people.

They're celebrating, they're relaxing, and they should be grieving.

And the absolute height of their hypocrisy is that they think God's more interested in their sacrifices

and their attendance at their church services and all their religious duty

than he is in the state of their hearts.

Chapter 4, verse 4 is referring to their altar in Bethel.

It's where they would go and do their rituals.

Bethel literally means house of God.

So this is what they did when they went to the house of God.

Go to Bethel and sin.

That's what they did when they went to church.

Go to Bethel and sin.

Go to Gilgal and sin yet more.

Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.

Burn your leavened bread as a thank offering.

And brag about your free will offerings.

Boast about them, you Israelites, for that is what you love to do.

Their religion was complacent.

It was smug.

It was self-congratulating.

And in chapter 5, verse 21, Sam will deal with more of this next week,

but it gives us a bit of a sneak peek into what God thought about their religion.

And it turns out here that God hated going to church with these people.

He says,

What does God want them to do?

He wants them to live out who they are as his special covenant people.

That's what he wants.

And what is happening here in Amos chapter 4 is God actually throwing out warning sign

Amos 4 · chapter mention

after warning sign after warning sign in the hope that his people would remember

his special relationship with them and they would come back to him in repentance.

So let's see how God does that.

Let's start at verse 6.

I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town.

Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away.

That's crucial because the three-month part is when the grain starts to form in the head.

No rain at that point.

Crops useless.

As sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another.

One field had rain, another had none and dried up.

People staggered from town to town for water, but did not get enough to drink.

Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

Many times I struck your gardens and your vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew.

Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees.

Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

I sent plagues among you as I did in Egypt.

I killed your young men with a sword along with your captured horses.

I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps.

That's the rotting corpses of their children.

Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire.

Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

Five times we read there that God says,

I threw the warning signs out at you.

I threw it at you.

It should have been obvious for you to see so that you would return to me in repentance.

It should not have been a surprise to them at all.

They had God's word in front of them.

It was all spelled out to them in black and white.

You see, 500 years before this, 500 years before,

just as Israel was about to come into the promised land,

God speaks to them.

And in Deuteronomy 28,

we have God telling them what would happen.

He says,

If you ignore me, you get in the land and you ignore me,

I'll withhold the rain.

He says,

If you get in the land and you ignore me,

you will go hungry.

If you ignore me,

I will send blight and mildew upon your vineyards.

If you ignore me,

the promised land that I'm bringing you into will spit you out.

God told them it would happen.

And their only hope here is that they would turn back to God and repent.

So God is saying here,

I have been trying to get your attention.

I gave,

I withheld,

I sent,

I struck,

I killed,

I filled,

I withheld.

God did it all.

He did it all to his people.

He's trying to get their attention.

Now imagine,

my family sound asleep upstairs in our home at two o'clock in the morning,

and someone decides to throw bricks through the bedroom windows.

My immediate response would be,

that's really antisocial.

Probably in a slightly more extreme form than that,

at two o'clock in the morning.

But what if downstairs is on fire,

and those people are trying to get my attention?

That changes it,

doesn't it?

And that's what God's doing here.

All of these things came from the hand of God.

He's calling them to listen,

to read the signs,

to see what's happening.

Look,

look,

look.

Something is desperately wrong.

And he's trying to call them back.

He's trying to remind the Israelites of their covenant relationship.

These disasters were,

yes,

they did come from a God in a sense of judgment,

but they were the severe mercy of a patient God.

They were his tough love,

if you like.

God has been throwing bricks through the window for Israel,

but they hadn't returned.

They hadn't repented.

And so God says,

in chapter 4,

verse 12,

Israel,

prepare to meet your God.

And then,

we get a description of what this God is like.

This is the God who made the stars.

This is the God who turns blackness into dawn.

This is the God who speaks,

and the waters fill this sea.

This is the God who speaks,

and he brings mountains down to nothing.

This is the God who loves righteousness,

justice,

mercy,

and compassion.

So I want to ask you,

the very first thing,

how big is your God?

How big was the God that you came here tonight with?

Is he big enough to be a God of righteous anger and compassion?

A God who brings both blessing and disaster?

Or is he just the God who jumps in and solves your problems when you need to solve a problem

and just stay away from most of the time?

There are not many places in the Bible clearer on this issue than Isaiah 45,

exactly who this God is.

Isaiah 45,

Isaiah 45:5–7

verses 5 to 7,

It says,

I, the Lord,

do all of these things.

Is that your God?

That is the God of the Bible.

A God who,

as you see in,

for instance,

the book of Romans,

who has his heavy hand on his creation.

Has his heavy hand where he has set these frustrations at the creation into frustration

that we might not put our hope in the things that God gives us,

the things that he has made,

but in actual fact have our hope in the God who creates all things.

The bad things of our world are the nature of the world in which we live in under the heavy hand of God.

It is our God,

our creator,

lovingly,

mercifully throwing bricks through the window.

They say,

come back to me.

He's trying to get our attention to remind us that we need him

and that hope and glory and joy and life is found only him.

We need to seek him and come back to him.

And that's the essence of his appeal in chapter 5 of Amos.

It says,

seek me and live.

Seek the Lord and live or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire

and it will devour them and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

Seek me and live.

And Amos is saying this to Israel,

saying,

dudes,

it's not too late.

Repent.

Come back to God.

God did all of these things to Israel

and they should have seen the writing on the wall.

They should have acknowledged it as being the hand of God.

They should have feared him and turned back,

but they didn't.

Why?

Because life was too good.

And they just assumed that because life was good and things were flourishing,

that's God,

because that's what God does,

doesn't he?

God just,

he's there to support my life and my goals and my adventures.

And these things that were sent by God were just seen as mere speed humps.

In an otherwise comfortable,

self-indulgent life,

they ignored God.

They rejected his warning signs

and 28 years later,

fishhooks carted off to Assyria.

750 years later,

after Amos,

Jesus turns up in Israel

and declares himself to be

this same God in the flesh.

It's God to come and dwell amongst his people.

The same God who made Israel his special people

centuries earlier,

has now come amongst his people.

And when God actually turned up,

Israel did,

750 years later,

what they did in Amos' time

and they rejected Jesus,

is what they did.

Luke chapter 12 to 14,

Luke 12 · chapter mention

if you've got your Bibles,

flick over to Luke.

Luke chapter 12 to 14,

Luke 12 · chapter mention

we have Jesus issuing warnings to Israel again

and lamenting the state of Israel.

He says that Israel is desolate

and will be until,

they will be desolate,

they will be barren

until they recognize their Savior and their Lord.

And in chapter 12,

verse 49,

Jesus says that he has come to do God's will.

And his mission statement is this,

I have come to bring fire on the earth

and how I wish it were already kindled.

In other words,

the same language which is used in Amos

as Jesus now uses here,

language of fire,

that is the judgment of God,

is now here.

And Jesus says,

I wish it was already kindled.

In fact,

I wish it was happening right now,

is what he says.

I've come to bring judgment

and I want it to happen right now.

And what he says is,

a little bit,

next verses on,

anyone,

anyone who's got eyes to see

can see that that is what I am here to do.

Notice who I am

and what I've come to do.

You'll be able to see that God is at work.

He's doing something really important.

And so right at the very end of chapter 12,

Jesus calls people to settle

their spiritual accounts with God.

And he says,

a failure to settle the spiritual account with God

will result in God extracting

every single last cent out of you

that you owe him.

And it's a debt which is incalculable

that we can never pay back.

And it's a picture of God's eternal judgment

upon sinners.

And that is what sets up

this interaction that Jesus has

in Luke 13,

where he says,

now there was some present at that time.

So hearing Jesus say this,

there was some present at that time

who told Jesus about the Galileans

whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.

So there's some kind of political uprising

in Galilee

and Pilate comes along,

squashes it,

and he squashes it

by killing everyone in church.

That's kind of what he does.

And so,

and then it goes on,

Jesus answered,

do you think

that these Galileans

were worse sinners

than all the other Galileans

because they suffered in this way?

I tell you,

no.

But unless you repent,

you too will all perish.

Or,

those 18 who died

when the Tower of Siloam fell on them,

do you think that they were more guilty

than all the others living in Jerusalem?

I tell you,

no.

But unless you repent,

you too will all perish.

In our world,

there's two major ways

that we respond to disasters in this world.

There's the moralistic,

legalistic,

religious approach,

which instinctively assumes

that when I've,

when something disastrous,

some crisis hits my life,

I've done something wrong.

I cannot tell you

the number of people

who I face

who have,

who've got some problem

in their life

and their immediate response is,

I must have done something wrong.

I can't think of what I've done wrong.

I must have done something wrong.

We put the blame

on the individual.

Another name for it is karma

or the,

what we generally refer to

as what goes,

what goes around,

comes around.

The other response,

so one response lays it

on the responsibility

of the individual.

The other response

is the skeptical,

irreligious response

where we blame the universe

generally or God.

The purposelessness of the universe,

you know,

they're really unlucky,

bad timing,

wrong place,

wrong time,

that kind of stuff

or we just simply blame it on God.

And this view

works on the assumption

that most people

are good,

hardworking

and deserve a decent life.

The first one assumes

you do something wrong,

you deserve to pay for it.

The other one assumes

we're good,

we're hardworking,

deserve a decent life.

This means that some people

don't get the good life

they deserve.

Life stinks,

it makes no sense

and the universe

or God

is unfair

and doing something

terribly wrong.

So it's either

I'm doing something wrong

or God's doing something wrong.

That's generally

the two ways we split it.

And Jesus comes along

and says,

no,

that's not wrong.

That's right.

That's all totally wrong.

He said,

no,

is what he said.

He said,

no.

He said,

that's not the way

to look at it.

He says,

both of those alternatives

don't work.

One makes you

incredibly proud

or smug

because no disasters

happen in my life

and I'm getting

what I deserve.

I'm doing all right.

I'm not doing anything wrong.

Proud and smug.

The other makes you

totally despondent.

Don't know if I'm going

to step out today.

I'm going to get

splattered by a bus

no matter what I do.

It doesn't matter how I live.

Anything.

A rock can fall on me.

Who knows?

And in verses 3 and 5,

Jesus says,

no.

But if he just

lifted it at that,

the crowd would go,

well,

that's a relief.

Thanks for that.

Fantastic.

Let's move on.

But he adds.

He says,

no.

And then he adds,

but unless you repent,

you too will all perish.

Why do you have to add

that bit?

Why does he add it?

Because he's saying

something really tough.

And it's probably

one of the hardest things

that Jesus says.

This has been the category

of hard things Jesus says.

What he's saying here is

everyone deserves

to have the tower

fall on them.

Not just that 18.

Everyone deserves

to have the tower

fall on them.

He's saying

if God gave us

what we deserve,

if he,

going back to the end

of chapter 12,

if he extracted

the very last cent

out of what we owe him,

we all would have

towers fall on us

with no mercy

whatsoever

if he gave us

what we deserve.

He's showing us

something really important here.

Something that,

frankly,

our human hearts

don't want to accept.

There isn't a single person

who has ever received

even a small fraction

of the consequences

of the stupid

and the wrong

and the proud

and the selfish things

that they've done.

not a single person.

I cannot tell you

how many times

I have escaped

certain death

because of the stupidity

of my actions.

I grew up with motorbikes,

explosives,

and guns.

Just to give you an idea.

Stupid actions.

God has rescued me.

God has rescued me.

God graciously

again and again

and again

and again

does not give us

what we deserve.

And yet,

on the other hand,

if we really saw

what was truly wrong

with our hearts,

the pride,

the anger,

the deception,

the envy,

the denial,

the greed,

we would actually

know that God

owes us

nothing.

He doesn't owe us

anything

and he certainly

doesn't owe us

a comfortable life.

That is not

the purpose

of his mission.

We are much more

flawed and lost

than our hearts

dare believe

and yet,

what we'll see

in a moment

in Jesus,

we are much more

loved and cared for

and protected

than we could ever

dream possible.

Notice it's Jesus

who's doing the talking here

and notice who it is

that he's talking to.

Jesus is addressing

people who have

witnessed

a tragedy

but they haven't

experienced it

themselves.

They've seen

towers fall,

they've heard about it

but it's not

falling on them.

He's warning

these people

because when you

are going through

a smooth patch

in your life,

you're seeing

disaster somewhere

else but it's

not happening to you,

you're in a very

dangerous spiritual

territory is what

he's saying.

what he's saying

here is there's

no greater

spiritual crisis

than to have

no crisis

in your life.

That was the

problem for Israel

and it's a problem

for us.

The default mode

of the human heart

is it's self-justifying.

That's what it does

and there is no

better time

for self-justification

to happen

than during the

calm times,

the safe times,

the comfortable times,

the prosperous times

because in that

moment we get

greater and greater

confidence in ourselves

and our ability

and we don't need

God.

We become self-made

people

and what does

Jesus say to do

in the dangerous

times,

the safe times,

the comfortable

times,

the secure times?

He says repent.

That's what the call

is here.

Repent

and the most

important time

to repent

is in fact

when things

are going well.

it's in those

times we become

complacent,

self-assured,

self-secure,

self-confident.

You see the essence

of sin in the Bible

is where we substitute

God for ourselves.

We don't need a

sovereign God

to run life

our way

and it's in those

days of comfort

and safety

and ease

that we're most

likely to say

we don't need

God,

we've got life

worked out

ourselves.

That's what Israel

did in Amos'

time and in

Jesus' time,

they become

complacent,

they become

self-righteous,

self-justifying

and very

religious.

The real hope

of their hearts

had become

the comforts

that they were

enjoying,

they had given

their hearts

and their

allegiance to

the blessings

God had given

them and taken

it away from

God himself.

And so like

Amos before him,

Jesus walks

into this

situation,

he calls

Israel and

us to

repent,

and that's

where Jesus

leaves us

as he goes

on to tell

this little

parable in

the very next

verses in

Luke 13.

Starting at

verse 6,

it says,

a man had a

fig tree

growing in

his vineyard

and he went

to look for

fruit on it

but did not

find any.

So he said

to the man

who took care

of the vineyard,

for three years

now I've been

coming to look

for fruit on

this fig tree

and I haven't

found any.

Cut it down.

Why should

it use up

the soil?

Sir,

the man

replied,

leave it

alone for

one more

year and

I'll dig

around and

I'll fertilize

and if it

bears fruit

next year,

fine.

If not,

then cut

it down.

So there's

this owner

of this

tree,

looking for

fruit,

finds no

fruit from

the tree.

Fig trees

bore fruit

in the third

year so it's

totally reasonable

that the owner

would expect

fruit from

this tree.

There's no

fruit.

The owner

is patient

with his

fruitless tree.

It's given

one more

chance before

the chainsaw

comes out.

The person

who tends

a tree is

going to

try and

make it

fruitful

before it

cuts it

down.

So this

tree I've

got in the

backyard over

at home,

it's a

lime tree and

when I first

moved there

about eight

years ago,

I had about

four or five

limes on it.

I didn't know

what they were

actually initially.

Found out they

were good for

G&T.

And apparently.

So this

tree, I

thought, well, I'd

like a lot more

limes than that.

So I decided to

look after it.

So dug around

it, fertilised it,

constantly put

trace elements in

it, all the

stuff you're

meant to do

for citrus

trees.

And ever

since then,

not a single

fruit has come

on this tree.

Years have been

waiting.

I've even

taken Luke

13 out to

the tree and

read it to

the tree.

One more

year tree is

all I'm going

to give you.

But no fruit

yet.

I'm just

obviously patient

with this poor

tree.

So, but the

point here is

that God's

patience is long,

but we should

never be

jam on it.

Even God's

patience has an

end.

fruit.

What he

wants here is

fruit.

And what's the

fruit that he

wants?

Repentance.

How do I

know that?

Because that's

what he calls

us to do in

the early

verses of

Luke 13.

He calls

us to

repent.

And what

God's wanting

here from

Amos, from

Israel in

Amos' time,

again here from

Israel in

Luke, and

what he's

calling us

to here as

well, is a

life of

repentance and

faith.

And repentance

and faith,

sorry,

repentance is the

fruit of

faith.

Now, many

people, religious

people, think

that repentance

is what you

do when you've

done bad

things.

But the

Bible says

all of life

is repentance.

Repentance is

all of life.

The first of

Martin Luther's

95 thesis that

he nailed to

the door at

All Saints

Church in

Wittenberg about

500 years ago,

which started the

Protestant

Reformation in

which we stand

as a church,

the very first

of the 95,

he wrote

this.

I'll read in

English because

I can't read

German.

When our

Lord and

Master Jesus

Christ said

repent, he

willed the

entire life of

believers to

be one of

repentance.

And he was

particularly

kicking against

the idea you

just come to

church, you

say you're

sorry, and

then you leave

church and

you live how

you want to

live for the

rest of the

week.

Religious

understanding of

repentance is

I'm atoning for

my sins once a

week, just say

sorry and that's

it.

Gospel repentance

is fruit of

faith in God.

Religious

repentance is

what I do when I

fail.

Gospel repentance

is what I do

when I succeed.

All of life is

repentance and

the fruit that

God is looking

for in Luke

13 is

repentance.

You cannot

separate repentance

from faith.

That is, the

idea that you

can say, Jesus,

forgive me for

my sins, but I

don't want you

to be in

charge of my

life, is a

destructive

delusion.

Repenting of

any error means

going in the

opposite direction

by practicing the

virtues that are

directly opposite to

the vice.

Repentance is the

pathway to having

sins forgiven and

restoration of

relationship with

God.

A refusal to

repent is the

road to

destruction.

Anything,

anything can be

repaired except

for an unwillingness

to repent.

Any wrong can be

made right, but

not if you don't

admit that it is

wrong.

Disaster looms

for the

unresponsive.

That is the

message of Amos

Amos 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4.

It's the message

of Luke 13.

And that's the

toughness of

Jesus' words in

Luke 13 verse

Luke 13:9

9.

If it bears fruit

next year, fine,

but if not, cut

it down.

Even God's

patience has an

end and his

judgment will

fall.

Now the most

interesting and I

think the

marvellous thing

about this little

story, the fig

tree, is that

apparently there are

two people involved

in this little

story.

There's the owner

of the fig tree

and there's the

person who cares

for the fig tree.

The owner who

wants the fruit

and the carer

who wants to

give it one

more chance.

In fact, it's

one person.

The owner of

the tree is in

fact the one who

tends the tree

and it's this

person who is

wrestling with

themselves over

the fate of

their tree.

I want it to

bear fruit, but I

will cut it

down.

There is a

desire for both

justice and

mercy.

The owner of

the tree is at

the same time

the one to be

escaped, the one

that the tree

means to escape

from because it

doesn't want to

be cut down and

yet it's also the

one in which the

tree might find

refuge.

The same Jesus

who said this

hard word is

also the same

Jesus who opened

up the way back

to God.

He's the one who

said,

my mission is

to bring fire,

but he's the

one who put

himself under

the flame.

He made it

possible for us

to seek God

and live.

Jesus is the

one who allowed

the ultimate

tower of God's

judgment to fall

on him

instead.

He allowed

himself to be

cut down by

God, the

massive tower of

God's eternal

justice.

What we deserve

for trusting

everything else

apart from God

and ignoring God

came down on

him on the

cross.

And so the

reason God can

be so patient

with us and

good to us and

give us good

things that we

do not deserve

day in and

day out is

because Jesus

Christ got what

he didn't

deserve.

He was cut

down so that

we don't have

to.

And the

reason that

God will

never give

the Christian

what they

deserve but

something infinitely

better is

because God

gave Jesus

what he

didn't deserve.

Something

incredibly bad.

Cut down to

death and

abandoned by

God, pushed

aside so that

the great

tower might

fall on him.

and he

says to

Israel, and

we get to

look on as

he says this

to Israel,

look, look

and see what

I am doing.

Look at the

cross and

marvel and

see something

significant that's

happening at the

cross here.

See the

justice of

God on

display as

mercy for

you.

see the

justice of

God poured

out on the

cross and

flee to

the cross.

Don't

ignore the

cross, read

the signs,

see, look

at the cross

and see what

your sin and

your injustice

deserves.

That's what you

should be getting

when you see

Jesus on the

cross.

Look and see

what you

should be

getting and

flee to

Jesus.

Find refuge,

as I said

last week, in

the lion who

roars.

He is a

safe place.

Now in the

last number of

weeks, I

preached on

loving our

neighbor and

the need to

live below

our means.

For the

gospel of

Jesus demands

a change in

the stand of

our lifestyles.

I preached on

the spiritual

battle that we're

involved in and

the need for

us to be

Bible saturated

people,

committing this

church consistently,

its leaders,

its mission,

its vision,

its finances to

God in

prayer.

There's been a

lot of

challenges in

the last

number of

weeks that

I've been

preaching and

I want to

ask you,

what has

changed?

What have

you done?

What's

changed for

you?

Because to

hear the

word of

God and

to ignore

it and

for nothing

to change,

isn't that

what Israel's

been accused

of here in

Amos?

Of ignoring

the word of

God?

This is a

great sermon.

In fact,

we're actually

going to see

they were very

religious in

church all

the time.

They

presumed on

the patience

of God.

They took

his patience

as an

excuse for

complacency.

They

actually just

assumed God

was on their

side because

he wasn't

doing anything

too bad to

them.

Money and

security become

their true

God.

Money is what

they actually

served and in

the pursuit of

money they

lost sight of

what's right and

they especially

lost sight of

God.

Now let me tell

you that as I

said last week

or the week

before, we saw

an incredible

response to the

mission project,

a one-off

response.

We've got a

card for it.

But the church

finances have not

changed at all.

At all.

We're currently

$37,000.

I got it wrong.

I said $34,000 this

morning.

$37,000 behind.

That's a

repentance issue.

It's not a bank

balance issue.

It's a repentance

issue.

It's a spiritual

issue.

The New Testament

word for repentance

means the

changing of my

mind so that my

values, my

views, my

goals, my

ways, my

behavior, my

lifestyle change.

All of life

changes, live

differently.

And this radical

change is both an

inward change and an

outward change.

It's my mind and my

judgment.

It's my will and my

affections.

It's my behavior and my

lifestyle.

It's my motives and my

purposes.

Everything is changed.

That's what repentance

is.

It's not just saying

sorry for doing some

bad stuff.

It's the radical

reshaping of my mind

because that's what the

gospel demands.

It's Lord and Savior

Jesus demands my

entire life.

So friends, as Amos

said to Israel, I

say to you, seek the

Lord and live.

Theologian