Amos

We're going to be starting in chapter 2.

We're going to read verses 6 through 8.

Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel, and

for four I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell

the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.

Those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the

earth, and turn aside the way the afflicted, a man and his

father go into the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned.

They lay themselves down beside every altar, on garments taken

in pledge, and in the House of their God they drink the wine of

those who have been. Find chapter 5, verses 21

through 24. I hate, despise your feasts, and

I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain

offerings, I will not accept them.

In the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not

look upon them. Take away from me the noise of

your songs to the melody of your harps.

I will not listen, but let justice roll down like waters

and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Chapter 9, starting in verse 11. In that day I will raise up the

booth of David that has fallen, and repair its breeches, and

raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, that

they may possess the remnant of Edom.

And all the nations who are called by my name, declares the

Lord, who does this? Behold, the days are coming,

declares the Lord, when the ploughmen shall overtake the

Reaper in the treader of grapes, him who sows the seed.

The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall

flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of

my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and

inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and

drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their

fruit. I will plant them on their land,

and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I

have given them, says the Lord your God.

This is the word of the Lord. Well, good morning.

My name is John. I'm one of the pastors here at

Port City. I'm so glad you could join us

today. We're continuing a series called

Turn Back My People and went, you know, we're talking about

and taking a broad look at the minor prophets and more

importantly, at the heart of God for his people in the minor

Prophets. But before we kind of step into

Amos, I want to start with something you've probably

experienced. OK?

Have you ever seen someone who does all the right things on the

outside while something was deeply wrong underneath?

OK, think about that. Maybe it was a company whose

commercials they celebrated generosity in community, but

behind the scenes they were cheating employees.

You saw the documentary on that, right?

Or maybe it was a person who never missed a church service

like this one and knew all the songs, raised their hands high

in the air and worship, but yet they treated people with

harshness, indifference, or selfishness.

And when we see that something in you reacts, right?

You feel the the disconnect, the injustice makes the outward

display feel hollow, even offensive, right?

We instinctively know the real devotion to something, whether

it's a cause, a valuer God, must be expressed in how we treat

others. Otherwise the worship rings

empty, right? The tension between outward

worship and inward injustice sits at the heart of the book of

Amos. That's the heart of it.

But who was Amos? Well, we learned from the text,

Amos was a shepherd and a dresser of Sycamore fig trees, a

blue collar worker for rule. You know, it's from rule Judah.

OK, Nobody would have expected him to be God's messenger.

I mean, he's literally from the middle of nowhere and he was

actually going to go to the northern Kingdom of Israel.

But God calls him saying in verse Chapter 7 of Amos, he says

go prophecy to my people, Israel.

And Amos didn't live among the people he was actually going to

confront. He actually lived in a place

called Tokoa in Judah. Let's look at this map that I

have up here. You'll see that Tokoa set just

South of Jerusalem, but Amos's ministry would actually take

place in the northern Kingdom of Israel.

So if you remember after Solomon's reign, the nation was

split in the 2, it's the Judah was in the South and then Israel

was in the north. So you have southern Kingdom,

northern Kingdom. And so Amos prophesied during

the reign of Uzziah, who was king, and Judah the southern

Kingdom, and Jeroboam the second, who was king of Israel

in the northern Kingdom. And most of his message was

actually delivered in a place you look on the map.

That's called Bethel. Now, Bethel, as we learned in

previous weeks, is a religious power center.

It was intentionally set up to keep people from going to

Jerusalem. All right?

It was a royal sanctuary filled with priests, leaders and

national rituals. This is where Amos, a simple

shepherd, was sent to speak truth to power.

But who is this message for? OK, Israel.

In Amos's day, they were experiencing prosperity,

military strength, and national confidence even.

But beneath the surface was a widening gap between worship and

the way people actually lived. OK, the wealthy thrived while

the vulnerable were ignored or exploited.

Injustice. It flowed through the courts.

Worship gatherings were full, but hearts were hollow, right?

The people believed their covenant identity made them

untouchable. I'm God's person.

He's not going to let anything bad happen to me.

Amos arrives with a different message.

And he says privilege brings responsibility, not immunity.

Not immunity. See, God was impressed and was

not impressed by their songs. If their society silenced the

oppressed, he was not oppressed. He was not impressed with them.

Their offerings meant nothing if their courts denied justice.

Their worship was loud, but their compassion was quiet.

See, Amos steps onto the scene to declare that true worship is

not measured by sound or ceremony, but by justice, by

lives that reflect the character of God.

Even despite Amos's humble background in life, the Lord

still called him to his people with a message to turn back to

him. Turn back.

What we ultimately see in Amos is this.

God's people are meant to embody God's heart.

But Israel had abandoned justice, and therefore their

worship had become empty. So Amos gives them and us a

sobering message. See, here's the message.

God will judge a society that oppresses the vulnerable.

He rejects empty worship without justice.

And yet ultimately, he promises restoration in the end.

So let's look at these three things from Amos.

Judgement of oppressors, worship without justice and restoration

in the end. Let's look at that first one,

judgement of oppressors. We're looking at chapter 2.

So Amos starts out with a series of judgements in his book about

the surrounding nations, but it ends with the judgment coming to

Israel. See, Amos puts Israel alongside

the other nations, and he's essentially saying you may be

God's people, but he will judge you just like every other

nation. He will.

God is going to judge Israel for what they have done and they're

currently doing. So what are they doing?

Well, he told us they look back at chapter 2, verse 6.

It says thus says the Lord. That's the way prophets rolled.

They said thus says the Lord and that's what he said, right.

He says for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will

not revoke the punishment because they sell the righteous

for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.

Those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the

earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted, a man and his

father go into the same girl. That's as bad as it sounds.

So that my holy name is profound, profane.

They lay themselves down beside every altar, on garments taken

in pledge, and in the House of their God, they drink the wine

of those who have been fined. See, Amos begins his ministry by

exposing Israel's sin. With painful clarity, he names

the injustices that had become so common that no one even

questioned them anymore. It's just the life in Israel.

Amos condemns how the powerful sell the righteous for silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals.

They trample on the poor into the dust, and they deny justice

to the oppressed. These weren't isolated events.

They had become the economic engine of the nation.

See debt. Sell slavery over trivial

amounts, unfair fines, briberies in the courts, cheating in

business practices. Israel's elites built their

comfort on the crushed backs of the helpless.

See, they even tax grain in ways that ensure the poor could never

get ahead and sold the what's called the sweepings of the

wheat, or essentially the chaff, the stuff you throw away.

Like they sold that to those who had no other option.

That's what we see in chapter 8. This wasn't only a moral problem

though, it was a covenant violation.

Their society had replaced God's values with greed, pride, and

self-interest. So Amos reminds Israel of who

they truly are. He tells them a people delivered

by God, set apart by God, and entrusted with reflecting God's

character to the world. For those who don't know, God

actually rescued Israel out of slavery and oppression in Egypt,

and then he led them into a new land of their own.

See, here's what Amos says in chapter 3.

You'll have to look in your Bible for that one.

It says, hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O

people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up

out of the land of Egypt. You only have I known of all the

families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for

all your iniquities. See, God is their Redeemer, He's

their savior. He freed them from oppression

and they turned around and became oppressors.

See, Amos calls that out. They knew that God was a just

God and he had loved, loved them by enacting justice on their

behalf. Yet they failed to turn and live

that out. What that privilege with With

that privilege came the responsibility to treat the weak

with the justice and mercy. And instead they crushed the

people, very people that God had asked them to protect.

They were to be righteous people, but they were

unrighteous. But what if?

What does it mean to be righteous?

One pastor was helpfully He's helpfully said that biblical

righteousness is not merely about personal morality.

It is about right relationships. Right relationships.

To be righteous is to live in such a way that the people

around you are treated with the dignity, fairness, and

compassion that reflect the heart of God himself.

That's what righteousness is. By that definition, Israel's

injustice wasn't just social failure.

It was relational and spiritual failure.

They were breaking relationship with God by breaking

relationship with neighbor, right?

Their actions profane, God's holy name.

To profane is to disrespect or to or regard as nothing, right?

So Israel was disrespecting God by the way they were treating

others. One writer said.

Righteousness is not a social status.

It is a way of life. It's a way of life.

So imagine with me for a second a world class orchestra.

You think about this orchestra, all the instruments and each

musician, They might be this amazing musician, OK

individually speaking, but if the strings are playing in a

different key than the brass, the music is just don't sound

right. It's just that it's a disaster,

right? Righteousness isn't just about

me and my instrument or personal morality, but rather it's about

the the harmony of the whole group, how we treat our

neighbors. So when the wealthy exploit the

poor, the song of the nation becomes a screeching noise to

God is what Amos is showing, right?

But Amos audience didn't see themselves as monsters.

They didn't. That simplifies things a little

too much, right? They were they were probably

seeing themselves as the good people of Israel.

So how did they how did they get to the point where they're just

selling the needy for a pair of sandals?

How do you get there right? Well, research into human

behavior shows that injustice doesn't usually start with a

bang, but it actually starts with a slow systematic drift.

And so here's some ways that actually happens.

And may maybe you're familiar, but let's just go through them

real quick. The first one, this, this is

somewhat how people find themselves into injustice.

It's called ethical fading. It's this idea of that this

occurs when ethical colors of a decision start to wash out until

the decision looks purely practical.

Here's what that means. Like in business or personal

life, we stop asking is this right and start asking is this

efficient? Is this legal right?

We turn people into data points or expenses.

And when a person becomes a line item on a spreadsheet, it it's

much easier, much easier to ignore their humanity.

So that's, that's one second one.

Maybe it's this, this idea that the power of like the in Group

bias this in Group, right. So sociologists have long noted

that we are hardwired to care for our people, right?

Those, those who look, vote and live like us, OK, And justice

grows in the gap between US and them.

Let me say that one more time and justice grows in the gap

between US and them. OK, when Israel prospered, the

wealthy spent all their time with other wealthy people.

Probably they lost the proximity required for empathy.

See, injustice is what happens when we stop knowing the names

of the people who are suffering. I don't know you and I don't

care, right? Or maybe it was something like

this one moral justification, this kind of the idea of the

good person myth, right? We are masters of just basically

rebranding our sins. We don't call it greed.

We, we call it smart investing, right?

We don't call it ignoring the poor.

We call it personal responsibility, right?

We research shows that once we do one good thing, like going to

a religious festival in Israel's case, we give ourselves this

moral license to be a little more selfish elsewhere.

So we think I'm a good person because I, I was, I'm here at a

church service. So it's OK if I'm a little

cutthroat at work. See how that works?

Or maybe this last one, It's this habituation and

desensitization, right? The first time you see

something, someone suffer, it hurts, right?

You're like, whoa. The 100th time you see it in

your social media feed or drive past it on the way to work,

Yeah, your brain starts to filter it out and just becomes

background noise. Right?

This is why Amos uses such shocking language.

He's trying to breakthrough the calcification, right, of the

people's hearts. They they hadn't become more

evil. They had just become more numb.

This is how this is how injustices grow and and and and

persist. This drift is how a people can

get there. They didn't just wake up one day

and decide to be evil. They didn't do that.

That's oversimplification. It was one drifting step away

year after year, year after year.

See, if we want to hear Amos rightly, we have to let him hold

up a mirror to us. Where have we personally or as a

society grown comfortable with patterns that exploit, overlook,

or diminish the people around us?

Sometimes these patterns are close to home.

They're really close to home in our own city's history, our own

city's history. Discriminatory housing practices

have made it difficult for entire communities to build

stability. And even today, many immigrants

and asylum seekers experience treatment that fails to honor

their very humanity, their dignity.

Political opponents are demonized, mocked, and stripped

of their humanity. You saw the commercials, right?

People are demeaned continually by those claiming the name of

Jesus. Even see 11 writer wrote

something very hard. So bear with me.

The question. He said that he said this.

The question before the American church is simply as simple and

terrifying. Will we be known for our public

displays of claiming Jesus as our own while completely denying

his teachings, or for faithfulness?

For will we be known for our access to power and wealth or

our allegiance to loving God and our neighbors?

He goes on. We must be honest that

Christians are not known by our love for one another and our

country right now. We must do the honest and hard

work of understanding and embodying that love of Christ

once again. Once again, see, Jesus taught us

in John 1335. He says by this everyone will

know that you are my disciples if you love one another, if you

love one another. But these examples aren't meant

to score points, guys. They remind us that the

injustice often hides in places where we've grown used to them.

See, Amos calls God's people to open their eyes.

But the call to see isn't meant to leave us discouraged.

It's meant to lead us to faithful action.

It's it's meant to lead us to repentance.

See, Israel was to repent, which means to turn back.

That's what this whole book is about.

Turn back. We were to turn back to God,

just as we are to move forward, we must actually turn back to

God. You are right and I am wrong,

but repentance isn't walking in. That is walking in a direction

of obedience. It's not just a feeling, it's an

actual action. Like we move into these things.

Our repentance is a turn, right? So here's a quick starting point

like the of of our repentance. We just need to do this.

Move one step closer to someone who is vulnerable in our

society. OK, Just move one step closer.

You don't have to solve entire systems.

You don't have to fix the world, but you can take one step

forward of merge towards mercy and compassion of the people

around you. You can.

This might look like something like this.

Building a relationship with a family who recently immigrated

and helping them navigate life here, right?

Supporting a local ministry that works with refugees, the

unhoused, or the economically vulnerable.

Learning the stories of the communities in our city that

were affected by past discrimination and asking how

can we come alongside you today? Right?

Entering in and learning about what's happening to the

marginalized. Becoming friends with people who

do not look like you, think like you, or have the same background

as you. Volunteering with an

organization that advocates for the fair treatment of, or

provides practical help. It's just a step that we will

not all take the same step. We won't, but we can take a

step. OK, see, these are not grand

gestures. They're just simple, faithful

ways to bear God's character in everyday life.

Amos doesn't just confront us, though.

He invites us. He shows us the gap between the

world as it is and the world as it should be, or as God intense.

And then he calls God's people to step into that gap with

compassion, humility, and courage.

So the first point is this. God's judgment falls on Israel

not because they lacked religion, but because they

lacked love. True righteousness is found in

right relationships that protect the dignity of the vulnerable.

OK, but if in the first part of Amos he exposes how Israel

treated the vulnerable, this section, this next one, it

reveals something even more unsettling is that God rejects

their worship because their lives contradict their songs.

So let's look at Amos 51 more time.

He says, I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in

your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your

burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept

them. And the peace offerings of your

fattened animals, I will not look upon them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your

hearts. I will not listen, but let

justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever

flowing stream. And then he goes on to say this.

Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings during the 40 years in

the wilderness? O Israel, you shall take up

Saikuth and your king, and king, you your star God, your images

that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile

beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Look at that again. I hate, I despise your

festivals. Take away me your noise of your

songs. Let justice roll down like

waters. The shocking part is that Israel

was worshipping passionately. The festivals were crowded, the

offerings were abundant, the music was loud, but their hearts

and their society were unchanged.

It shows that this is rooted in a dangerous theology, the

assumption that religious ritual guarantees God's approval

regardless of how we live. Or worse, they thought their

political prosperity was a sign of God's favor.

See, the people believe the day of the Lord would bring them

victory, but Amos warns them it will bring darkness because

injustice has hollowed out their worship.

See, they thought they were good because they did the things and

things seem to be going well, but they were wrong.

Judgement was coming. It's kind of like this.

This is what he's getting after. If you could just imagine with

me for a second, imagine a husband who buys his wife a

massive bouquet of roses. Valentine's is coming up,

fellas, and he buys a diamond necklace every anniversary.

So a dozen roses and a diamond necklace every anniversary.

But the rest of the year, he's cold, he's dismissive, and he's

unfaithful. Now, does she want the diamonds?

No, no, she does it. The gift actually becomes an

insult because it's used as a substitute for real love.

See. But here's the point.

God sees Israel's songs and sacrifices like those diamonds,

right? They are offensive because they

are being used to cover up of actual love and faithfulness in

the relationship. See Amos uses.

Irony and vivid metaphors to expose the contradiction.

He reverses their expectations, though, and showing them that

their confidence in worship is misplaced.

Their gatherings were full, but their obedience was empty.

Their songs were sincere, but their treatment of others was

corrupt. Amos wants them to see that God

desires righteousness and justice, not ritual for ritual's

sake. See, one pastor has.

Said that he said that care for the vulnerable is not an

optional add on to faith. It's actually the evidence that

faith is real. See, Jesus himself taught this,

that to embrace the poor and the vulnerable is to embrace him.

If our hearts truly love Christ, they cannot remain cold toward

those who bear his image. That's what first John teaches,

right? For Amos, this is the heart of

the matter. Here's here's what he's getting

at. He says worship that ignores

injustice is worship God refuses to receive.

That's the core message of Amos. All right.

Worship is only as authentic as our ethics.

Singing wildly on Sunday means nothing if we ignore the cries

of the vulnerable from Monday to Saturday.

Singing. Singing about a God of

compassion when we have none negates the song.

See. To God.

Justice is not a distraction from worship.

It's not a distraction from worship.

It is essential expression of it.

OK, if our songs rise to God while our lives remain

untouched, Amos invites us to pause and really take inventory.

See, what would it look like for justice to roll down through our

homes, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods?

What would it mean for our worship to shape the way we

treat people who are overlooked or pushed to the margins, right?

Maybe it starts in very small, very ordinary ways, right?

Imagine the Justin Justice rolling down in your home, where

conversations become kinder, where the you we teach our

children to see every person is made in God's image.

Where we open our doors to someone who needs a meal or or

listening ear. Where justice begins to look

like less like a program, although we need programs, but

more like hospitality, patience and shared life.

Imagine justice rolling into your workplace where we refuse

to participate in gossip, where we advocate gently for fairness,

where we treat Co workers essentially, especially those

with less authority, with dignity.

Right. But Amos also presses us to

think about the integrity behind our work itself.

See, in his day, businesses used rigged scales.

They diluted products and took advantage of people who had no

power to push back. The forms have changed right in

our day, but the temptations have not.

See, justice in the workplace can look like doing what is

right even when no one's watching.

Being honest in how we bill our hours and how we handle money

and how we speak about customers or clients.

It's not upselling a client in ways that are in for something

they don't need. It looks like refusing to cut

corners in ways that would harm others, even if it's how

everyone does it, right It It can be offering a word of

encouragement to someone who is routinely overlooked, or

choosing to listen carefully before making assumptions.

Right? Sometimes justice is simply

treating people as people. Not as obstacles, not as tools,

not as competitors, but as image bearers of God.

In these quiet, unseen decisions, justice begins to

flow. And when justice flows, it is

right. Worship.

Every bit is honoring to God as a song we sing.

Imagine. Justice flowing into your

neighborhood. Slowing down enough to.

Notice the person who always walks alone, right?

Learning the stories of people who are different from us,

choosing to be a steady presence of kindness, even it might, it

might even look like befriending someone who feels out of place,

new someone's new to the area or disconnected.

When Amos speaks of justice rolling down like water, he's

he's not imagining A1 time fire hydrant, a passion.

He's not. He's describing a steady,

ongoing stream, a way of life in which God's heart shapes ours.

OK, These small faithful acts are not disconnected from

worship. They are worship.

Don't miss that. They are worship.

They're the ways our songs begin to take on flesh in the world

God loves. And it's no accident.

It's no accident that Doctor Martin Luther King junior, many

years ago, he reached for these very same words from Amos to

say, let justice roll down like waters.

When he longed for a world shaped by righteousness and

compassion, he wasn't introducing a new idea.

He was echoing the ancient call of God's heart right?

See doctor King. He stood in a long line of

Christians who did the same thing.

Reformers like John Calvin often turn to Amos to emphasize the

genuine faith must express itself in in mercy and integrity

and equity toward neighbor and long before that medieval

theologians. They appealed to Amos when

challenging rulers and business practices that oppress the poor

through unjust taxation and dishonest gain.

And going even further back, early church fathers such as

Basil the Great and Expressory of Nice, he used Amos to call

believers to generosity, economic fairness, and care for

the vulnerable. And even further still, all the

way back into the the 1st and 2nd centuries, John Christosum,

one of the most influential voices of the early church,

regularly invoked Amos when confronting the mistreatment of

the poor and the misuse of wealth, insisting that worship

without justice is worship God refuses to accept.

Not to speak of the countless, countless passages of the Old

and New Testament that push us to treat others with dignity,

value, and worth just like this one.

This isn't some kind of progressive agenda.

It's not. It's called Christianity.

See these ideas? They didn't come from cultural

ideologies. They did not.

They came from the Bible. In fact, our culture got these

ideas from centuries of Christian influence on culture.

I praise God for that. That's his common grace, that we

would even care as a society about these things.

See, across the centuries of Christian history, the church

has returned to Amos because his his message is timeless.

True worship is inseparable from justice.

And that I'm I'm not naive. That might rub you the wrong

way. That might rub you the wrong

way. All this justice talk may

actually make you feel like it puts you into one political

party, but I'm here to tell you it doesn't.

It doesn't. The Bible is neither completely

conservative nor liberal. It's not.

Being a Christian doesn't put you on either camp.

It's like HP, Charles says. He says Jesus didn't come to

take sides, He came to take over.

He did. So as we follow Jesus and his

word, we will not fit into one political box entirely, but we

will confound both. We will.

So .2 is that religious ritual is hollow when it ignores social

injustice. God rejects the noise of our

songs. When our lives do not echo his

heart for the oppressed, He does.

But Amos doesn't end with rebuke.

He doesn't. After calling God's people to

justice and exposing the hollowness of their worship, he

does something surprising. He turns our eyes towards hope.

See, the God who confronts his people also restores them.

See, judgement is not the final word, graces.

So if you look at Amos 9 once more, he says this towards the

end. He says, In that day I will

raise up the booth of David that has fallen, and prepare its

breeches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as the

days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom.

And all the nations who are called by my name, declares the

Lord. Who is, who does this?

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.

Even when the plowmen shall overtake the Reaper in the

treader of grapes, on him who sows the seed the mountains

shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.

I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall

rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall

make gardens and eat their fruit.

I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be

uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord

your God. See, after 8 chapters of

blistering indictment, and there's a lot, Amos ends with a

breathtaking vision of renewal, of renewal.

See, he describes a future in which God raises up what has

fallen, repairs what is broken, and restores what has been lost.

He says, I'll raise up the fallen booth of David.

This is this is more than a political repair.

See that the booth evokes like this fragile collapse, shelter,

OK, and Israel's glory and unity are just in ruins.

Yet God promises to lift it up again, reestablishing his

gracious reign among his people. Restoration comes not because

the people deserved it though, but because God is faithful.

OK, He also, as he kind of summarizes, he says I will

repair what has been shattered. Israel's life will be cracked at

every scene. It will be as socially,

economically, spiritually. See, injustice had torn the

community apart, but what sin had fractured God himself would

meant he promises to heal these broken relationships, restored

fractured community and renew the hearts of the people.

OK. And if you look further in this

in this text, he says I will restore the land essentially and

I'll renew my people with blessing and stability.

He's he's, you know, drought, famine and scarcity is what's

going to symbolize Israel's spiritual drought and and famine

and scarcity, right? See, God promises a reversal of

all these things. He's going to give them

abundance, fruitfulness, and peace.

These fields blooming again become like a picture of people

being made whole. These are images of Shalom, of

God putting things right. That's what he's going to do

now, centuries later, a long time after this.

The early church is actually they saw something astonishing

in these promises because in in Acts 15, when the apostles

discern like how Gentiles can belong to God's family.

James quotes this very passage from Amos and he declares that

the rebuilding of David's fallen tent is being fulfilled in Jesus

right. Not in a rebuilt political

Kingdom, but in a restored people, Jews and Gentiles

together under the reign of Christ.

See, the community formed around Jesus becomes the first sign of

the renewal, Amos for Saul. Notice that.

But here's the thing. We are not ancient Israel, but

yet through Christ we have been grafted into God's family, Paul

tells us, and made heirs of his promises.

And because of that, the calling Amos lays before God's people to

reflect his justice, mercy, and righteousness is now Our Calling

as well. If this is the heart of God, it

should be our heart as well, right?

But we need to pause here because it can seem like that

all that's being said is be just love the vulnerable.

And that is what's being said, OK?

But if we're honest with ourselves, it sounds like a lot

of work and I'm tired, and you might be tired, or I'm just not

there, or simply, if we're honest, the safe place.

I just don't want to. I just don't want to.

You see, if we're honest, we are just like the people of Israel.

We are. We may not be openly committing

injustice, but we're not necessarily ready to lift a

finger to stop it either. What would make?

But what would move us? What would make us want to live

into these things? We have to ask.

How do we actually become the people Amos describes?

How do we stop the 1° drift into apathy and start letting justice

roll down like a river? Right.

If we if we try to do this out of pure willpower or some kind

of social duty, we'll burn out or we'll become self-righteous.

See, The Secret isn't trying harder to be just it's looking

closer at the one who is Justice Incarnate.

See think about this. Jesus was the ultimate Amos,

right? He was the ruler or he's the

rule outsider, you know, a person from nowhere, Nazareth

even, who came into the religious power centers and he

spoke truth to power. He saw the widows being cheated

and the poor being ignored and it broke his heart.

But Jesus did what Amos could never do.

See, Amos could only point to the the broken booth of David.

Jesus is the booth of David rebuilt.

OK, Amos could only call for a stream of justice.

Jesus is actually the river from which justice comes from, right?

See on the cross, the day of the Lord, that day of darkness, Amos

warned about fell on Jesus so they wouldn't have to fall on

you and me. He took the judgement for our 1°

drifts, our hollow worship, and our quiet apathy.

He was treated unjustly so that we could be made right with God.

See, one pastor has said, he said it this way, that biblical

justice does not grow out of guilt or moral striving, but out

of grace. See, those who experience God's

mercy become people who extend it.

Justice becomes the fruit of a heart reshaped by divine

compassion. That's what Israel should have

been. They had.

They had everything there. If you remember, they were

actually brought up out of the land of Egypt.

They have been shown immense compassion, immense salvation,

but yet they turned from it. They needed, they needed

something more. If we were to embody these

things in our city, we must come to terms with the reality that

first we were the vulnerable. This was what Amos was trying to

get Israel to remember by pointing them back to the

Exodus. They like us in our sin.

We're not deserving of mercy, but justice.

And that meant condemnation for us, just like Israel.

We, like Israel, deserve to be judged and expelled from the

land and the presence of God for that matter, and we deserve it

all. We are the unjust.

But something is different this time.

Whereas they didn't have before, something else has happened.

Someone has come because Paul gets to tell us.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with

which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trust us as a

sin, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. See, when we realized that we

were those who did not deserve mercy but have received it, when

we realized that we were those undeserving of grace, but we we

have received it anyway, it changes things.

There is a humility that is put in us.

We who were once lost are now found.

We who were blind now see. We were them.

We were them. Maybe not educationally, maybe

not physically or monetarily, but in relation to God.

All of us, we were them. We were the vulnerable, every

one of us. See, once we were not a people,

but now we have been made God's people.

We were far once we're far off, but now have been brought near

by the blood of Christ. He is our peace.

Ephesians tells us we should have died and suffered the

punishment we deserve, but Jesus stepped in and he took our

place. He took our place.

Should have been us. When Jesus died on the Roman

cross, He died for you and for me.

He substituted himself for us. He died so that we can live.

He stood in the gap and so we would know.

His victory was certain, though. Three days later he rises from

the dead, defeating Destin in hell, right?

And he'll never die again. Now he, and now he offers us new

life to be brought into his family so that we are restored,

so that we are restored. And restored people, they become

agents of restoration. Why?

Well, it's no different from the simple fact that Amos pushes us

to. As God has been to me, so I will

be to you. As God has saved me and brought

me from the land of Egypt, so I will be to you.

There's this tradition in Japanese culture and it's called

King Zungi, where basically they take broken pottery and they

repair it using gold or silver resin.

OK, so instead of hiding the cracks, which I would probably

be more inclined, they actually just put gold or silver in the

cracks, OK. And the gold makes the breaks

the the really the most beautiful part of the piece.

But here's the point. We're kind of like the pottery.

God just didn't throw us away when we were broken by sin and

injustice. He actually repaired us with

gold and silver by his grace. So now when people look at us,

they don't see perfect people, but repaired people.

But there's a beauty in that because they see the gold, if

you will, the mending. See God has taken what was

broken and he makes it beautiful, makes it beautiful.

See people healed by grace become people who practice

grace. Those who have received mercy

become a community where mercy and justice flow.

Don't you see the power for these things comes from the

transforming grace of God? And see, when God redeems you,

He changes you. The power to live into these

things comes from the truth of the gospel.

See, justice flows from grace. Unlike the nation of Israel, God

puts His spirit in those who trust in Jesus.

They did not have the Spirit of God, but those who trust in

Christ do. And therefore, because of the

Spirit in God's grace, I am kind because in Jesus God has been

kind to me. I am, I will advocate for you

because God, Christ has advocated for me.

I will extend grace to you as God has extended grace to me.

And so when Amos speaks of raising up what has fallen and

repairing what is shattered and restoring his people, he's

describing this kind of community that God intends the

church to be. A people under the compassionate

reign of Jesus, A people who mend what is broken instead of

ignoring it. A people whose life together

brings healing, stability, and blessing in the world that God

loves. See, this is the hope that

follows judgement. Not only only that God restores

us, but that he makes us participants in his restoring

work. See this closing vision.

Pulls back the curtain on God's heart, even his judgement.

Even his judgement aims to heal. He relents when his people

intercede. And revealing that mercy sits at

the heart of his character. Right.

See, our hope is not in human systems or our ability to fix

the world. Our hope is in the God who

restores what is broken, who raises up what has fallen, who

repairs what sin is shattered, the gospel forms of people who

practice justice because we ourselves have been restored by

grace. This is the invitation Amos

leaves us with to become a community shaped not by guilt or

fear or guilt, but by the renewing love of God, of people

through whom blessing and justice flow into the world.

These aren't hot just high ideals, though, but Kingdom

realities made visible by his grace.

So .3 is this, that our capacity to practice justice flows

directly from the grace we've received in Christ?

Because God restores us when we were vulnerable, we are now in

power to be agents of his restoration in the world through

his word and deed. All right, so the book of Amos,

it's a call to align our lives with God's heartbeat.

We worship a God who refuses to accept a faith that ignores the

suffering of others, but who provides the very grace we need

to become the people of justice and restoration that he's called

us to be. That's what is in his heart, and

His desire is for us. Let's pray.

Father. I ask.

That would you make us into those people that advocate for

the vulnerable and champion what is right.

God left her own devices. We are selfish and myopic and we

just don't see anybody else. God, we are so guilty in all

these things. But God, we lean into your grace

knowing that you, you can change us.

Father, I ask that you would empower us by the Spirit to do

justice in our city. It's for your beautiful name.

Amen.