Peace Lutheran Church
Posts Tagged "Amos"
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
October 13, 2024
Text: Amos 5:6-7,10-15
Theme: Seek and Live!
Sermon Outline
2. What are you seeking?
1. God seeks us!
Sermon
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Amos chapter five verses six through seven and ten though fifteen.
Introduction: Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. One of your favorite games, and one of mine as well, is hide and seek. I am sure that we can find great places to hide here. But one of us will have to seek out the others. Today we have a call from the Prophet Amos to be seekers. He says seek the Lord and live. This raises the question, “What are you looking for?” “What are you seeking?” How does God seek us? Ponder these questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
2. What are you seeking?
It’s the middle of the afternoon. It’s Saturday, and you’re at home. You’ve wandered into the kitchen, you’ve opened the pantry door, and you’re staring at the contents. “What are you looking for?” is the question that comes from your spouse or your family member when they find you standing there. And truth be told, you don’t really know what you’re looking for. You know you’re hungry (or maybe bored), but you can’t decide if you’re looking for sweet or salty, chewy or crunchy. You have a number of options before you, and yet there isn’t one that stands out as the answer to your craving.
“What are you looking for?” is a question to be posed to emotionally and spiritually restless people. What answers might we hear? I’m looking for happiness. I’m looking for excitement. I’m looking for love. I’m looking for a place to belong. I’m looking for purpose. I’m looking for a good time. I’m looking for an escape from family, from work, from the craziness of the world. I’m looking for something.
One way or another, we’re looking for something that makes us come alive. And yet, experience proves that none of the avenues to life just mentioned come through for us for any length of time. Moreover, we were not created to seek our source of life in any of these things.
God’s people during the time of Amos knew a thing or two about seeking out their source of life apart from God. Amos is writing at a time of relative political stability in both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. (His prophecy is addressed primarily to Israel, the Northern Kingdom.) However, the external national stability is masking serious spiritual problems.
Generations earlier, King Jeroboam had set up calf idols in the cities of Bethel and Dan, and Israel had followed their kings in practicing idolatry right up to the time of Amos’s writing. The people had also adopted the false gods of the people around them. They worshiped fertility gods and goddesses whose veneration included violence, oppression, injustice, and sexual license. Ultimately, the people had adopted the worship of the most ancient (and modern) of false gods: the god of self. In service to their own appetites, the rich and well-connected people of Amos’s day were building beautiful homes and planting luxurious vineyards, and they funded their efforts by oppressing and defrauding the common people. They charged the people unfair taxes on their grain harvests (v 11a). Then, when the people would complain and seek their legal rights, the rich would pay off the judges in order to maintain their unjust enterprise (v 12). To the point that those who were wise just fell silent possibly for fear of hardship and oppression, possibly from a spirit of defeatism what good will it do? But God had sent the prophet to warn them that their time was coming (v 11b). They would build their beautiful homes but not get to live in them. They would plant their pleasant vineyards but miss out on the wine. These warnings would find their fulfillment in Israel’s destruction by the Assyrians within a generation of Amos’s writing, about 722 BC.
Like the well-connected of Amos’s day, we are not immune to using and abusing those around us in our search for the good life. When we seek after comfort, we use people as servants of our comfort. When we seek after wealth, we use people as means of production. When we seek after pleasure and self-gratification, we use people as objects to satisfy our desire. When we seek after power, we use people either as allies in our pursuit or as obstacles to be removed.
1. God Seeks Us!
But God himself is seeking so much more for us. Amos didn’t simply communicate judgment. Through the prophet, God was pleading with his people: “Seek me and live. . . . Seek the Lord and live. . . . Seek good, and not evil, that you may live” (5:4, 6, 14). By nature, we would seek life in a thousand “good” things. But only one is able to give real life, abundant life, eternal life. “Loving the Lord your God . . . for he is your life and length of days” (Deut 30:20). “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). The beautiful good news: when we did not seek God, he sought us. The One through whom all things are made and have life was incarnate. He came to earth in Jesus Christ, seeking out his twisted and death-bound creatures. With acts of love and mercy, Jesus bore witness of the life he came to give us. Even so, his people rejected the author of life, at times walking away sad like the rich young man of Mark 10, and ultimately by giving him over to death on a cross. But thanks be to God, Christ, the source of all life, destroyed the power of death and lives forever to be our life.
He comes to us today to invite us to seek our life in him, with the promise that we will find it (Mt 7:7). He comes to us through the words of Absolution and through the message of the Gospel. The sacrament we receive in which he communicates his real presence and life to us. Having sought and found our life in God, we then see people rightly, as objects of his love and our love. Justice for, and care of, our neighbor flow from a life that has been justified for Jesus’ sake. Because we have a source of life in Jesus that does not fail, we seek to bless those around us instead of using them for our own ends.
Conclusion: If we were to read to the end of Amos’s prophecy, we would find that the prophet had words of hope for his wayward countrymen. God would seek his people. God would find his people. God would save his people. And in the end, God would bring them home to a land where they would build homes and dwell in them and where they would plant vineyards and enjoy the wine. For they would dwell in his presence forever, rightly related to him and to one another. It’s a picture of the new creation, the hope that Jesus has won for us!
We Don’t Really Know What We’re Seeking, but God Has Sought and Found Us in Jesus So That We Might Seek and Know Him.
And in a world full of people who don’t know exactly what they’re looking for, we relish this opportunity to seek the God who sought us and then to seek the good of others, that they, too, might know the love of our seeking and rescuing God through us. This is where true life is found!
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 08, 2024
July 14, 2024
Amos—A Prophet For Our Times
Amos 7:7-15
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for our meditation to-day is the Old Testament lesson of Amos chapter seven verses seven through fifteen.
Today’s text presents us with some unique challenges. The Law of God is the predominant preaching. The plumb line is God’s Law at work judging the crooked ways of a perverse and obstinate people. Amos’ mes-sage of impending desolation and ruin about to come crashing down of Isra-el for their sins is not so much a challenge for us. We raise little objection to pointing out the sins of others. Israel had it coming to them for their dis-regard for the holy sanctuary of the Most High God. We learn from the con-text that the worship of foreign false gods was taking place there. We learn that this is sanctioned and promoted by Amaziah and King Jeroboam.
The challenge we face in hearing this text is applying the same trans-parent Law of God to our own nation and our own church. Another chal-lenge we face is seeing Jesus at work in the text and how this text sheds its foreshadowing light on the cross. This is the preacher’s task. Your task is to hear it and believe it. So we begin with our sin and the plumb line that sets the standard of perfection God expects. You might want to buckle up. This exam has all the makings of a rough ride.
Israel had their woes in their day, and they paid dearly for their apos-tasy. In today’s democracy it is reprehensible and appalling that under the law unborn children are being discarded under the guise of a woman’s right to choose and hailed as a personal freedom. In today’s democracy it is shameful that under the law marriage is dismantled and redefined to justify the sin of homosexuals. In today’s democracy we can no longer call our-selves “one nation, under God” because such a claim tramples the rights of a chosen few. Under the laws of the state, you and I can exercise all kinds of freedoms that violate and transgress the Laws of God with no apparent con-sequences. The print of our liberal press trumps the “Thou shalt not…” in-delible mark that God has written on our hearts. Violate the conscience and cross the line one too many times and the sin becomes the status quo.
It’s no surprise that visitors to our worship are puzzled by the words of our confession of sins that acknowledge “I, a poor, miserable sinner…have ever offended You and justly deserve Your temporal and eternal punish-ment.” Not only visitors, but even members of our own fellowship may ex-press difficulty seeing themselves as poor or miserable in their sin. Objec-tions to sin set forth by the plumb line of God’s Word tramples one’s com-fort and intrudes upon one’s right to the pursuit of happiness. So you begin to see the challenge we face to be steadfast and faithful to our just and right-eous Lord while we are beset by such resistance to the truth.
Sadly, the woes of an apostate nation have infiltrated Christ’s Church. The priest of Bethel takes the political route when accusing faithful Amos of conspiring against the nation and the king. His objection raised to Jeroboam is heavy-laden with political rhetoric and hints of a bid for re-election. In today’s church there is no lack of Amaziah-types who use their positions for political gain and power brokering. Recent attempts by the faithful to point out false doctrine and practice in our own synod has been met with calls of extremism and accusations of lovelessness. Can’t we just all get along? The plumb line is an obsolete means of measuring. For the sake of mission opportunities can’t we just forego doctrinal integrity and compromise a lit-tle here and there? It would go a long way to healing divisions among the brothers if we could just turn a blind eye to our black eyes in the synod.
Why is it so hard for us as God’s people to listen when He speaks to us? Why must we put political spin on “what does this mean” and raise ob-jections to what God declares clearly and emphatically in His holy precious Word? You and I are indeed “poor, miserable sinners” who call on the Lord in the words of the Kyrie: Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. This is the Church’s prayer in our day. Should the sanctuaries in which we worship today be laid waste? Will the Lord raise His sword against the house of Biden? Must the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod go into exile away from her land? What prophet will speak of such treasonous news? Can’t we all just get along?
I told you that you might want to buckle up for the bumpy road. The Law of God is always an accusing word. It condemns such that the plumb line is true and accurate in its measurements. The just judgments of God are miserable for the poor sinner forces to his knees in confession. They bring low in order that in due time they might also raise up with the forgiveness of the Gospel.
The Gospel? Oh yes, the other challenge of the text I mentioned be-fore is seeing Jesus in the text. How is His holy cross foreshadowed in light of Amos’s confession and faithful proclamation? Think of Jesus as the em-bodiment of the plumb line. He comes as Israel reduced to one in order to fulfill all that the Law of God demands of us as a nation and as a church. He’s the standard we are to be but fail to be because of our sin. Therefore, the sentence of desolation falls on Jesus who stands in our place at the cross. The sanctuary of Israel is laid waste in the crucifixion of God’s Son under Pilate’s sword. The high places of Isaac are made desolate that we might look up upon Him who was pierced for us. He is the new Isaac, the nation Israel redeemed and brought back anew from exile in Christ’s body, the Church.
Amaziah looks short-term to his political future and stability in a time when the nation is crumbling and the kingdom is falling. Amos sees long-term beyond and puts his trust in the words of the Lord to bring low in order to raise up again. The Messiah will bring this about in a future hope. He will redeem as the Word made flesh suffers and dies under the weight of the peoples’ sin and unbelief. Jesus is this Messiah. Jesus is this Redeemer for you and for all people. His kingdom has no end. This is the sweet Gospel of our heavy-laden text. In the midst of taking away His presence from this re-bellious people, the Lord God is preparing to send His Emmanuel who is “God with us.” The Old Testament plumb line is enforced and exceeded be-yond all measure in Jesus, the New Testament plumb line employed on the cross for you. There you see the magnitude of your sin as poor, miserable sinners (and mine too) as they result in the death of God’s only-begotten Son. There you see the magnitude of God’s mercy and forgiveness in that you are spared. You get to live. You are spared the God-forsaken desola-tion. The angel of death passes over you. The sanctuary of your soul is not laid waste, but filled with forgiveness, life, and salvation in that Plumb line.
Today’s text presents us with a number of challenges as we consider our rightful place before the perfect plumb line of God’s impending Law. We like to point the finger at Israel and say, “They got what they deserved!” When we turn the condemning finger inward at us both as a nation and as a church, we fare no better. We believe that Christ will come to be our Judge. In many ways, Amaziah reflects our short-sighted, here and now mode of preservation. The accusations of the Law always hurt when we take them seriously. Sin carries consequences. Thankfully, Jesus met the challenge and bore the consequences of our sin on the cross. Thankfully, the challenge of the plumb line we could not endure Jesus endured for us in His sinless life and innocent death. Thankfully, you and I are members of a kingdom that does not fade or perish.
Thanks be to God!
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. sAmen.