When God Calls the Unlikely: Amos and the True Plumb Line of Grace

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:00:00] I didn't know Cameron was on the slides.
[00:01:08] And now Weston's sitting all by himself.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:01:10] It's nothing.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:01:28] It looks like they're not getting any check.
[00:01:31] No payment.
[00:01:32] Yeah, I was just playing.
[00:01:56] But this song is gathering, okay?
[00:02:16] They don't hear me, or something weird happens with the microphone.
[00:02:27] We are traveling every Saturday in the month of April.
[00:02:30] So baton to baton to baton.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:02:47] Stand and join us.
[00:06:10] Welcome to Christ the King Presbyterian Church.

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[00:07:40] I am Casey Grudem and I serve on our women's shepherding team.
[00:07:43] And we are so glad that you have chosen to worship with us this morning.
[00:07:46] If you are new here, I'd like to point out a couple of things.
[00:07:50] First, the restrooms are located through either door at the front of the sanctuary.
[00:07:54] The women's are closest to the door on your left and the men's to the door on your right.
[00:07:59] Second, in the bulletin margins, you'll find notes explaining why we do what we do during the service.
[00:08:05] So if you have any questions, you can look there.
[00:08:08] And if you still have questions after the service, please feel free to find me or one of our pastors.
[00:08:12] we'd love to chat with you. Our call to worship this morning comes from Psalm 9, so please stand and respond by reading the bold type. I will thank the Lord with all my heart. I will declare all
[00:08:24] your wondrous works. I will rejoice and boast about you. I will sing about your name most high.
[00:08:32] Let's pray. Holy God, we gather this morning to exalt and praise your name. You are our help in times of trouble. You make good on your promise to never leave or forsake us. You have been gracious
[00:08:46] to us and we are glad. Turn our hearts toward you this morning as we rejoice in the gift of our

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:08:52] salvation through your son Jesus. Amen. Please continue to stand as we sing. Our call to confession

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[00:11:26] this morning comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 12. When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this, fear God and keep his commandments, because this is for all humanity. For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil. In a moment,
[00:11:47] we're going to read this corporate confession of sin together, followed by a moment of silent reflection and private confession. But first, I'm going to give you an assist. We're going to read a name in this corporate confession, and it's pronounced Amaziah. I looked it up, in case you
[00:12:02] didn't know that. It's a reference to something that's going to be in our passage that James is going to preach on later. So let's pray our corporate confession. Will you join me?
[00:12:13] Holy and righteous God, you set your plumb line in the midst of your people, and we confess that our lives are crooked beside it. We have loved comfort more than obedience, approval more than truth and our own ways more than your word. Like Amaziah, we sometimes resist the voice of your
[00:12:38] truth when it exposes what we would rather hide. Forgive us for our pride, our injustice, our indifference to your holiness. Yet we thank you that your mercy is greater than our sin.
[00:12:54] through the righteousness of Christ alone.
[00:12:58] Straighten us and strengthen us again according to your grace.
[00:13:03] We ask this in Jesus' name.
[00:13:06] Amen.
[00:13:31] Now look up and hear this good news of our assurance of pardon from 1 John 1.
[00:13:37] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[00:13:44] In Christ, you are counted among the faithful.
[00:13:47] his endurance secures yours. Thanks be to God. In Christ we are forgiven.
[00:13:55] Please remain standing while we sing.

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[00:14:42] At this point in the service, we collect an offering.

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[00:17:26] We are inviting you to worship God by giving back a portion of all that he has generously given to us.
[00:17:32] If you're a visitor, please feel no compulsion to give.
[00:17:35] Instead, we invite you to fill out a Connect card, which is located in the back of the pew in front of you, and place it in the offering basket as it passes.
[00:17:44] Or if you prefer an online option, there should be a QR code behind me on the screen, and you can get your information that way.
[00:17:51] One of our staff members would love to reach out to you and get to know you.
[00:17:55] During the offering, we will continue to sing.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:17:59] Amen. Please be seated.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:22:53] My name is Matt Brower. I'm the youth director here, and I'm making an announcement about our spring banquet, and you can tell I'm at least partially in the get-up.
[00:23:03] for our uniform for that. Y'all, we're on the home stretch here. The banquet's less than two weeks away, and the youth are getting really excited about hosting it again. So it's on March 21st.
[00:23:16] The kids are going to be your hosts, your wait staff, your kitchen staff, your live music, all the above. And we actually have someone coming to train these kids in proper etiquette. So I'm a bit
[00:23:29] biased, but it's a joy to see the ownership and fun our students have with this event. Overall, it's just a chance to see and celebrate God's work in this age group. So more specifically, why exactly are we doing this? The Spring Banquet is a fundraiser for our mission trip this summer
[00:23:49] to Nicaragua. We are keeping up our partnership with Sunika, an organization down there that aims to make disciples of Jesus through clean water, education, and mentorship. It's a long-standing partnership where we get to see how God is at work down there and be a small part of encouraging
[00:24:08] and furthering that work. So all proceeds from the banquet are going toward the mission trip.
[00:24:15] So what to expect, if you can attend, come at 5 p.m. It's a semi-formal dress code. I'll say I won't be enforcing that, but I can't make any promises that the kids won't be. And the
[00:24:28] registration has all the relevant details about tickets, about seating, child care, giving pathways, all of that. So I've also gotten the question, what if you can't attend but would like to financially support the group overall? And we've created a link to give directly to the mission
[00:24:47] trip fund, and that's been, I think it went out in last week's CTK Snapshot email and will continue to. I also know that our 14 students that are going are busy in this season writing their own
[00:25:01] personal support letters. So regardless of whether you can attend or can't, would you add this to your prayer list? Would you add this CTK Sunika partnership and the fruit that God is producing through it to your list. Pray for the people that this church is sending down there, 14 youth and
[00:25:23] six adults. How is God going to be made known in new ways as a result of this trip? Can you imagine this with me and with us? So back to the banquet itself. Ultimately, we as a youth group and I want
[00:25:40] to share what I get to see every day, which is God at work in our young people. We hope to see you there. Invite friends and family. Now I'd like to invite Jeff up for the next announcement.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:25:52] We've had a slide up for the silence and solitude retreat for a couple weeks, and I want to give a brief explanation of this. We have seven slots left if you are thinking about this. I want you
[00:26:06] to hear these words from Matthew chapter 11. I'm going to read from a paraphrase, the message. Listen to these words. Are you tired? Somebody already nodded. Are you worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me, and you'll recover your life.
[00:26:28] I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it.
[00:26:34] Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
[00:26:43] Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. Those are the invitation.
[00:26:49] That's an invitation from Jesus. And that's what the silence and solitude retreat is all about.
[00:26:54] It's not all about being quiet for the whole weekend. That's not being asked of you.
[00:26:59] But it's the invitation where Jesus invited his disciples to come away and be with him.
[00:27:04] My wife, Susan Bradford, is leading this retreat, and this is going to be at St. Francis Springs Retreat Center, which, if you haven't been there before, it's right north of Greensboro.
[00:27:13] It in and of itself is such a restful place.
[00:27:16] You can't walk on the grounds without feeling this blood pressure lowering on that place.
[00:27:22] But it's a time we're hoping to make this a regular rhythm.
[00:27:26] But this is being sponsored again by the Lilly Grant that we received for renewal for our congregation last year.
[00:27:33] We hope some of you will sign up for that and join us.
[00:27:35] Again, you can sign up for activities, retreats, banquets.
[00:27:40] At the bottom of your bulletin, there's a little QR code.
[00:27:43] You can follow that and access any way to sign up.
[00:27:46] We hope you'll join us for that weekend.
[00:27:48] That's April 10th through 12th, the Silence and Solitude Retreat.
[00:27:52] Today's a big day in the life of our church, and I want to invite Lauren Goodwin to come forward at this time.
[00:27:57] As we commission her to be a deaconess in our church, I want to invite our elders to come forward as well.
[00:28:03] Um, we are really grateful for the provision of God for leadership for our church.
[00:28:12] This morning, we're commissioning Lauren to the ministry of deaconess at Christ the King.
[00:28:17] And here at CTK, women with special gifts are commissioned to serve alongside our officers because we want to highlight the voices, views, and gifts of women as gifts for the church and for his use. Since the earliest days of the church, women have been active in mercy ministry.
[00:28:40] And this is highlighted in the pages of Scripture over and over again. Women financed the ministry of Jesus. They brought spices to anoint his body for burial. Dorcas in Acts 9 says she was always
[00:28:57] doing good and helping the poor. In Acts 16, we read of lots of Paul's ministry partners, most of whom are women in that list. Tryphena and Tryphosa worked hard in the Lord, and Phoebe is dignified with the title of deaconess. We use that same title here at CTK, where the ministry
[00:29:16] of women with special gifts from hospitality and mercy are organized to work with our deacons, to practice hospitality, to assist God's people in worship, to care for the poor, to demonstrate God's mercy in caring for the physical needs of God's people and outside our
[00:29:34] church. Our church in doing this is acting in concert with our history as a denomination.
[00:29:41] In 1984, we absorbed a smaller denomination that had women deaconesses, and that's been a practice in lots of churches in our denomination for many years. And so we're simply continuing that trajectory. It's also part of in common practice and understanding with our local presbytery
[00:29:59] that we're doing this and our book of church order. Deaconesses are commissioned to this role.
[00:30:06] And this morning, we're highlighting that difference. We ordained a number of deacons last week for our church. And this morning, we're going to commission Lauren to make sure that you see how we honor women's gifts and use their gifts in the life of the church. This servant ministry
[00:30:23] is a reflection of Jesus Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. So the ministry of being a deacon or a deaconess is very demanding. We have a number
[00:30:37] of you serving in that role in our church, and we are forever grateful for those who step up and serve in that way, because in many ways, it's a behind-the-scenes servant role for this church.
[00:30:47] And this morning, as Lauren comes, she has been through our nomination process and our training, and she is, we believe as a leadership, very more than approved for this role and we're grateful for her.
[00:31:01] So I'm gonna ask her this question.
[00:31:03] Lauren, are you comfortable serving within the system of doctrine of our church and do you promise to act in conformity with the general principles of our church's polity?
[00:31:15] If so, say I do.
[00:31:15] I do.
[00:31:16] Amen.
[00:31:17] We're gonna pray and set her apart for this role, commission her.
[00:31:21] So I'm gonna invite you to step forward and lay hands on her shoulders.
[00:31:26] Would you gather around and pray with me?
[00:31:28] Let's pray together.
[00:31:30] Father, we thank you for Lauren.
[00:31:31] Thank you, Father, for the way that she has been so meaningfully engaged in the ministry of this church over many years.
[00:31:39] And I thank you that today is just a celebration and a publicizing of that.
[00:31:45] Lord, thank you for the way that you have used her and continue to do so.
[00:31:49] Lord, we pray that her service in our church would be a joy to her and not a burden.
[00:31:54] Lord, we commission her and set her apart for this particular service in partnership with our diaconate under the oversight of our elders. We pray, Father, that you would sustain her and encourage her. We pray, Father, that our congregation would make her work easy and
[00:32:10] encourage her as well. Lord, we pray and lift up her and Lord, and all of our deacons and deaconesses in Jesus' name. Amen. So I do want to announce and pronounce that Lauren Goodwin has been
[00:32:22] regularly commissioned as a deaconess of Christ the King Presbyterian Church, agreeable to the Word of God in submission to the elders of our church and in partnership with our diaconate in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. That's indeed worth celebrating. And
[00:32:49] I want to invite you to come and greet our newest deaconess in our church, as well as we're going to dismiss our kids to their times of worship. And we also invite you to stand and greet one another.
[00:32:59] Nobody can sit down during this time, okay? That's the rule. We all stand up and greet.
[00:33:05] Come forward. Go hide in the bathroom if you have to. The peace of Christ be with you.

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:35:42] Way back to our seats. Let's join in this last chorus one final time.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:38:58] Amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning, everyone.
[00:39:16] Welcome to worship. Way to go. Daylight savings time. You get extra bonus points for being here this week. The clock is still wrong, though. It's an hour behind, so that means I get an extra hour
[00:39:32] to preach. I'm so glad to hear your excitement. I'm kidding. All right. We have been doing a series on death, and then also we've been doing a series on the prophets called Prophets Gone Wild. Jeff and I do too. Some people are laughing. You get it. Okay, good. Someone
[00:39:56] asked me to explain the title last week. I'm not going to do that. The concepts behind this series, and Jeff and I do these different series because I think Jeff wants me to grow up as a preacher and start to think about kind of themes that go through entire series. And it's
[00:40:15] been really helpful, Jeff. I've really enjoyed it. But the idea, the concept behind this is that we live in a time where it's really difficult to speak in. And I think difficult for believers to know how to speak in. That's not stopping us. And I think believers are speaking in in all kinds
[00:40:34] of unhelpful ways. And I think that we are thinking about this in a kind of framework of prophecy, which I think is right, but I don't think that we necessarily have the greatest biblical framework for what prophecy is. We tend to think of prophecy as something that only existed in the
[00:40:53] Old Testament. It doesn't. It exists in the New Testament. And in fact, we are all prophets.
[00:41:00] If you look at Joel chapter 2, it talks about how Joel was predicting that in the future, everybody, all of God's people would have his word.
[00:41:10] They dreamed dreams to have visions.
[00:41:12] Sons and daughters, everyone would be proclaiming the word of the Lord.
[00:41:17] Whereas in the Old Testament, it was just a few people.
[00:41:19] So there's actually more prophets now than there were in the Old Testament.
[00:41:23] I think we often tend to think also about prophecy as future telling.
[00:41:27] It's not future telling.
[00:41:28] it's covenant management. A prophet is an attorney, essentially, that comes into the world to God's people, representing God. They bring the word of God to the people. And people always say, but don't they tell the future? Yes, in the same way that an attorney tells the future if you're
[00:41:47] about to get evicted from your apartment for not paying your rent. In the Old Testament, the prophets were always coming and kind of pointing to the covenant unfaithfulness of God's people and warning them of what that would mean.
[00:42:00] That was the future telling component of it.
[00:42:03] And so a prophet isn't really a fortune teller or a future teller as much as they are a covenant attorney.
[00:42:12] And we've looked at several passages.
[00:42:14] We've looked at Isaiah's call and we saw that God calls prophets to go and that that changes them.
[00:42:22] And that is something that all believers experience once you have encountered the living and true God it changes you and even though he sends you forth with a message that message itself is something that is at least largely for you and then we saw
[00:42:42] we looked at a passage about Ezekiel and his fast his pretend little siege where we talked about wild obedience that prophets are called to that they don't just speak they actually live out the prophecy that they're called to proclaim to the world. And then we looked last at Ezekiel's
[00:43:01] vision of the wheel, Ezekiel 1, the chariot of God. And we talked about the wild visions that prophets have. And we talked about how the wild visions of the Old Testament are actually ours in Christ Jesus. And they all point to a future reality that we have in Christ Jesus.
[00:43:19] And so it's not really true to say that you don't have visions. You have an entire book of them and they are pretty wild. And oftentimes what the problem is, is we just don't know what to do with
[00:43:32] them as New Testament believers. Today we're going to look at the wild messengers. And the point of this sermon is that God could call just about anybody. So if you want to tune out now, that's
[00:43:46] that's the point. God can call just about anybody. That's where we're going with this and what I want you to see. And we're going to be looking at Amos chapter 7. We're going to read the whole chapter
[00:43:56] and we're going to read it together. So if you would, turn to Amos 7, unless you have it memorized, and we'll read together. Are you ready? The Lord God showed me this. He was forming a swarm of
[00:44:15] locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout, after the cutting of the king's hay.
[00:44:24] When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, Lord God, please forgive.
[00:44:33] How will Jacob survive since he is so small? The Lord relented concerning this. It will not happen, he said. The Lord God showed me this. The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire.
[00:44:50] It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. Then I said, Lord God, please stop.
[00:44:58] How will Jacob survive since he is so small? The Lord relented concerning this. This will not happen either, said the Lord God. He showed me this. The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. The Lord asked me, what do you see, Amos? I replied,
[00:45:22] a plumb line. The Lord said, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel. I will no longer spare them. Isaac's high places will be deserted, and Israel's sanctuaries will be in ruins.
[00:45:39] I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words, for Amos has said this, Jeroboam will
[00:46:03] die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland. Then Amaziah said to Amos, go away, you seer, flee to the land of Judah, earn your living, and give your prophecies
[00:46:20] there, but don't ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple.
[00:46:29] So Amos answered Amaziah, I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet, rather I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from flowing flock and said to me,
[00:46:44] go prophesy to my people Israel. Now hear the word of the Lord. You say, do not prophesy against Israel. Do not preach against the house of Isaac. Therefore, this is what the Lord says. Your wife
[00:47:02] will be a prostitute in the city. Your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself will die on pagan soil, and Israel will
[00:47:16] certainly go into exile from its homeland. Yeah, let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would come and meet with us today, that you, who are the great prophet, would allow your word to be
[00:47:33] illuminated in our hearts so that we could understand this. This is another difficult passage for us modern readers.
[00:47:42] There's a lot in this passage and a lot for us to think about and to chew on.
[00:47:47] Lord, I pray that you would give us clarity of thought and insight into your word and that ultimately we would see you in it and you would be glorified by all that we do and say in this sermon and in this service.
[00:48:04] Please bless us, we pray in Jesus' name.
[00:48:07] Amen.
[00:48:09] Okay, I have to give you some background.
[00:48:12] I'm a history teacher, so I'm qualified.
[00:48:15] Because there's a lot of names and a lot of concepts that took place in this passage that you're probably not super familiar with.
[00:48:21] So this passage mentions a king, Jeroboam II.
[00:48:26] King Jeroboam was the king of the northern kingdom.
[00:48:29] You might recall in past sermons I've talked about how there's a southern kingdom and a northern kingdom, and the southern kingdom were the good-ish people, right?
[00:48:37] They were the ones that remained in covenant with God in the northern kingdom.
[00:48:41] They were the poorly behaved people, right?
[00:48:44] I sit in the balcony, and so I made the analogy that, you know, all of you good people sitting down here, you're like Judah.
[00:48:51] All you rebels up there in the balcony, you're like the northern kingdom of Israel.
[00:48:55] And I say that because I'm up there.
[00:48:57] That's where I belong, up with the rebels.
[00:48:59] But the point is, is like Israel was divided.
[00:49:02] It wasn't one single nation at this point.
[00:49:04] the northern 10 tribes had separated under a king named Jeroboam I. Okay, but this is Jeroboam II.
[00:49:12] This is years and years later. But in fact, Jeroboam was, without a doubt, the most successful king of the northern kingdom. Incredibly successful. In fact, if you take the entire history of Israel's time being a separated kingdom, Jeroboam actually reigned one-fifth of that time.
[00:49:33] His reign lasted 40 years. He was an incredibly successful ruler militarily. He expanded the borders of Israel to almost the extent that they existed under Solomon. He had basically kind of like conquered everybody around them or subdued them enough or convinced them that Israel's might
[00:49:55] was strong enough to where he ushered in an incredible period of peace and tranquility within the land. Not only that, he was known for his unprecedented national wealth and prosperity, again, something that people were comparing to the days of Solomon. There was peace and security
[00:50:15] on every side, and his name meant contends for the people. On paper, this guy is it.
[00:50:27] he's the leader you want. But behind the scenes, what was happening was he was actually oppressing the people in order to achieve this incredible success. And the people who were impoverished in the land knew this intimately. His picturesque perfect kingdom, even with his picturesque perfect
[00:50:49] name contends for the people, was all a sham. He was grinding the people into the dirt to make the wealthy wealthier, to make it a beautiful place, Israel. And he was not in any way following
[00:51:05] after the God of the Bible. However, the northern kingdom, part of what was unique about it was once they separated, once Jeroboam split off from the southern kingdom, they lost their center of worship, which was in Jerusalem, which is in the southern kingdom. The temple was not a part of
[00:51:24] Israel. So what do they do? Do they tell their people to go to this other foreign country that they'd separated from in order to go worship God because that's where God said he was to be
[00:51:35] worshipped? No, that's not what they did. Instead, what Jeroboam I had done was he set up not one, but two centers of worship in the northern kingdom. We're going to be better than those guys in the south. We're going to have two essential temples, one in Bethel and one in Dan.
[00:51:51] and in them he placed golden calves, almost as though he didn't know what had happened with Aaron at Mount Sinai. He places golden calves, and he literally says to the people, here are the real
[00:52:04] gods who saved you from your oppression in Egypt, okay? If you're not familiar in Exodus, when they come out, the people are all sitting around the bottom of Mount Sinai. They're waiting for Moses to come down. They get sick of waiting, and Aaron says, okay, fine, let's build a shrine to this
[00:52:23] golden cow, and we'll worship it since God's taking his sweet time up there with Moses and Mount Sinai. It was a God of convenience that replaced the true God, and you know what they called it? They called it Yahweh. So it looked like real worship, but it wasn't. The people in
[00:52:42] the northern kingdom did the exact same thing. Now, Amaziah, who features prominently in this passage, he's the one that gets in the fight with Amos, right? He's the priest of the temple at Bethel. He's a false priest who is essentially placed in charge of this false worship, which
[00:53:03] was designed to essentially secure the national identity of Israel. Now, there's something I just have to pause here and just make this point, because a lot of people today have noticed that there is a tendency within our culture here in America to take the Christian faith and to,
[00:53:25] in some ways, put it under our national politics and to make the Christian faith essentially serve our political purposes here in this country. They call it Christian nationalism. Now, there's a big debate about this, right? Because on the surface, it feels like Christianity. It feels like we're
[00:53:46] worshiping God. We're doing what, what is right and good. And we read the Bible and we quote the Bible and we, we do all the things. But if that religion is subjugated to our politics, is it the
[00:54:00] real worship of God? That's the question that's being debated. Okay. It's important to understand that God is not satisfied with a worship that is false, but looks good on the surface.
[00:54:15] And this has all kinds of application that goes beyond Christian nationalism because, of course, all of us in our various little ways, we would love to make our Christianity our own personal national religion where it effectively serves our wants and desires.
[00:54:31] I heard a preacher once say that if what you're praying for in your prayers is something that you desire more than God, then it may be that that's what you're worshiping and you're using God to get it. We all need to be careful about this because we all have a tendency
[00:54:51] to do that. It is God who satisfies. It is him who is ultimately satisfying. And that was what was wrong with the worship in Israel. They were more concerned about their comfort, their security, their feeling of we've done it, we've succeeded, we're a great nation, than they were about
[00:55:09] worshiping the actual living and true God. If they had been confirmed or sincere in worshiping the true God, they would know that the true God was full of all sorts of exhortations of don't just be about the rich. Don't just be about the powerful. Be about the poor. Care for the poor.
[00:55:28] Care for the other. God was always pushing them away from self-concern and towards the concern of others. That is what was at the heart of the true religion of Israel. But Israel had turned away for that to worship two golden cows. And Amaziah was the keeper of the cows. But God wasn't
[00:55:50] satisfied with that. He sends Amos. And Amos is up there. Oh, by the way, Amaziah's name means Yahweh is mighty. Do you see the joke that Israel is at this point? You have Jeroboam, the guy who's
[00:56:05] oppressing the poor in order to achieve everything. His name means contends for the people.
[00:56:09] What a joke. Meanwhile, you have Amaziah, the worship, like, czar, high priest of the false worship of Yahweh, and his name is Yahweh is mighty. That's what Amaziah means. What a joke.
[00:56:27] But there's another guy in this story. That's Amos. His name means burden bearer, carried by God.
[00:56:32] He's the only man whose life matched his name. He's burdened with a message, but he's carried by the one who burdened him with that message. He's called from Judah. He's a northern farmer in Judah, and he was dirt poor. I mean, like the stuff, the kind of farming that he references,
[00:56:52] that was the farming that was done for people who couldn't really afford really good food.
[00:56:58] And so he didn't get paid much.
[00:57:00] He was definitely on the low end of the spectrum socioeconomically in Judah.
[00:57:05] And he's called to go north to the northern kingdom, not his people, and deliver this message.
[00:57:14] So that's our cast of characters, our background.
[00:57:18] I now want to talk about, as we've talked about Amos, how unlikely of a prophet he is.
[00:57:25] Because, you know, we've talked about prophecy and we've talked about being called as prophet.
[00:57:29] But so far, we've talked about Isaiah, who was probably a member of the aristocracy, the royal family in Israel, or in Judah, sorry. And then we've talked about Ezekiel, who was part of the priestly class during the exile. So, you know, a member of the royal family of Judah,
[00:57:49] you might expect him to be the spokesperson for God. And a member of the priestly class from Judah. You might expect him to be a spokesperson for, you know, God. But now what we're talking
[00:58:00] about, we're talking about a dirt farmer, essentially, who is the spokesperson for the people of God. And here's what I want you to see. That is not that unusual for Scripture.
[00:58:13] In fact, I would say that Amos is only, he's in the top five of least likely prophets, but he's really number three. Here's my top five. Number five is probably Moses, the prophet that God called to free the people from Egypt, who was in fact a member adopted
[00:58:34] by the Egyptian royal family. Surprise number one. Surprise number two, he was also already a convicted murderer in exile. Surprise number two. And surprise number three, he didn't think he was that good at speaking. He gets into an argument with God where he's like, I'm slow of
[00:58:52] speech and song. Send somebody else. Pretty surprising, honestly, that Moses. So I think he makes the top five. Then there's Jonah. Jonah, the prophet who doesn't want to go.
[00:59:04] God says, hey, go, and he goes the other way. And the whole book is kind of a comedy about how Jonah thinks he's going to run away from his call, and God keeps bringing him back, and he eventually
[00:59:14] delivers it. Jonah, who didn't want to do it, he's pretty unlikely. Like, you would think that God would just find somebody who actually did want to call. Like, there's plenty of others that you could call, God. Why the guy who stubbornly refuses to do what you want him to do? Then there's Amos,
[00:59:32] and we'll get to him. Then there's Huldah. Huldah's a woman who lived around the time of Isaiah, and when the book of the law was found and the king needed somebody, he sent for her instead of Isaiah
[00:59:43] to come and speak on God's behalf. Now, you might be thinking, oh, yeah, pick the woman as number two. But actually, I'm not picking her because she's a woman. In fact, a woman prophet is not
[00:59:59] that uncommon in the Old Testament. There are three of them that are named in the Old Testament.
[01:00:04] In the New Testament, there are at least five who are named. Women prophets are not that unusual.
[01:00:12] They're actually fairly common.
[01:00:14] But what is surprising is you have Isaiah, the major prophet, the first one in the book of major prophets, who's part of the royal family.
[01:00:23] You have him at your beckoning call.
[01:00:25] You could call him, but instead you call this woman that we don't see anywhere else.
[01:00:30] She's surprising.
[01:00:33] And then perhaps the most surprising of all, of course, is in Numbers.
[01:00:37] God spoke through a donkey.
[01:00:42] I thought about using that as the passage, but then I thought if I did that, some of you would think that that was making a political statement. It is what it is, folks. God spoke through a donkey. I don't think that has anything
[01:00:56] to do with American politics. But the point is, God can speak through whomever he wants.
[01:01:02] That is very clear throughout scripture. And oftentimes he picks the least of these to proclaim his message to others so that everybody knows that it's him. In fact, Amaziah comes at Amos and he's like, what are your credentials? And Amos is like, I'm a dirt farmer. But God called
[01:01:22] me. Your status as someone who is called to be a prophet of the Lord God rests on one thing and one thing only, that God called you and gave you his word. You all have his word. It's in the Bible
[01:01:35] and he has called all of us to go with it to preach the gospel. All of us are called. But you know, I think we have a tendency to kind of think about this a little bit more like Amaziah.
[01:01:48] Imagine the scene, right? They're in the, like, temple. It's like this beautiful temple, right?
[01:01:53] Because there's all the wealth of Jeroboam II backing this thing. I mean, this is a beautiful, beautiful place. And suddenly a dirt farmer shows up and he says, y'all wrong. And let me tell you
[01:02:06] why you're wrong. And he's got a whole book about it. I mean, you read Amos, and Amos is kind of known for being a very bold, very direct talking, very kind of justice and mercy-oriented kind of
[01:02:18] prophet. He called it like it was, and he called them out in bold and known certain terms. And we see a little bit of that right at the end of the passage. But the whole book is full of that.
[01:02:30] So Dirt Farmer shows up and starts talking trash. Can you imagine if while I'm preaching, Some guy from the street comes in here and starts calling me out on my sin and starts calling all of us out on our sin.
[01:02:45] You know, I'll tell you the first thing I'll do.
[01:02:48] Where did you study theology?
[01:02:50] I studied at Reformed Theological Seminary under some of the greatest Reformed minds of our time.
[01:02:55] I have a masters of divinity.
[01:02:58] Well, who are you to come in here and speak to me like that?
[01:03:06] We have a tendency, don't we, to look at things other than just whether someone is called by God. Now, let me just pause here for a minute, because I'm not saying don't be discerning. I'm not saying that anybody that comes off the street is necessarily carrying
[01:03:20] the Word of God. You need to discern whether or not they are actually speaking God's Word.
[01:03:26] But we need to be careful about who we write off. The book of Hebrews talks about how we need to be careful about this, because it says, some of us have entertained angels unaware. The word angels
[01:03:40] as messenger. God sends messengers to us all the time in forms that we are unaware of. They don't necessarily have the credentials that we look for when we think about someone that we want to take
[01:03:56] criticism from or we want to speak God's word to us. There are all sorts of people in your life whom God has placed who have God's word. And I think that we can be very closed off to that in
[01:04:10] the same way that Amaziah was because we've built our own little national worship center and we've decided who gets to be the high priest of that and who doesn't. And it's not dirt farmers.
[01:04:22] It's not those people. And maybe that's something that you decide politically. It's not the other side of the aisle. They're never going to have anything good to say. Or maybe it's something that you decide socioeconomically. That person doesn't have the success that I do, so I should
[01:04:40] probably not listen to them. Or maybe it's an age thing. Maybe you're like, I've been around this son a few times. This person hasn't. Shut up. God calls who he calls. And if he talks to you
[01:04:59] through a donkey or someone that you're not accustomed to listening to, that's probably because he's really just really trying to get your attention. But we need to be open to that.
[01:05:13] We sometimes dismiss the voice of the Goan that God sent.
[01:05:18] But even more important, I want you to see this.
[01:05:21] Sometimes the voice you dismiss is your own.
[01:05:24] How many of you think of yourselves as prophets called to go and speak into other people's lives?
[01:05:30] I'll tell you, I struggle.
[01:05:32] Every time I get up here and preach, every single time, I'm like, man, what is God going to do with me?
[01:05:41] A broken, messed up guy.
[01:05:44] I'm supposed to preach?
[01:05:45] ah jeff are you sure you're not free we have this tendency to think that our own ability to do this is resting upon our own resumes and abilities and just like i can be prideful i can be self
[01:06:02] deprecating i can see all of my brokenness and all of my weaknesses and i know you can too but that doesn't mean that god hasn't called you amos sees his dirt farming heritage as a part
[01:06:16] of his resume. Do you see that when he responds? When he, Amaziah's like, go back to Judah and work for a living. That's what he says. Did you notice that? He's like, get a job, man. Go back
[01:06:29] to Judah, prophesy down there and earn some money. Then you can come back and talk to me. And Amos says, no, no, no. I was a dirt farmer. I was minding my own business. I was working. And then
[01:06:39] God called me to come do this. It was God. So if God has called you, then you go. He calls the most unlikely prophets. And you know what? You might be the most unlikely prophet. Might have to revise
[01:06:56] the list. Below the donkey is me. Maybe that's how you feel. Yet he's called us. All right. I want to just spend a little bit of time talking about how Amos shows us how to be a prophet.
[01:07:11] Notice his intercessions at the beginning. Amos, this is 7, 1 through, we'll say, we're just going to look at two of them at first. There's three, but through six. So there's two visions and two
[01:07:27] disasters. Did you notice that? Right? The first one's locusts. Like he sees these locusts that are coming, and they're eating the crops, and everybody's going to die from famine. That's the vision. And then the second vision is like fire coming down and consuming everything, including
[01:07:47] all the water. Did you notice that? It consumes everything. It's just this terrible fire and devours the land. So these two absolutely awful visions, right? Imagine you're just sitting there and you see these things. That would be horrifying. And Amos, in both of these sections,
[01:08:08] he intercedes. Do you see that? He prays to God and he says, God, don't do this to Jacob. He's too small. He could barely handle it. Like, you can't let this happen. Please don't let this
[01:08:21] happen. And both times, God relents. There's something very instructive to us here. Those of us would-be prophets. Notice how much time he spends praying and how gut-wrenchingly honest and sincere his prayers are for the people that he's about to go prophesy against.
[01:08:43] I think we are so quick to want to mouth off against the things that we see, the problems that we see, the issues that we see, and so slow to pray for God to actually care for the people
[01:08:57] who are actually doing those wrong things.
[01:09:00] Now, I'm going to go somewhere a little risky with you this morning, okay?
[01:09:04] It's a little bit transparent, and I'm going to be honest.
[01:09:10] I mean, I'm trusting you with this.
[01:09:14] We do pastoral prayers in this church.
[01:09:17] Most churches I know do pastoral prayers.
[01:09:20] And most pastors that I know, when they talk about doing pastoral prayers, they are scared right now because the tendency in our divided culture is for people to look at pastoral prayers and try to figure out if they are a political statement.
[01:09:38] Like, they're praying for this group of people, not for this group of people.
[01:09:42] Or, why didn't you pray for this instead of this?
[01:09:46] All of those concerns, by the way, are legitimate.
[01:09:48] Some of you have approached me and asked those questions.
[01:09:51] Keep them coming, because they're good questions.
[01:09:54] We need to be praying for everybody.
[01:09:57] I want to be pushed on that.
[01:10:02] We need to be pushed on that.
[01:10:03] We spent a long time at our last elders retreat talking about how do we pray?
[01:10:09] How do we deal with this dynamic that is our culture?
[01:10:12] And how do we absolutely, like, how do we justly pray for everybody?
[01:10:19] So we need to have those conversations.
[01:10:20] So if you're concerned about our prayers, keep coming.
[01:10:22] That's not the point of this.
[01:10:24] But I do want you to see this.
[01:10:26] We're not largely doing these prayers, like, for you.
[01:10:30] you know we're praying for the people that need prayer right and we're not picking our favorites and we're not doing it to make some sort of political statement as a church we are in the
[01:10:46] business of virtual virtue signaling you know that that's what we do but that's not what we're doing in prayer in prayer we're not signaling to you virtue mostly we're just getting on our knees before God and asking him to intercede. Please, Lord, Jacob is so small, and we need to
[01:11:06] be doing it more than just in pastoral prayers. We need to be doing it more and more, and I think if we do it enough, maybe the questions will subside. We need to be praying more. We need to
[01:11:15] be on our knees before God, asking, begging for him to have mercy on all of the people around us.
[01:11:22] That's what prophecy looks like to begin with. It's not the end of this passage, it's the beginning.
[01:11:32] I want you to see, too, the second vision, or third vision, rather, the second section of visions, there's a plumb line, right?
[01:11:39] And this is incredibly important for this passage.
[01:11:41] Because, right, he sees this destruction, and he plays, please don't let that happen.
[01:11:45] Then this plumb line comes in, and notice he doesn't pray.
[01:11:49] God, please don't let the plumb line come.
[01:11:52] That's interesting, and very notable, that difference.
[01:11:56] But also notice the difference.
[01:11:58] A plumb line isn't going to cause destruction.
[01:12:01] Usually, I mean, anybody out there like in fear of a plumb line?
[01:12:06] It's a measuring device to measure whether something is upright or not.
[01:12:10] It's a different kind of judgment that it is foreshadowing.
[01:12:13] Like I am coming and I'm going to show Jacob that he ain't right.
[01:12:20] It's like that scene in Mary Poppins.
[01:12:23] You remember Mary Poppins?
[01:12:24] She shows up with a tape measure.
[01:12:26] She starts measuring the kids and it tells you what kind of like all about what's wrong with them.
[01:12:31] And then she measures herself and she's like, practically perfect in every way. Mary Poppins, right? That's the plumb line. What's it pointing to? It's pointing to the one who came, who was upright. It's pointing to Jesus. He's talking about Jesus himself coming. And notice Amos isn't saying
[01:12:48] like, don't do it. He can't. He can't deny the fact that they're crooked. He himself is crooked.
[01:12:55] He's like, bring on the plumb line. And this is something that I think is very important for us to remember too. Amos can't intercede for God there because only Jesus could. Only Jesus is the one who could come as the perfect one and say, spare the crooked wall. I'll take the punishment
[01:13:16] for it. Spare it. Amos can't do that because he himself is crooked. He's not the plumb line.
[01:13:23] Brothers and sisters, we as prophets, we are echoes in the same way that the former prophets were foreshadows of the real prophet who is Jesus Christ. He's the only one that could intercede in that kind of way. He's the only one that could bring about the salvation of the world. He is the
[01:13:41] only one that could both intercede on a level far above Amos and bring about salvation and reconciliation and bring about the writing of the wall without the judgment of fire and locusts.
[01:13:56] Amos. Amos was a lesser prophet. He was a foreshadow. Jesus Christ was the real prophet.
[01:14:05] Do you see that? All of the prophets wind up here. He's the centerpiece, the one that really matters.
[01:14:11] He's the living word. There is no way you can come with the word of God more greatly than the living word himself. And we who are called to be prophets were echoes. We echo that. And so we are similar
[01:14:24] to our forebearers who foreshadowed him. We have limitations. We can pray that God intercede for the people who are lost, but we can't save them. Only Jesus can. We should pray and we should call out injustice. We should call out where things are wrong, but we should always do that
[01:14:49] with the hope and the mind that there is one prophet who actually can write everything. The one who actually comes, who is the plumb line, who actually brings about salvation. You notice that the passage ends with a confrontation. I'm sure you caught it. The one with, you know, your wife
[01:15:06] is going to be a prostitute. That's a real winsome statement, isn't it? Amos comes with the fire, with the heat. And I think a lot of times, Christians, we look at the Old Testament passages
[01:15:20] and we say, we're supposed to be bold. That's true. That's right. We should be bold. We should be bold in calling out injustice after we've prayed. And we should be bold with the knowledge of the plumb line, the greater prophet, our King Jesus. Our boldness isn't meant to just tell
[01:15:42] people to go to hell. Our boldness is meant to warn them of hell so that they will go to Jesus.
[01:15:49] That is what a prophet is, especially in the New Testament. You are called to do this.
[01:16:02] We are called to do this. All of us together. Now, I'm aware that there's a passage in the New Testament. Someone brought this up to me recently, and I've been thinking about it all week, where Paul says, you know, some, some are called to be prophets. Do you notice that?
[01:16:19] that implies not all of us are. So I've had to wrestle with that and I've thought about it. And here's my conclusion on that, okay? Because Joel 2 says all of us will be. All of us are called to
[01:16:34] it. All of us have the capability of it. And actually, if you read Corinthians, Paul's saying, I would that all of you would be prophets. He wants everybody to be a prophet. He's just saying
[01:16:46] the reality is not all of you are doing that. I think there are stages of prophecy. There's probably three levels biblically. What I'm doing is one level, preaching. The Bible talks about those who are called to steward the mysteries of God on a regular basis. That's what we do
[01:17:05] as teaching elders when we come up and we teach. And we're held to a very high standard because of that. The passages about that are actually pretty scary to me. Those are the things that
[01:17:16] make me feel like, man, I've got to pray a lot that God would work through sinful me. Then I think there's a bottom tier where I think all of us who are in Christ, we have been given the word.
[01:17:30] At the very minimum, all of you prophesied today when we read this passage together. You went to church and prophesied. Tell your charismatic friends that you go to a Presbyterian church and everybody in the whole room was prophesying,
[01:17:46] they'll be so excited.
[01:17:49] Because we all are.
[01:17:51] When you go to someone and you preach the gospel, when you read God's word, you are bringing God's word.
[01:17:56] You are a prophet.
[01:17:58] And then I think there's kind of a middle level.
[01:18:01] Have you ever experienced like this where you're talking to somebody and they skillfully, maybe even beyond explanation, speak to you a word from the Bible and apply it to your life. And you're like, you're knocked on your butt. Have you ever experienced
[01:18:21] that? I experienced it all the time. And you know who the most, the group that does it the most to me? You. You guys. I'm supposed to be the preacher, but so often you come to me and I hear a word from
[01:18:39] the Lord because you're reading a passage of scripture and applying it to my lives. That is that second tier, I think, that Paul is talking about, the gift of prophecy, where God supernaturally enables someone to help apply the word to you and your life, and it's really powerful. Brothers and
[01:18:58] sisters, you do it all the time. You can do it. You're capable of it. God has called you to it.
[01:19:03] you have his word. You have Christ Jesus. You have the spirit. Last point to just wrap things up.
[01:19:19] You know, we're going to come into, you know, holy week here, not too long. On Palm Sunday, when people were coming in, when Jesus was coming in to, you know, to worship for the Passover
[01:19:35] feast. People were shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
[01:19:42] And the prophecies, right? I mean, sorry, prophecies, the Pharisees. The Pharisees, like in the Sadducees, they show up and they rebuke. Jesus is like, tell your people to be quiet. That's Amaziah, right? Go back to Judah with this garbage, you Nazarene, worthless person.
[01:20:05] you can't be the one who's come to be the Messiah. You can't be the one who's the real prophet. These people need to be quiet. What does Jesus say? He says, well, you know, if they're
[01:20:17] quiet, you know what's going to happen? The rocks are going to cry out. The rocks. That would make number one on the list, right? If God started speaking through inanimate objects. He's done that too, by the way. I suppose the bush should have made the list, the burning bush. The point
[01:20:38] though isn't, hey, it doesn't matter if these people do this or not. The point is, don't let the rocks do it. Take it upon yourself to be the one that worships Jesus publicly in a way that
[01:20:55] brings him glory and calls attention to him being the plumb line, the salvation of the world, the one whom we can trust. Don't leave that to somebody else. Do you believe that God calls wild messengers? He does. He's calling all of us. He's called all of you. He's called me. Let's go
[01:21:22] to the living word and ask him to empower us to do this faithfully. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we don't want it to be the rocks. Let it be us that cries out. Lord, we are all kinds of unworthy,
[01:21:40] But Lord, you are all kinds of worthy and have made us your messengers.
[01:21:47] For whatever reason, Lord, in many ways, rocks would be better.
[01:21:52] But Lord, what a privilege it is to be called to minister your word, to proclaim the hope of the gospel, to go and warn people of the danger that they're in, to tell them that if they reject the word of the Lord,
[01:22:06] that they're headed towards exile, but also to remind them that there is one who longs to relent from any punishment, who wants to make them right, who sent you, the plumb line, the perfect one, to bear the brunt of the
[01:22:24] judgment that they deserved so that they might be made perfect in him. Lord, help us to preach that boldly. Help us to preach that everywhere. Help us not to hold back and think that just because
[01:22:40] we're sinful or broken, that your overwhelming goodness can't work through us. Lord, sweep us up in an amazing wave of your Spirit's work. Lord, because there are people, all kinds of people, not just my kinds of people, not just people that occupy my heart and mind, but the people that
[01:23:07] I don't even know about that are suffering that need to hear your gospel. Lord, empower your prophets to speak, mobilize us, and use us. We pray this in your name. Amen. Let's stand and sing

[01:23:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:23:29] together. As we come to the supper, we come physically into contact with the plumb line,

[01:26:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[01:26:53] the perfect one, Jesus Christ, who offered himself as a sacrifice for us, and we remember that.
[01:26:59] We commemorate that in this supper, and we are nourished in our souls by his work spiritually.
[01:27:06] we use a liturgy to prepare ourselves for this and it's always based on scripture and we read it back and forth because I'm not the only one that preaches in this church or prophesies I need to hear God's word
[01:27:24] you need to hear God's word and so let's call one another to this act using the liturgy that's on the screen behind me and in your bulletins blessed are those invited to the marriage supper of the lamb
[01:27:36] for the bridegroom has come and his bride has been made pure. Let us rejoice and give him glory.
[01:27:45] Christ has clothed us in his righteousness. Come, pure. The spirit and the bride say, come.
[01:27:53] We come to feast and rejoice with our eyes on the groom. For I receive from the Lord what I also passed on to you, Paul says, that on the night in which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread
[01:28:06] and he broke it after he gave thanks and he said, this is my body broken for you.
[01:28:14] Take and eat in remembrance of me.
[01:28:24] In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup and he said, this is the cup of the new covenant, the new promise, my blood poured out for the forgiveness of your sins.
[01:28:34] Drink of it, all of you, in remembrance of me.
[01:28:40] If you are a non-Christian and you're here today, we're so glad that you're here.
[01:28:45] we want you to hear the hope of the gospel. The warnings of the word of God are that if you build a kingdom for yourself and you create a worship that is a false worship that is not the worship
[01:29:00] of the true God, that kingdom will meet an end. But if you enter into the kingdom of the most high God where Jesus is the king and you throw yourself upon him, his righteousness is enough
[01:29:15] to cover over all of your sins and you have hope. That is what's portrayed in this supper.
[01:29:21] If you're a non-Christian and you haven't heard that before, and that's something you want to talk more about, we'd love to talk to you. Anyone in this room, me especially. We'd ask you not though to participate in this until you have partaken of that, until you have accepted the
[01:29:40] Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Don't come and pretend like Amaziah. Instead, run to Amos' God.
[01:29:55] If you're a Christian and you're here, this is for your benefit. This is for your soul. Allow this time to be a time that you meditate and you soak in the forgiving hope of the salvation of Jesus
[01:30:11] Christ. I'm going to invite those who are helping to serve to come forward at this time. I'm going to read a series of logistical statements because I almost always forget one. Here's how this is
[01:30:24] going to work. You're going to come forward down the center aisle or up the aisle if you're up there in the northern kingdom. Tinted cups have wine. Clear cups, sorry, clear cups have wine.
[01:30:39] Tinted cups have grape juice. That's right, right? Okay. You're going to return to your seat after you've received down the outside aisles. And as you come forward, if you would, tell this person serving you your name. This is a personal time where Jesus himself is feeding your soul. So allow
[01:31:01] us to call you by name by sharing your name. We're going to sing as we do all of this because this is a time of worship and celebration. So let's sing and come as you're able and receive us from Christ's

[01:31:16] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:31:16] own hands. And this is his blood, shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Let's drink together.

[01:38:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[01:38:20] Look up and receive this benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.

[01:38:39] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:38:39] Go forth, you prophets of the King.