Amos 4

Amos 4

God’s Values

I.                    God’s people must value what God values; so we must not value luxury and comfort over His will (Vv. 1-3)

a.        Amos begins his second sermon to the people of Israel by addressing the women of the wealthy and prominent families as “cows of Bashan”, which is a way of saying that these prominent ladies were known for their lives of wealth, luxury, and stubbornness. They had become rich and overprivileged through the dishonest and immoral gain of their husbands, who squeezed and extorted money from the poor. They lived in luxury, with all the finest goods, lounging all day, drinking wine, and commanding others to meet their needs. Their sin was selfishly valuing luxury over all things, and particularly over people. However, their stubborn, selfish, and sinful love of luxury was only fattening them up to be carried off to the butcher, as God swears that His misguided people will be held accountable for their misguided values. Wealth isn’t a sin, but God’s word warns repeatedly of the dangers of wealth. As the expression goes, the problem isn’t with us possessing things, the problem is with things possessing us. That is the state which these wealthy socialites had reached in Israel. We must evaluate our own lives and make certain we’re not being possessed by the things and trappings of the culture around us. That possession isn’t exclusive to just having the things the world tells us is important, but being motivated in what we do and who we are, by acquiring them. Human beings are so easily influenced by idols of wealth, status, and possessions that it easily chokes out our desire for God. God continually calls us to ask ourselves what we’re doing with what we’ve been given. How are we using the things we have as individuals, and as the church? Are we using it to promote our own comfort and glorify ourselves, or are we using it to glorify God and minister to others in His Name? (Vv. 1-3; Prov. 3:27-28; Matt. 6:19-21; 13:22; 25:31-40; Luke 12:16-21; 2 Cor. 9:6-11; 1 Tim. 6:6-11, 17-19)

II.                 God’s people must value what God values; so we must not value religion over relationship with Him (Vv. 4-5)

a.        The people of Israel were experiencing a season of great religious revival, but all was not as it seemed. Amos sarcastically urges the people to continue on with their worship in Bethel and Gilgal, but he warns them that it’s all a waste of time which won’t amount to anything. Bethel and Gilgal were centers of state sanctioned religion where idol worship, sacrifices to God, and pagan rituals where all being mixed. The people were faithful to give thank offerings, but they were tainted, and they were faithful to give freewill offerings, but they were done for the approval of others and not for God. Noticeably absent from the offerings of the people were sin offerings; and it was their sinful hypocrisy which tainted their other offerings. All of their religious activity masqueraded as worship of God, but it all ultimately only served to worship themselves, their desires, their felt needs, and the expectations of others. They built a fence around themselves with their religion to separate them from the expectations of the law and make them feel good about themselves, but all they did was fence in their sinful hypocrisy and fence themselves off from a relationship with God. We do the same thing today when we gloss over our sin, and make the way we worship, and the way we serve about valuing ourselves and our preferences, instead of valuing God’s will and glorifying Him. Do the things we do and how we do them bring us closer to God, make us more like Christ, and equip and move us to reach others with the gospel? (Vv. 4-5; Ps. 51:3-5, 16-17; Isa. 1:11; 29:13; Matt. 3:7-10; 15:18; 23:23-28; Rom. 2:17-24; 3;19-26; 6:23)

III.               God’s people must value what God values; so we must listen to and heed His warnings (Vv. 6-15)

a.        The people of Israel were living for themselves in every way, but God was continually warning them to return to Him. He warned them through periods of famine, drought, failed crops, disease, and war, but they stubbornly refused to listen, and continued to value their own desires and comforts over God’s will and purpose for their lives, so now God would meet them Himself. God desires that our intimate relationship with Him, experience of His goodness, and His love for us would move to repentance, faith, obedience, rest, and peace in Him. But He’s faithful to bring discipline, difficulty, and suffering into our lives to turn us to Him as well. God will hold all people accountable for their choices, actions, and inactions. We can’t question His love and motivation to see us turn to Him. He who has everything and needs nothing, laid it all aside to take on human flesh, and become like us in order to sacrifice Himself in our place to pay the penalty for our sin, and restore our relationship with Him, simply because He loves us. He has every right to hold us accountable for what we do and why we do it, and calls us to have the same attitude in ourselves that was also in Christ. Are we listening to His warnings? Perhaps He’s calling us to take a deep look at what we value, what we do, how we do it, and why we do it, so we’ll put Him back in the center of our desires, values, and lives? (Vv. 6-13; Gen. 50:20; Ps. 139:1-7, 23-24; Matt. 22:36-40; John 3:16-21, 36; Rom. 5:6-11, 17-21; 8:28-32; 14:7-10; 1 Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Cor. 5:10; Eph. 2:1-10; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 4:13)