Who We Are - Sermon, Sunday, June 22nd, 2003

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Sermon text: Amos 7:10-15 as follows —
Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: "Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. For this is what Amos is saying: "'Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.'" Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom." Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

Confident Messengers in a "Whatever!' World</p>

Dear Christian Friends,

We live in a "Whatever!" world. That word "Whatever!" is almost a slogan for an entire generation of Americans. Do two people disagree about something? Whatever! Do you believe something that is one hundred percent the opposite of what I believe? Whatever! Do you think something is wrong and I think it's right? Whatever! Do you say it's black and I say it's white, do you insist that it's up and I insist that it's down, do you feel that it's "yes" and I feel that it's "no"? Whatever!

Sometimes that's just a harmless word, I suppose. But often there's more to it. There is a huge concept lurking behind that expression, "Whatever!" It's the widespread notion that there is no truth, there is no reality. It's the commonly-held belief that there is nothing that is true or real for all people all the time. Rather, we are told, everything is relative. It's all a matter of perception, so they say. "Truth" is nothing more than how you personally perceive things. The only real "truth" is whatever feels true or seems right for you. The only "reality" is whatever works for you. And that is what it usually boils down to — whatever works for you. It may not work for me, but that's OK. What works for me may not work for you, but that's OK. "Whatever!"

You and I live in a "Whatever!" world, but we're certainly not the first people to experience that. Let's go back to a time long ago and a place far away, a time and place not so different from where we live. The place was Israel and the time was 750 years before Christ. This was the time of the two kingdoms: Judah down south, and Israel, the ten northern tribes that had split away from Judah. It's there that we meet Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. Now, don't get the wrong idea — just because he's a priest doesn't mean that he's one of the good guys! Bethel was one of the worship centers of Israel, but the worship that took place there was plain old idolatry. Bethel was one of the places where King Jereboam, many years earlier, had set up a golden calf for his people to worship.

And that was just the beginning. Down through the years the Israelites had imported all kinds of gods, the gods of the nations all around them. There were shrines all over the place for all these various gods, and the people worshiped whichever gods they liked. It was kind of a cafeteria-style religion. They picked and chose; they drew their beliefs and practices from here and there, and I guess we'd have to say that they were very "spiritual" people They even claimed to worship the Lord, too, but as far as religion went, well... "Whatever!"

I can just hear Amaziah telling the people of his day, "It's OK, folks; you just worship whichever gods you like. You go ahead and believe whatever you want to believe, just as long as you're spiritual. You just go ahead and do whatever works for you!" That's what the Israelites were doing — whatever they wanted, whatever their sinful desires led them to do. In their worship they copied the most detestable things that the neighboring pagans did, from temple prostitution to infant sacrifices.

And in their daily life, things were no better. Now, you have to understand that in many ways, that was a really good time for the people of Israel. It was a time of peace. Business was good; the economy was cooking along, and many Israelites had become quite wealthy. They lived in fine houses and built second homes. They feasted, they partied, life was good. But not for everybody, because there was a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Those who had wealth and power found ways to squeeze more out of those who had less. Greed, luxury, self-indulgence were the order of the day. People thought nothing of lying, cheating and stealing. The court system was corrupt; the poor couldn't even get a fair deal there. The general philosophy was, "Hey, the point is to get more stuff and enjoy life as much as you can; how you go about doing that is your business." Whatever works, right?

Into this "whatever" world God sent a man named Amos. Now we meet the prophet from down south, in Judah. Well, this Amos had something to say to the people of Israel, and what he said was not at all politically correct. Amos told them that they were rebelling against God and were cut off from him. He told them that their lives were full of sins of all kinds, which were the symptoms of sin-sick hearts. Their sinful attitudes and actions and practises were the outward evidence of their true spiritual condition, unbelief. Amos made it clear that all their "spirituality" — all their religious practices, all their worship, all their sacrifices would get them nowhere. That's because all that religious devotion was offered to false gods. He told them point-blank that they were doomed unless they repented and turned to the LORD.

So Amaziah and Amos met in a head-on collision between two worlds, between the world of "whatever" and the world of "This is what the LORD says." Not too surprisingly, Amos was not exactly welcomed with open arms. Amaziah accused him of being unpatriotic, of starting a conspiracy against the king. He accused Amos of being intolerant — after all, he was preaching about sin and telling people they're wrong. Amaziah said, the land cannot endure his words! He even accused Amos of preaching for money — go back where you came from and earn your bread there, he ordered.

So the politically correct priest met the unpopular prophet. The priest of "whatever" faced the prophet who said, Now hear the Word of the LORD. Amaziah was very tolerant, indeed, but the one thing he could not tolerate was somebody who called sin "sin" and who claimed to speak for the one true God. The priest wanted to get rid of the prophet, but he found that pretty hard to do. Do you see how confident Amos was? He said, "Look, I didn't choose to be a prophet. I didn't take up this line of work because it's a cushy way to make a living. I was a shepherd, but the LORD took me from tending the flock and said, ÔGo, prophesy to my people Israel.'"

God's messenger to that "whatever" world was supremely, and we might say, doubly confident. He was sure, first of all, of the content of his message. He was only saying what the LORD had told him to say. He was announcing God's unchanging truth. He was sent to preach law and gospel to lost people. He was sent to call them to repentance and to faith in the promised Savior, and he pleaded with them, Seek the LORD and live! Amos was also sure of his call. He wasn't a prophet because it was an easy job, nor was it something he had chosen to do on his own. He was a prophet because God had called him and sent him. So in that double confidence he calmly said, Now, then, hear the Word of the LORD.

Dear friends, I don't have to tell you that we also live in a "whatever" world. But, thank heaven, our God still sends his messengers to that world. He sends them because countless souls are traveling on the wide highway to hell, the well-traveled road that's paved with "whatever." He sends them to preach things that people don't want to hear, to identify sin and unbelief, to warn of God's judgment. He sends them to proclaim God's grace in his Son, Christ Jesus. He sends them to offer the pure and complete righteousness gained by Jesus' life, and the forgiveness of sins purchased by his death; to offer them the unending life guaranteed by Christ's rising from death. He sends them to say, Seek the LORD and live! He sends them so speak the Word that is true for all people everywhere all the time, the truth that leads to eternal life.

We call them pastors and teachers and missionaries, Christians who are called into the public ministry of Christ's church. The Lord God still calls and sends such messengers with a message that is not politically correct. They preach that there is such a thing as sin. They point to greed, dishonesty, materialism, self-indulgence and injustice as symptoms of sin-sick hearts. God's messengers insist that truth is not relative, that right and wrong are still valid concepts. They say that marriage is supposed to last till death parts you. They say that homosexuality is a sin against God and that sex outside of marriage is always wrong and that abortion is the murder of a human being and that addictions have sinful roots and . . . well, you get the idea!

And they say the most intolerant things, don't they? They say that there is one true God who has revealed himself in his Word. They say that the only way to God, the only way to be saved from the hell we all deserve is through Jesus Christ, the Christ of the Bible who is the Son of God and the Son of Man. They preach that the way to eternal life is through Jesus' life substituted for ours and Jesus' suffering in our place. They point people away from all their clueless spirituality and outward religiousness, away from all their efforts to save themselves, and to the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. They plead with sinners, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!

They are confident messengers in a "whatever" world. They're confident of the content of their message and confident of their call, because both are from God. We can be confident, too, as we listen to them speak God's Word to us. They won't always say things that we want to hear, but they will say things that we need to hear. When they say, "Listen up, this is what the LORD says," we can be confident that they are speaking the truth in love. We can believe what they say and obey the word of the LORD as it comes from their lips. We can support them and pray for them and work with them and pray for more of them! We will do just that, because these confident messengers of God's eternal truth are just what this old "whatever" world needs most of all! Amen.

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