- Opening image: the result explosion of Facebook avatars. They are cute and fun and I don’t have a problem with them. But if I may make a gentle observation: some of you don’t look like you think you look!
- I’m sure some people intentionally upgraded their appearance, but there are others who got done and thought it was a solid match when in fact it’s wildly off base.
- I’ve teased about it before. A while back when there was a challenge going around Facebook to post a picture of you as a high school senior beside a current picture of you, I posted a current picture of me beside a picture of a young Brad Pitt. The obvious disparity brought a lot of amused comments.
- There is a similar idea I want to discuss this morning with what we think God looks like. Do we have an accurate picture of Him?
THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS: God is merciful and patient; God is sovereign and just.
- Amos 7:1-9.
- Unpack where each of the four shows up in the passage:
a. Merciful.
- vv. 2-3, 5-6.
- Twice there is deserved punishment that God threatens. He gives Amos visions of what He intends to do.
- The first (v. 1) sees swarms of locust devouring the harvest. The timing is particularly bad. It’s the “second harvest,” which means that it’s at the end of the growing season. There would not be another chance to plant and grow that year. There would be famine.
- Why is God doing this? We’ll talk more about it when we talk about God’s sovereignty in a moment, but let’s just suffice it to say here that Israel’s repeated sin demanded judgment.
- The second (v. 4) sees judgment by fire. It is not immediate clear what exactly this was. It could have been wildfires. It could have been drought. It could have been an apocalyptic “fire from heaven.” It could be some combination of the three or something else. We are told that it devoured the land and dried up the great deep. What the great deep is a reference to is uncertain. Perhaps the Mediterranean? Perhaps one of the major lakes in Israel? Whatever it would have been it sounds sufficiently bad to be a major catastrophe.
- In both cases, though, Amos pleads for mercy. He asks God to forgive and stop. He declares that Jacob (another way to speak of Israel) is to small and weak to handle such punishment.
- In both cases, God is merciful.
- They deserve the punishment because of their sinful actions, but God heeds Amos’ cries and shows mercy.
b. Patient.
- vv. 1-9.
- We also see God’s patience in theses verses. I think it’s safe to presume that these three conversations didn’t happen back-to-back-to-back. Rather, I expect that there was some time elapsed between them.
- And so we see God’s patience in allowing Israel to have yet another chance to straighten up and pursue Him.
- He has two opportunities to lower the hammer, but is patient toward them.
c. Sovereign.
- vv. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
- When we look at the several places where the NIV calls God the “Sovereign Lord,” it raises the question of what “sovereign” entails. It brings to mind ideas like the fact that God rules the world, that He has the discretion to decide the direction of history, that He has the ultimate power.
- God is the ruler of all. He is the most powerful being in the universe.
d. Just.
- vv. 7-9.
- And, fourth, God is just. In the third part of our passage, God speaks of the plumb line. How does a plumb line work? Well, you hold it up and there is a weight on the end of the string. It definitively shows whether a wall is built straight. It’s definitive because gravity is always right. Even if you thought you’d built the wall correctly, if the plumb line shows it off, then you eyed it incorrectly.
- God too is the final standard of judgment.
WHY IS IT BAD NEWS THAT GOD IS JUST? It’s bad in that I know that I’ve done wrong.
- First, let me note that God being just is a good thing because most of us have a deeply-seated desire to see the world set right at some point. The thought, for instance, that Hitler would “get away” with what He did and have no punishment strikes most as simply wrong.
- Why is it bad news that God is just? Well, despite our desire for some level of cosmic justice for those we deem to be the “bad people,” the uncomfortable reality is that we are all “bad people.”
- This is vigorously denied by many people. They use some convoluted arguments to convince themselves of their own moral goodness. They ignore the questionable thoughts they have. They justify the actions that others see as wrong.
- That doesn’t change, however, the true nature of their moral stature.
- They are sinners. We are sinners. I am a sinner. You are a sinner. We are distant from God.
- Given that reality, which the Bible clearly states here and in a host of other passages, that if God is just then we are in trouble at His judgment.
WHY IS IT BAD NEWS THAT GOD IS SOVEREIGN? It’s bad in that He chooses the plumb line.
- First, let me note that God being sovereign is good news in the sense that someone is in charge of the universe. That’s much better than the argument that we are all just an accidentally jumble of molecules.
- Why is it bad news that God is sovereign? It’s bad news for many people in this sense: God chooses the plumb line.
- We have embraced the idea today that each person is the final judge of their morality. The thought is that there is no ultimate standard of truth. Morality is subjective. No one is allowed to impose their views on others. Each one gets to decide for themselves what’s right and what’s wrong.
- The idea that God chooses the plumb line and that His standards are immutable is anathema to modern sensibilities. Yet that’s what the Bible teaches us here.
WHY IS IT GOOD NEWS THAT GOD IS MERCIFUL? It’s good in that He may relent from the deserved consequences.
- We rejoice that God is merciful. Given that we are sinners (as we just discussed), we are in desperate need of mercy.
- But we need to understand the other part of this good news truth. That is this: God is merciful, but to avail ourselves of that mercy we need to repent.
- Repentance is where we acknowledge that we’ve been in the wrong and we confess our sins. That is not popular today. We don’t want to have to repent. We want to somehow be recipients of God’s mercy without ever having to admit that we are sinners. Now, how you could need mercy without having done something wrong is a mystery, yet that is where we are.
WHY IS IT GOOD NEWS THAT GOD IS PATIENT? It’s good in that it gives us time to change.
- God’s patience comes to us this morning. Here we are, with some of us having put off doing what we need to do before God.
- Maybe you are not a Christian and you have turned Him down many times. Yet here we are and in God’s patience He is offering an open door one more time.
- Maybe you are a Christian and you have been disobedient in something you know He’s calling you to change.
- Here we are – God’s patience has given you another opportunity.
- But we have to understand that His patience is not eternal. There is a point where, as in our passage for this morning, the second chances end.
- Will you take that opportunity?
NEXT STEP: Will I live in light of who God has said He is or who I want Him to be?
- A big part of the decisions to be made this morning have to do with moving beyond who we want God to be. We all have our thoughts on what we think God is probably like. In almost every case, our ideas shape a god who is predisposed to agreeing with us.
- It is a major milestone when we shift from our self-excusing projections and come to the realization that the Bible tells us who God is. And we submit ourselves to God’s truth and make changes to our lives.
- Will you live in light of who God has said He is?
- He is sovereign. He is just. He is merciful. He is patient.
- To go back to the avatar example we started with, we need to have an accurate picture of who God is. The Bible provides that.
