MESSAGES FROM THE PROPHETS:
THE LORD IS WITH US
AMOS 5:14
#6weeksintheprophets
READ AMOS 5:14 (NIV)
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say He is.
READ AMOS 5:14 (MSG)
Seek good and not evil— and live! You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.
READ AMOS 5:14 (ESV)
Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.
THREAD: Amos 5:14 has me thinking about: “The Lord Almighty will be with you.”
INTRODUCTION… Auburn Football in 2013 (p)
[watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR7s2m5Z5GA]
[watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_8tl0Q2pQg]
Auburn was playing Alabama on November 30, 2013 in college football in what is called the Iron Bowl. It is a great rivalry game every year for college football fans. At the end of the game, the score was tied 28-28. At the end of the game, the official Matt Austin gave a ruling that the runner touched out of bounds at the 39-yard line and there was 1 second left on the clock. Alabama decided to kick a 57-yard field goal to win the game. Adrian Griffith, number 99, was in and was 1 for 2 for his career and it was the 3rd ever field goal. He was in because the regular kicker was 0 for 3 that night.
He kicked it and did not make it between the goal posts. Auburn player Chris Davis, number 11, catches the kick in the end zone and runs. Davis went left. Davis gets a block. Davis has another block. No flags. Chris Davis ran from one end of the field to the other and Auburn won the game. The final score was 34-28.
The announcer said: “An answered prayer.” There were at least 2 memes that day created from images of fans with astonished looks on their faces with their hands on their heads. You can google the term “kick six” and this game comes up.
Now, that was not the only amazing game finish that year. You see, the week before, Auburn was playing the University of Georgia. It was 4th and 18 for Auburn Tigers at the end of the game with 36 seconds left. They were down 38-37. Nick Marshall throws a hail-Mary pass down the field. The pass bounced off the head of a Georgia player and fell into the hands of #5 Ricardo Louis who scored a touchdown in front of 87,451 fans. 73 yards. That game is known as the “Miracle at Jordan-Hare” or the “Prayer at Jordan-Hare.” The final score was Auburn over Georgia 43-38.
So this was 2 games in a row for Auburn Football that year that now have nicknames. You know a game was good if it has a nickname. One game was the “Miracle at Jordan-Hare” and the next game was “Kick Six.”
These were 2 amazing games with 2 amazing final plays that were fun to watch. After those two games, some people said God was an Auburn fan. I might’ve said that. Some said God was on their side. It was because the games seemed to end in miracle plays two weeks in a row that it seemed fairly obvious to people who were half joking and half serious that divine intervention was at work. I don’t know if God is an Auburn fan or not. How can we possibly know if God cares about football? I mean it is obvious that if He were a college football fan that He would root for the SEC, but past that, can we know if God is on someone’s side or a team or a people?
THREAD: Amos 5:14 has me thinking about: “The Lord Almighty will be with you.”
SCRIPTURE SEARCH: “God is with you.”
Thinking about this question, as all questions should, lead me to dig into the Scriptures. The Bible has every answer we ever need to the questions we have. I went looking for passages where God said He was on a side or “God is with you” was said in the verse. There are such passages not to mention Matthew 1:23 which talks about Jesus Christ saying: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." Jesus Christ is the embodiment of “God with us.”
In Genesis 21:22-23, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his forces said to Abraham, "God is with you in everything you do.” This king knew God was on Abraham’s side and asked Abraham for a peace treaty and a good relationship. Can we agree God was on Abraham’s side? I think we can.
In Genesis 26:23-25, God appears to Isaac in a dream and says, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” Well that pretty much settles that doesn’t it. God says He is with Isaac. God is on Isaac’s side.
Jacob, then called Israel tells Joseph in Genesis 48:21 that God was with him. In Exodus 3:12 Moses hears from God’s voice in the burning bush, “I will be with you.” Certainly if we were to look at the people of Israel and the people of Egypt in the Book of Exodus, we would conclude rightly that God was with Moses and the people of Israel.
In Joshua 1:9 God says to Joshua, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Well, God is definitely with Joshua. The same is said in Judges 6:12 when the angel says to Gideon: “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior." God is on Gideon’s side and we see that when his 300 men face off against all the thousands upon thousands of Midianites… God made victory happen.
We cannot forget David’s brave words to Goliath in 1 Samuel: "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.” (17:45-46). Even people who don’t know the Bible know Goliath lost and God was on David’s side.
Psalm 14:5 says, “There they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous.” Later in Isaiah 8:9-10 says: “Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered! 10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” Isaiah believed with all his heart God was with His people.
THREAD: Amos 5:14 has me thinking about: “The Lord Almighty will be with you.”
READ AMOS 5:14 (NIV)
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say He is.
READ AMOS 5:14 (MSG)
Seek good and not evil— and live! You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.
READ AMOS 5:14 (ESV)
Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.
TRANSITION
How do we know whose side God is on and on whose side God is not?
How do we know if God is with us in our lives?
I have a sneaking hunch that those are actually the wrong questions. We should not be asking whose side God is on, but rather if we are on God’s side. God is the Almighty. God is the Creator. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords… the proper question is “am I on God’s side?” So the proper questions are:
How do I move from being on my own side to being on God’s side?
How do I stay on God’s side?
I think these are good questions based on the passages we have read and in light of Amos 5:14. I don’t know about you, but I want to make sure that I am on God’s side. I want to make sure that the life I live is rooted in God and that He is my foundation.
I want that for me.
I want that for you.
Let’s dig a litter deeper into Amos 5:14. As I reflect on Amos 5:14, I see a positive action commanded, I see a negative action commanded, and then the end result.
POSITIVE ACTION COMMANDED: SEEK GOOD
Amos’s words to us are very simple. “Seek good.” Those are not hard words or complicated words. We are to actively seek good and embrace it. We are to be people who seek good and do it. We are do-gooders.
There are so many passages in the Bible about seeking good and seeking the Lord. What does that mean exactly? The Bible talks over and over about seeking the Lord and finding Him and living according to His will. We are to seek God. God is good. We are to pursue Him. We are to seek good. I was going to list all of these passages, but to be honest, there is passage after passage that commands us to seek God and goodness. I happen to think that God and good are one and the same.
If I seek God, then I am seeking good.
If I obey God, then I am doing good.
So I started reading the Scriptures:
“Seek God’s will” and we will know how to live our lives in a good way (Exodus 18:15; 1 Kings 22:5; 2 Chronicles 14:4, 18:4)
“Seek strength from God” and we will have good strength to face life (1 Chronicles 16:10-11)
“Seek to serve God” and we will be doing good while serving Him (1 Chronicles 28:9)
“Seek God in prayer” and we will have good thoughts, emotions, and perspectives (2 Chronicles 7:14)
“Seek help from God” and we will be basing our life in goodness (2 Chronicles 20:4)
“Seek God by reading Scriptures” and we will know what good is (2 Chronicles 34:3)
“Seek God in worship” and we will be centered on our good God (Ezra 4:2)
“Seek to trust God” and our foundation in life will be goodness (Psalm 9:10)
“Seek to make room for God in our thoughts” and we will focus on goodness rather than anything else (Psalm 10:4, 14:2)
“Seek to dwell in God’s house” and we will have good at the center of our lives (Psalm 27:4)
“Seek peace in God” and we will be centered on our good God (Psalm 34:10)
“Seek to love salvation found in God” and we will be centered on our good God (Psalm 40:14)
Now I realize listing those things is a little boring and maybe your attention wandered, but all of that was just looking in the Old Testament up into the middle of Psalms. When we seek God we find goodness! God is good! God’s way of life is good and bases our lives on His goodness. He is what we are to be seeking! Over and over the Bible tells us this truth.
I could not help but think of the New Testament and the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5. We are to seek: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control” (5:22-23). Paul very clearly says “Against such things there is no law” (verse 23). Paul in Galatians 5:22-23 is saying the same thing as Amos in 5:14. Paul uses more words because… well… Paul always uses lots of words.
Amos’s words to us are very simple. “Seek good.” Those are not hard words or complicated words. We are to actively seek good and embrace it. We are to be people who seek good and do it. We are to seek God. God is good.
NEGATIVE ACTION COMMANDED: HATE EVIL
Amos’s words to us are very simple. “[Seek] not evil.” Those are not hard words or complicated words. We are to actively shun evil in our lives and get rid of it. We are to avoid evilness in all that we say and do. Think of everything I just said and the opposite is true for evil things. God is good. God is righteous. God is not evil or unrighteous or selfish or unloving, or conflict, or impatient, or unkind, or unfaithful… God is not on the side of those things and neither should we invest our lives in those types of things.
We are uncomfortable with this type of command because we are commanded to “hate” something and “hating” is sin and is bad. However, that is not true. We are to hate evil. We are to hate evil in ourselves, when others do it, and the evil that happens in our world.
Psalm 97:10 says, “Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”
Proverbs 8:13 says, “To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.”
SUMMARY
So, the person who is actively trying to be on God’s side will seek good and avoid evil. Amos makes that very clear. To be honest, the Apostle John makes that clear as well in 3 John 1:11 when he says, “Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” The Apostle Paul also makes this clear in Romans 12:9 when he clearly says, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Ok so maybe Paul is not always wordy. Here he is also quite simple. Being on God’s side means embracing good and hating evil.
RESULT: POSSESSION OF LIFE
What happens when we seek good and avoid evil? When you and I seek to be on God’s side, we find that we have life.
Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, we are told that God gives us life. He is the Creator and Author of Life and most importantly He is the source of life. He is the source of our physical life and Jesus Christ is the source for eternal life.
The kind of life I am talking about having is not just living or existing, but true life for us is where God’s presence dwells and when we join Him on His side and we are about our Father’s business. We join Him, in using Amos’ words, by seeking good and hating evil.
God has a life-giving way about Him. This has always been true. God called Abraham so He could bring forth a whole community to live out life connected to Him. God’s covenant with Abraham was by faith. Abraham accepted God’s authority and His path of living. God then set up boundaries for this community of believers so they could be in in relationship with Him. A person did not have to have a relationship with God, but could leave. We can live outside the boundaries of God, but that isn’t the life that God wants for His people. They sinned because human life does not naturally follow God’s way. We sin because we do not naturally follow God’s way.
Support is necessary. Jesus is necessary. Jesus Christ came out of Israel to bless the world with salvation as a free gift from God. Jesus Christ came to offer us life. God offers abundant life through Jesus when we listen and follow Jesus.
Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35).
Jesus is living water (John 6:10-11).
Jesus is the light of life (John 8:12).
Jesus is abundant life (John 10:10, 14:6).
It is by faith in Jesus Christ that we have right standing before God, possession of life, and to use Amos’s words… end up on God’s side so that He is with us. Abiding in Christ is life. Abiding in Christ and following His ways means we are on God’s side. Abiding in Christ means God is with us.
It is obvious to anyone who has tried it, that continually embracing good and hating evil requires an inner transformation of the will rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ. Throughout our day-to-day life, when evil presents itself in pretty packages, we must embrace good and not the pretty package.
We seek God and His goodness to resist temptation.
We seek God and His goodness for forgiveness when we fail.
THREAD: Amos 5:14 has me thinking about: “The Lord Almighty will be with you.”
CONCLUSION
So the proper questions are:
How do I move from being on my own side to being on God’s side?
How do I stay on God’s side?
Seek good.
Do not seek evil.
PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL
Perhaps you are listening and you are not a Christian or don’t know much about the God of the Bible. I seem to be presenting only 2 sides in life. God’s side and everything else. This is true. I am. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” We are either with God or we aren’t. We either belong to God or we don’t. We are either on God’s side or our own side. There is nothing else. Are we going to give our lives to Him, or are we going to give our lives to something else?
PRAYER
