“The Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I replied, ‘ A plumb line.’ Then 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; 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.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever tried to work with someone whose mind wasn’t made up yet about some detail, and because of that kept changing it? You get all set thinking it’s going to be one thing, and then suddenly something else is desired. It’s enough to almost give you whiplash. God had just finished telling Amos He was going to spare the people from His terrible judgment. Now He comes back around and declares their time is up. What changed? Let’s explore this today and think through how we can avoid such a change of mind about us.
This week we wrapped up our journey through the beautiful story of Ruth. We got to hear from one last character in the story who gave us a bit of a bird’s eye view of the whole thing. This allowed us to see that what would have been experienced by the people in the story as nothing more than ordinary life working itself out ordinarily was really God’s accomplishing His extraordinary plans through ordinary means. God does this through the Scriptures and He is still in the same business today in our own lives. Let’s marvel at all of this together. Thanks for reading and sharing.
A Story of Serendipity
Have you ever experienced something that was perfectly serendipitous? It was one of those moments when everything just fell into place like you wanted. Everything worked so perfectly that it almost seemed like someone else was pulling the strings. Sometimes we’re aware of that kind of thing happening in a moment, but more often we don’t see it until we look back with the clear vision of hindsight. I can point to a few different circumstances like that in my own life including the ones surrounding the time I first met my lovely bride. If we lived in a world that was perfectly fair, I would never have gotten the chance to even meet her. Thankfully, we don’t live in that world. We live in a world presided over by a God who is just and good and righteous and who has incredible plans for us that He works out in ways that are delightful, surprising, and which often feel very serendipitous.
For the last three weeks, in a series called, “A Love Story,” we have been together experiencing a story that has just that sort of serendipitous feel to it. And I say, “experiencing,” not, “telling,” because that’s the better word for it. Each week we have encountered the next part of the story of Ruth through the eyes of one of the characters who were in it. We started with Naomi and her realization that even when things are bitter, God is still with us. From there, we rejoiced with Ruth in the fact that when we are picking up the pieces, God won’t leave us alone. Just last week we marveled with Boaz in the truth that risks of faith are rewarded with gifts of life. It all works out to some pretty incredible truth from a tiny, little story.
This morning, as we wrap up our journey and Ruth’s story, we are going to experience things from yet one more perspective. We are also going to answer the question you may have wondered about as to why the series is called, “A Love Story.” The big idea of each part of the story so far has been good, but it hasn’t had anything to do with a love story. Before we leave this morning, my hope is that you will have a much better understanding of just why this love story is so powerful. This week, we are going to be in the final chapter of Ruth’s story. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy, find your way to Ruth 4. Follow along as we take one last dive into the story to see how the ways God works that seem perfectly serendipitous can really serve to reveal the good plans He was patiently unfolding all along.
“For it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For it is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Romans 13 is one of the more challenging passages the apostle Paul wrote. Understanding exactly how we are to apply and obey it is tricky and often is inextricably intertwined with our particular political perspective. When the party in power happens to be the party we support, we agree with Paul heartily. When it’s not, we’re quicker to find exceptions and reasons Paul missed some things. Occasionally we’ll remember that Paul wrote this under the authority of an aggressively anti-Christian government. I don’t want to get into all of that today. Instead, I want to focus on just this part of the whole, and to do so through the lens of an experience I had recently.
“The Lord God showed me this: He was forming a swarm of locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout – after the cutting of the king’s hay. When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, ‘Lord God, please forgive! 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. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. Then I said, ‘Lord God, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?’ The Lord relented concerning this. ‘This will not happen either,’ said the Lord God.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
What is the point of prayer? And just what can prayer accomplish? And what does our prayers’ being answered say about God? All of these are questions raised in this deceptively challenging passage. This morning, let’s think together about what it means that God “relented” in punishing Israel here and what that means for us.
“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, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will no longer spare them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
This morning will be a bit of a different kind of reflection than we usually have together. This is a pair of verses that have been preached many times by many preachers over the years. And in nearly all of these sermons the point has been roughly the same. God is going to hold us accountable to His righteous standards, and if we don’t meet them, judgment is going to come. This is all based on Amos’s using the imagery of a plumb line. It makes for a compelling sermon, but the trouble is that it is almost certainly not the imagery he was actually using. Let’s talk about it.
The Nexus 