Book of Amos - The Pattern of Sound Teaching

MESSAGE FOR PEOPLE TODAY FROM THE BOOK OF AMOS

     Please watch the Video Before Reading the Lesson Plan

Church: Philadelphia                 Lesson 35 out of 39 lessons        Theme: Word of God

Background Information:

*  We asked in the book of 2 Kings, “How can the creation know that the cost of sin is death?”

*  In Job, we were awakened to learn how Satan will try to confuse the message of the sacrifice by lying about sin not being the cost of death, so we will not take responsibility for repairing the relationship with God.

*  In Jeremiah, we learned how death is the cost for sin and because the word of God became flesh now we can receive a new heart of flesh to be a witness for the righteousness of God.

Statement of Faith to Say Amen to for the Book of Amos:

I can be a witness who lines up my testimony with the Chief Cornerstone (the sacrifice Christ made) by remembering to love the word of God because Satan wants us to have a heart that curses God.

Essential Question

Does the world teach the ruling nations that God will use a plumb line to measure our living sacrifice?

Book of Amos

Have students read pages 190-193 in The Pattern of Sound Teaching.

After students read the information ask them, "What do you want to talk about?"

Remember the Issue:

As it is written in Amos 4:12, “Prepare to meet your God.”

Remember the Truth Jesus Brought:

We are responsible for teaching how Jesus will bring justice to the Earth and the world will not teach this message. Romans 12: 3-5 explains how we are to present our body as a living sacrifice, and this is called a “reasonable service.” A “reasonable service” can be defined as witnessing to the world with good fruit. When we receive God’s grace, we will be given spiritual gifts that will bear good fruit. We will be known by the fruits we bear (Matthew 7:16). This phrase means we can be judged by our behaviors. Good people will bear good fruit while evil people will bear bad fruit. A “reasonable service” is to build our internal temple with the spiritual gifts from God so we can produce good fruit.

Remember the Rock God Established:

Amos was not a prophet. Amos was a witness to God’s justice. Amos lived in southern Judah. He was a farmer and was outside in God’s creation all day. He was called to witness to northern Israel. God showed Amos a basket of ripe summer fruit, and this was a comparison of the people of the Earth being ripe for judgment just as crops are harvested at an appointed time.

As it is written in Amos 3:7, Amos reminds us that God reveals his plan to His prophets and servants. When God reveals His plan to His servants, His servants are to witness to the world about God’s plan. Amos was not a prophet, so he was a servant who witnessed about God’s plan. Amos witnessed to northern Israel about their neighboring countries: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab. When Amos shared the message, the people in northern Israel voiced very prejudiced opinions about the neighboring countries. The people of the northern kingdom agreed with Amos when he was walking down the road prophesying punishments for all the nations on the east, west, south, and north borders of northern Israel. The people living in Northern Israel said things like: Damascus is cruel to us. Gaza likes to sell people as slaves. Edom hates us for no reason. Moab likes to sacrifice children to false gods. The people in northern Israel were glad that God was going to punish the people who were in the areas that surrounded northern Israel. Amos clearly states that the surrounding nations of Israel will be judged by the standard of how they treated other people. God has revealed himself to everyone not only through the word of God but also through God’s creation.

Next Amos prophesied against his own country of Judah in the south, and the people of Northern Israel agreed with everything Amos said. The people in northern Israel were prejudiced against every nation around them. When Amos began to preach about oppressing the poor, religious customs, and comforts at the expense of others, the people in the northern kingdom got a little upset because they would sell a righteous person for silver or a poor person for a pair of shoes. They also worshipped false gods. The result of worshipping false gods was social injustice. We will be held to a higher standard when we have access to the word of God, and we ignore it. Northern Israel had access to the word of God. God tried to get people to turn to Him. The people thought if they went to the temple and worshiped that was their ticket to ignore justice.

As it is written in Romans 12:3, “God has given every man a measure of faith.” Amos had a vision of a plumb line that would be used to measure sin. A plumb line is a weight suspended from a string to determine an exact vertical line. We are now able to measure faith by love with a vertical line. As builders are aware that the wall needs to align with the cornerstone, so should we be aware that our wall needs to change and align with the Chief Cornerstone (Jesus’ sacrifice). We can see how faith can increase or decrease by grace, mercy, repenting, new covenant faithfulness, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God with the instruments used with each of the seven churches in the book of Revelation in A Book of Remembrance. This is how faith works by love now. Our internal temple can measure how we have loved God or a worldview. Our measure of faith can be weighed and the plumb line will measure if we have righteous behaviors that increase our faith in God or sinful behaviors that decrease faith in God to be lukewarm. We are to be servants whose witness can be measured by the spirit.

Amos 5:6-7 says, “Seek the Lord and live, or He will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire: it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.” As it was written in Matthew 18, we are to forgive others in our heart and be a witness to the person, and if he does not listen take one or two witnesses to talk to them. Then if he fails to listen, tell the church. If he fails to listen to the church, he is considered an outsider who is trying to include the world’s culture in the church culture. We have to protect our heart by forgiving them. The book of Amos ends with God’s promise of how social justice will flow like a river when Jesus raises the temple of David. As Amos kept on witnessing even when they did not like the message, we are to do the same. Just as they were looking to the future temple, we are to look to the future temple.

Activity:

Do the BLOG below.

Conclusion:

Does the world teach us how to witness to other people without being prejudiced to the word of God?

Next Lesson:

In the next Lesson, Zephaniah is the prophet who has a message about the day of the Lord. When someone does not witness about the holiness of God’s justice, they will face God’s wrath. Sinful behaviors will spiral into being separated from God and being placed into an external hell.

BLOG: Write a statement of faith on how the Spirit of God will fill and sanctify your heart by cultivating and conditioning the peaceful fruit of the spirit that is beginning to ripen with the knowledge of the Word of God that became flesh, Jesus to come into fruition to bear witness with the Spirit of God to fill the third spiritual stone pillar of sanctification in the church of Philadelphia.

PROMP STARTER (optional)

My statement of faith to be sanctified through building the third foundational pillar of sanctification in the church of Philadelphia is defined as always being ready to __________________________ against ___________________________with the sixth line of defense which is _________________________________________. The goal of sanctification is Christlikeness. Christlikeness is where the fruit of the spirit begins to come into fruition of the spirit that can be identified as ________________________________.

Melody's Statement of Faith (I modeled my statement of faith; you can use it for yours and tweak it if you want):

Sanctification is a work in progress where being a credible witness with a spirit like Jeremiah will grow into being Christlike through bearing witness with the Spirit Himself to give me perfect love through knowledge that I am a child of God. My statement of faith is that I will bear witness with the Spirit Himself because I will have a spirit that witnesses with perfect love in a dark world that is prejudiced against the Word of God that became flesh, Jesus. The Spirit Himself will prune away branches that are not coming into fruition. I will need to continue the process of justification and sanctification, and when the Spirit Himself bears witness with me, it increases my faith in Jesus; I can feel it! This is spiritual warfare.

Because your statement of faith is an important part of salvation, please write a statement of faith on how the Spirit of God will cultivate and condition your fruit of the spirit that is beginning to ripen into coming into fruition to fill the third stone pillar of sanctification in Jesus' Church of Philadelphia, in the comments section below.