Heavenly Father, thank you so much
for everyone who's here today
and most of all that you're here.
And God, you're not just our guest of honor.
You are the reason that we're here.
You're the reason that we sing.
You're the reason that we pray.
You're the reason that we stop to hear from you.
God, we long for today,
not just to be another church service,
not just to be another thing in our schedule,
but to meet with you the true and living God.
And so God, for the sake of your son's name,
for our good and for the good of this city,
would you speak to us now through your word?
Lord, speak, Lord.
Your servants are listening.
Would you speak to us through your word?
Speak to everyone, including myself, from your word.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amos chapter 5, verse 8.
He who made the Pleiades and Orion
and turns deep darkness into the morning
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours the moat on the surface of the earth,
the Lord is his name.
These words are words of power.
They're words of beauty.
They're awe-inspiring words.
They are an ancient hymn
that the people of God sung.
They're beautiful words.
They're words of hope and meaning and life.
Yet they're also very haunting words.
And I'll share that with you
and the meaning they're in as we go.
So as we've seen week by week
as we're going through verse by verse,
chapter by chapter through Amos,
we see that this is a book
where God is sharing a very sobering message
with his people.
It was a time similar to today
where the middle class
is doing actually very well.
The country of Israel was not at war
with the countries around them.
There's relative peace,
just as we have in our day.
There was headlines about stuff happening
in other parts of the world,
but their home was a place of safety.
Their home was a place of security.
And there were people like us
who were very spiritual.
They were very religious,
just like we are at this church.
They loved the liturgies.
They loved the scriptures.
They loved this stuff.
And into that context,
Amos brings a surprising word.
These words of repentance,
a warning of judgment.
Verse six,
Seek the Lord and live,
lest he break out like fire
in the house of Joseph
and it devour with none
to quench it for Bethel.
Or you who turn justice to wormwood
and cast down the righteous to the earth.
There's such sobering words
just before that in verse five.
Seek me and live,
but do not seek Bethel.
Do not enter into Gilgal
or cross over to Beersheba.
What is Amos talking about?
Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba
were these cities that meant so much
to the people of God.
Not to the pagans,
but to the people of God.
These were these places
where they were pilgrimages toward.
They were pilgrims toward these places.
Bethel was a place
where Jacob famously,
he fell asleep with it.
The only pillow he had was a stone.
And he had a dream,
as you will probably remember,
he had a dream of a ladder
coming down from heaven.
This was not a ladder
of him climbing up to heaven.
It was this beautiful ladder
from God of the angels,
of God's presence descending to him.
It was a place where God
was saying to Jacob,
I'm here,
I've come down to you.
This is the same place
where years later,
Jacob would be returning
to the promised land.
He's returning there,
and he encounters God,
and God gives Jacob
the name Israel.
And so for the northern kingdom
of Israel,
who Amos is speaking to,
this is a place
of their identity.
This is a place
where God has named them.
And they would go
on pilgrimages there,
these spiritual pilgrimages.
They weren't going there
to offer their children
in the fires,
as you'll see elsewhere,
God addressing.
They weren't going there
to sacrifice to Baal
or the Asherah poles.
They were going there
because this was a place
where Yahweh had met
with their forefathers.
Gilgal.
Gilgal was the place
when they crossed over
into the promised land.
This was the place
where they built
the altar with the stones,
each one representing
the Tevolf tribes of Israel.
This is where Joshua
led them into,
this was the gateway
into the promised land.
It's also the place
where King Saul
was anointed king.
This was a place
that spoke to them
of the promise of God
to bring them
into this land
that they were living in.
And so then
in the following verses
where he says,
for Gilgal,
verse 5,
for Gilgal shall surely
go into exile.
Everything was good.
They were not at war.
They were not under threat.
And God was saying,
stop going to this place,
Gilgal.
I'm actually going to
bring it into exile.
And then Beersheba,
of all of them,
this was the most holy place.
Beersheba was the place
where Abraham,
standing there,
the pagan king
prophesies over him,
saying,
surely God is with you.
This is the same place
where Isaac,
up until this point
of Isaac's life,
Abraham's son,
God was Abraham,
his father's God.
But it is in Beersheba
where God comes to Isaac
in a dream and says,
I am your God.
And from that point forward,
he is the God of Abraham,
and he is the God of Isaac.
He is your God
and he is there with him.
And this is also the place
where Jacob,
and they're coming years
toward the end of Jacob's life,
he's going toward Egypt,
he's leaving the promised land.
There's an anxiety in that.
And he comes to Beersheba
and this is where God
comes to him and says,
he's going to bless
and prosper them in Egypt.
Do not fear,
he will bring them back.
And he says the same words,
I am your God.
And so Beersheba was this place
where it stood
for the people of God
as a reminder
that God is not just
the God up in the heavens,
that he is there here with us,
that he is our God.
And so the people
would go on these pilgrimages there.
These were people,
they weren't the ones
flipping about religion.
These weren't the ones like,
ah, whatever.
These were the ones
who actually took
their religion seriously.
They loved their religion.
And as they would go,
they would sing hymns
up on their way
to these sacred places.
And the words we have before
so that I started with,
this is actually,
it seems,
this is one of the hymns
they would sing on their way up.
He who made the Pleiades
in Orion.
Sorry, I can't sing it for you.
I don't know the tune.
He who made the Pleiades
in Orion
and turns deep darkness
into the morning
and darkens the day
into night
who calls for the waters
of the sea
and pours them out
on the surface of the earth.
The Lord is his name
who makes destruction
flash forth against the strong
so that destruction
comes upon the fortress.
These are powerful,
awe-inspiring,
beautiful words.
And they're meant here
from God through Amos
as a reminder
of how far
these people are from God.
These beautiful words
are haunting words
because they're placed
right in between
God rebuking the people
for how far they are from Him.
Their lips,
their lips,
they honor God
with their lips,
with their words,
but their hearts
are far from God.
So just before verse 8,
just before this hymn
is placed in there,
we see,
Oh you who turn justice
to wormwood
and cast unrighteous
to the earth.
And just after the hymn
concludes,
they hate Him
who reproves in the gate
and they behoor Him
who speaks the truth.
It talks about them
trampling on the poor,
on them loving
what God hates,
on them hating
what God loves,
on the corruption
and injustice.
Their actions
and their hearts,
their lives are far from God.
So in between all of that,
just right inserted,
is this hymn.
And it wasn't a hymn
that Amos wrote.
It wasn't a hymn
that God was prophesying
to His people.
Rather,
it was God reminding them
of the very words
that they are singing.
And so from all that we can tell
in reading this,
this hymn,
these beautiful,
powerful words,
hauntingly,
are actually said by Amos
almost sarcastically.
In the midst of him saying,
you are a people of injustice,
you are far from God,
as they're pilgriming down,
on their pilgrimage
up to Beersheba.
And in the midst of saying
all this stuff,
and then he just inserts,
He who made the play
of these in Orion
and turns deep darkness
into the morning
and darkens the day and tonight.
He's saying,
these are the things you say.
And what is it,
the things that they're singing?
These are all words,
these are all images
of God being the God
that transforms.
The language of Pleiades
and Orion
is referring to
the constellations
that are most visible,
the turn of the seasons.
So they're singing of God
who changes the seasons
and turns deep darkness
into the morning
and darkens the day
and tonight.
This is the God
who not only transforms
the seasons,
but He also is the God
who transforms the day by day,
the day into night
and night by day.
Who calls for the water
of the sea
and pours the mold
on the surface of the earth.
Not only the day by day
and the seasons
and all of this,
but also the one time events
of the sea
flooding up over here
and casting itself into there
and pouring rain over there.
This is the God
who is in control
of all the events
of our time.
The Lord is His name
who makes destruction
flash forth against the strong.
Not only the God
over the seasons
and the days
and the nights
and the weather,
but also the God
over the destruction
of cities
and by its correlation
also the rebuilding of them.
This is the God
who transforms.
This is the unchanging changer,
the one who changes us.
And yet,
it is placed right in the middle
of these words from God
saying,
you are a people,
you're so spiritual,
you're singing hymns,
you're going on these pilgrimages
to these places
where I've done
great things in the past,
yet you do not change.
The balance here
of describing their sins
in verse 6 and 7,
of describing how far
they are from God,
then they insert the hymn
about change
and yet they're unchanged
as it goes into verse 10
and verse 11
and verse 12
and verse 13,
speaking to them
of their sin.
And the image here
is that they're marching down
to the place
where they're remembering
what God has done
in the past.
They're singing these hymns
and then they're marching
back home
having sung those hymns
and they're completely unchanged.
It is haunting these words
of God being the changer
and yet he not changing us.
It's as if a friend of yours
was to say,
hey, you know,
earlier today
I was walking
across Rito Street
and a Mack truck
just came and smashed me.
It was crazy.
I was on my back
and all the wheels
went right over me
and man,
it was scary.
And you're like,
and then you went
to the hospital
and they're like,
no, no,
I just kept walking.
I had things to do.
You'd be like,
well, you really were hit
by a Mack truck?
Really?
I don't see any bruises.
I don't see any broken bones.
You're still alive.
I don't really think
this is the case.
And as they're singing
of God being the one
who transforms seasons
and days and nights
and the waters
and destruction of cities,
they're singing of God
being the one
who changes and transforms
yet there are people unchanged.
God through Amos
is saying,
really?
You're a broken people.
You're wealthy,
you're safe,
you're secure,
you're spiritual,
but your hearts
are so far from me.
Have you really,
do you even know me?
You see the love
and the pain in God's heart
as he's looking at these people
who, again,
they're so sophisticated
and yet so far from him.
Verse 4 and 5,
seek me,
seek me and live.
Do not seek Bethel,
don't enter into Gilgal,
cross over to Beersheba.
You're going
on these great pilgrimages,
you're singing these hymns,
but you're not seeking me,
God is saying.
You're seeking the stuff of God,
you're not seeking God.
And the stuff of God,
as precious as the hymns are
and as wonderful as it is
to go to these places
and to remember
what God has done,
God is saying through this,
I'm here to not just,
be the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob,
not just be the God
that anointed Saul,
not just be the God
that brought you
into the promised land,
I'm here for the promise
for you.
I'm here to be your God,
God is saying,
not just your father's God,
I'm here for you.
Seek me and live.
It's easy for us to see
the reality of injustice
and the trampling of the poor
and because these are
a people in the past,
it's easy for us to see them
as some primitive people,
some barbaric people,
but these are the people of God.
In Israel at this time,
go look it up,
they're a sophisticated nation.
This was a time of
relative prosperity,
of safety,
of security.
The economy was doing well,
things were going well
and they were spiritual people
and not just like some
random pagan spirituality,
they were actually singing
the hymns of God,
going to the place
where God had done things
and yet they weren't
seeking God,
they loved the stuff.
I can remember
I was in high school,
I was going to so many
different church meetings,
I loved church stuff
and I'd go to worship nights
and I'd listen to great preaching
but there was a moment
where it began to hit me
that I loved the stuff of God
but I didn't actually love God.
And I'd see it in the jokes
that I would tell
and the things that I would laugh at
and in my behavior
toward my fellow man or woman,
like I was a church guy
but I wasn't really a godly man.
I loved the stuff of God
but I didn't actually know God.
Just earlier this week on Thursday,
I was driving up to Camp Iowa
and there was a young man
on the side of the road
hitchhiking so he stopped,
he jumped in
and then like 30 seconds
we started talking about God.
I'm not even sure
how it came up
but we were talking about
some stuff
and he was saying,
oh man,
he's 14 years old
and he's like,
man,
I don't get atheistic agnostics,
I just don't get it.
How can they not believe in God?
Just look around us.
It's beautiful out there
near Camp Iowa.
You got just lakes and trees
and he's just like,
look at this,
clearly God exists
and I love church.
And they were chatting a bit
and I said,
okay,
you love church,
you believe in God,
would you say that you know God?
He's like,
I don't understand,
I don't get God,
I don't,
for me it's really,
I just love the church,
like the vibe I get in church.
It's like,
it's where I feel,
I feel so alive there.
I love church.
He's like,
but,
I'll do chat a bit more,
he's like,
yeah,
I don't know God.
I don't pray to him,
I don't,
I don't know him
but I know I love church.
And that,
I see,
I saw myself in him
as a teenager.
I saw myself
and I was,
I would have been one of the guys,
like some of you are,
that you're the one who,
you know,
all the parents want their kids to be you
because you're not swearing
and if you laugh at inappropriate jokes,
it's quiet enough
that nobody realizes
that you think it's funny
and like you're not,
I found,
I loved what God hated
and I hated what God loved
and I came across Amos chapter 5
as a teenager
and he's saying,
God is saying,
hate evil,
love good,
establish justice
and so there,
far from God,
I just started saying,
God,
help me to hate what you hate
and love what you love
my heart is far from you,
I remember,
I remember being,
some of you know Dominion Chalmers
just a few blocks away,
I remember being there
at a worship service
and everyone was just worshiping God
and it hit me,
I love the stuff of God,
I love the songs,
I love when the bass drum
is just going boom,
boom
and you just feel like,
you just feel your hair
stand up on it
and you're like,
ah,
but it wasn't actually God
that I loved,
I remember just getting
on my knees
and just saying,
God,
you're too precious
to be my parents,
God,
I know my parents know you
and I've heard amazing sermons
of these men that know you
just on my knees saying,
God,
I need to know you,
I know about you,
I need to know you,
I need to know you
and I got up from my knees
that day
and nothing had changed,
didn't seem like God
had heard me,
I just remember getting
the next day in my room
just ominous,
God,
I need to know you,
I love the stuff of God,
I love church,
I love the conferences,
I love all that stuff
but I don't know you,
I know my heart
is far from you,
I know where no one else sees
and I love what you hate,
I hate what you love,
you have my words
but you don't have my heart,
I give you my time
but I haven't given you my life
and I have to pray
would God not answer
the prayer of a young man
just saying,
God,
hear me
but he didn't
and so I continued
day after day,
God,
I remember being grade 12,
still like,
I think a year later,
I'm in the library at school,
I had a friend outside,
they're doing their thing
and I just would open up
to Psalm 25
and just cry out to God
and say,
God,
I need to know you,
I believed in God
but
my parents,
they knew God
and my pastors,
they talked about him,
I had friends,
I just,
God,
I need to know you
and I can look up my life
and see life unchanged,
God,
you are the unchanging changer,
you're the one that transforms
not only seasons,
you transform hearts,
transform my heart,
I didn't get why
he wasn't answering me,
then I reread Amos 5,
seek me and live,
see God is so much more,
he's so,
he loves you
and he loves me so much,
he doesn't just want us
ever to be people
who simply give him our words,
who just love the liturgy
or who people who are
simply living like polite
or even very kind
and compassionate lives,
that's all good stuff,
that's all very good stuff
but what he wants
more than anything
is our very self
and he wants us
not just to seek him
for a life that's changed,
he wants us to seek him
and so Bethel,
Gilgal,
and Beersheba
were very good things
and God was saying,
seek me,
don't seek church
in the Messiah,
don't seek that,
don't go out searching,
oh you just want to get
that incredible worship experience,
you want to get the field,
God's saying,
no, seek me,
seek me,
know me
and in God not coming through
for me right away
and him not answering
that prayer right away,
he was allowing me
to be able to be one
who sought after him
and sought and sought
and at first really,
I think I was seeking him
more for his stuff
but over time
I began to seek him
and somewhere along the way
he came through,
he will be faithful,
he is faithful
and he will,
he delights to answer
that prayer
and now to stand here,
not just as your pastor
but as your brother in Christ
and to say,
I know God,
that it doesn't matter
what happens,
what trauma stuff
has been thrown at me,
there's a joy that I have
that's unshakable,
there's a peace that I have
that it doesn't matter
what is going on
that there's still a peace,
not just the absence
of pain or anything,
a peace even in the midst
of pain
but more than anything
it's not the joy
that I love
or the peace that I love
or the purpose
God has given me,
it's himself he's given me.
As some of you know,
Jason Byers,
pastor at Celebration Church
and I love his refrain,
the giver is the gift,
the greatest gift
we have from God
isn't the peace
or the joy
or the meaning
or our friends
or our family
or community
or any of the great things
of God.
The greatest gift
we have is the giver himself,
he has given us himself
and that's what Bethel
and Gilgal and Beersheba
had been all about.
Bethel,
the place where
God provided a ladder
not for Jacob
to try to climb up to God
but where God
had climbed down to him
and this
is what separates
Christianity
and the gospel,
this is what separates
the true and living God
from all other religions
and spiritualities.
Every other religion
and spirituality
is about climbing away
to God.
If you,
in Hinduism,
in Buddhism,
if you can just learn
to think right,
if you can just learn
to detach yourself rightly,
you'll be able
to enter into nirvana.
In Judaism,
my family background,
613 laws,
if you do those mitzvahs,
if you do enough of them,
you're going to make it,
you're going to make it to heaven
and Islam is five pillars
and your obedience
to those five pillars
which are all,
like they're very precious things,
caring for the poor,
they're good stuff
but it's by you doing
those things
that you're going to help
the balance of your life,
the good things,
away the bad
and you get to heaven
and every type
is climbing to heaven
and if anyone here
is an atheist,
agnostic,
I want to say welcome,
I'm glad you're here
but your life
is also a reflection
of that same climbing
of the ladder
where it's not through
these spiritual,
metaphysical stuff
but by getting enough success,
by earning enough,
by achieving enough,
by establishing yourself enough,
you're climbing your way
to meaning
and to significance,
to your heaven
but the reality
that you know
is that it doesn't work.
The runs of the ladder
just seem to break every time,
we can't do it,
we can't climb up,
we'll never achieve enough,
we'll never be enough
and so the ladder
at Beersheba
or Bethel
was the ladder
of God coming down to us
which separates Christianity
from all other religions
and spiritualities
of the earth.
There's nothing else like it
where God himself
climbs down to us
where all of us realize
that that balance
is always going to be
skewed against us
that we've never able
to do enough good
to away the bad
and the anxiety
of all of that balance
that Jesus,
that his scale
was fully tipped to the good
that he was the one
that speaks of
calling them to justice
and to mercy,
to love what God loves
and what God hates
and to do good.
Jesus was the one
that did that completely.
The balance completely
in his,
weighed in his favor.
And the gospel message
is that,
that Jesus gives that life,
that gives that
being able to be there
in heaven,
not just in heaven
but being with God
on earth,
that he gives us that,
that he makes us
so fully alive in him.
Seek the Lord
and live.
If you're anything
like I was in high school
or even still,
so much like today,
and when you find
there's a part of your life
where it's not as it should be,
where you need to be
seeking the Lord,
to hear the command,
seek the Lord and live,
it can be so frustrating.
I'm trying.
I'm trying to seek the Lord
and live,
but I find that I keep on
falling in love
with the stuff of God,
but not God,
the liturgy and the songs
and all these things.
How do I actually
have a heart that's changed?
How do I actually
come alive in him?
How do I live?
But the commands of God
themselves are power.
When God said,
let there be light,
it's not like the earth
was like,
oh, snap,
I gotta be light now
and turn itself on.
No, the very word of God,
the very command of God,
let there be light,
is also the creative power of God.
The light received power to shine.
The same seek me and live,
it's the same thing going on
when in John chapter 11,
Lazarus is dead in the tomb.
He's been dead for several days.
This is not a man
who can inspire himself
to stand on up
no matter how much he tried.
This is a man who's dead
in grave clothes
and Jesus comes
and says two words,
come out.
And the dead man
comes out of the tomb.
He comes alive.
There's nothing Lazarus
could do to make himself
see God and live,
but in the very call from God,
he comes alive
and he comes out.
The same thing
for the little girl
in Mark chapter 5.
She's dead in bed.
Jesus kneels down
beside her bed,
takes her hand
of a young dead woman
and says,
little girl arise
and the girl comes alive.
The command to seek God
and live
is an impossible command
for you and I to follow.
We are dead,
spiritually dead.
It's an impossible command
except the one
who commands us
also in this very command,
breathe that life into us.
Now even as he makes us alive in him,
even as he breathes his life into us,
we still have to respond to it.
You know,
the story in John chapter 11
would have been very different
if Lazarus lying there in the tomb,
if he's lying there
and Jesus is like,
Lazarus, come up!
And he opens his eyes
and he's like,
oh my goodness,
I'm dead.
This is grave clothes?
Oh snap.
Man.
And just closes his eyes
and continues to stay
living as the dead.
And I know that I've definitely done that
where God is,
he's right there
and he's there,
his grace that enables us
to be able to cry out to him
for life
and receive that life,
to seek him.
And yet we're living a life
where he has said,
live!
And you and I are just like,
in our grave clothes,
staying in the places
where there's death and decay.
And God is saying,
come on out!
The impossible is possible
because of who Jesus is.
And that call,
that call to be
all that God calls us to be,
it's a call not to sound like
meaning and grace apart from him.
That's what the people wanted.
They wanted all the stuff
but they didn't want God.
It's a call to give your life
so fully to God.
Not just to seek the stuff of God
but to seek God.
To seek him and live.
And so the haunting words
in Amos chapter 5,
because of what Jesus has done,
because of his,
not just calling us to live,
but him giving us his life
and making us alive in him,
we can join in this ancient hymn
and sing it,
or read it,
and see the beauty in it.
The beauty of our God.
He,
who made the Pleiades and Orion,
turns deep darkness
into the morning,
and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea,
and pours him out
on the surface of the earth.
The Lord is his name,
who makes destruction
flash forth against the strong,
so that destruction
comes upon the fortress.
As this continues on,
and he goes on
back to the rebuking,
the end of this passage
that Anna read to us,
verse 16,
and it repeats it three times
in one of the names of God.
Therefore,
thus says the Lord,
the God of hosts,
the Lord.
And the translators
and the NIV,
the ESV,
the NLT,
all these ones,
they tame it down for us.
They refer to it,
they refer to God
as the Lord of hosts.
But they're actually,
with the real name of God,
this isn't controversial,
Google it.
It's,
thus says the Lord,
the God of armies,
the Lord.
And he repeats it three times,
the God of armies,
the God of armies.
What's Amos doing right here?
He's saying to the people,
look,
you're so wrapped up in yourselves,
you're so wrapped up
in all your spiritual stuff,
yet you're so dead,
but look to the one,
the one who transforms
and changes
and breathes life.
Look to him,
who is the God of power,
the God of armies.
Look to him.
He is the one you are to fear
and he is the one you are to love.
He is our hope.
The other night at camp,
we're going through,
on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
we have a worship evening
and each night
is a different theme
of a name of God.
So on Thursday,
we're doing God of armies.
And so we're singing,
we didn't have a lot of songs
to choose from
because there's not a lot of songs
about God of armies.
It's such a common name
for God in the Bible.
You need to change that.
We need to write more songs,
Deborah.
But the,
we sang the song,
God of angel armies.
Some of you know it.
It goes,
the God of angel armies
is always by my side.
And we almost didn't sing it.
And when it was done,
I just spoke for a couple seconds
saying,
guys,
the problem with this song
is it makes it sound like this,
the language of this God of power
and might,
the God of armies,
is kind of like,
he's our homeboy.
He's just this thing right beside,
like,
it almost makes it sound like
he's our Cinderella servant.
You know,
Cinderella,
go get my shoes.
Cinderella,
go get my brush.
And it sounds as if
it's just,
we kind of can just
snap our fingers at God.
I don't know about your prayers.
When I listen to my prayers,
it can easily sound like that.
God,
I need you to,
I need you to heal me.
I'm saying,
God,
would you please help me
have a good day?
God,
would you,
would you please speak through me
as I go preach?
I'm just like,
listing off these things
I want God to do.
And it's like,
I'm saying,
the God of angel armies,
he's by my side,
he's at my bidding.
But if you look at the imagery
the Bible uses,
and it's,
go look it up,
it's such a common name for God
in the Bible.
It's again and again,
the God of armies,
the God of armies.
One of the greatest presentations
of what that means
is in the beginning
of the book of Joshua,
just before Jericho.
Joshua,
the leader of the people of Israel,
is,
he's there,
they're near Gilgal actually.
He's there and he's,
he's seeking God.
What should I do?
Jericho has big walls.
I don't know what to do.
And all of a sudden,
there's the most fierce angel
he's ever seen,
or fierce soldier he's ever seen.
Just dwarfs Joshua.
And Joshua does what
you and I would have called out,
like basically,
friend or foe.
He says,
are you for us or against us?
And the response is,
neither.
And he says,
he's the captain of the,
of the armies of the living God.
And he calls Joshua
to come be on his side.
The God of angel armies
isn't like,
isn't on our side in that sense,
but we're on his side.
And in that,
there's such comfort
and strength
and power
and life.
As we don't seek
to make the God of armies
our servant,
but rather we say,
God,
you are,
you are the God
of power and might
who transforms seasons,
who turns the darkest night
into day
and the day into night.
You,
the unchanging changer,
I'm yours.
Would you pray with me?
God,
we confess
that it's so easy for us
to enjoy church
and do all this
spiritual activity,
to sing the songs
even with passion,
to be moved
by the liturgy,
maybe even
convicted by a sermon,
but for us to just
let our seeking of you
end there,
seeking the stuff of God,
but not you yourself.
God,
for some of us,
it's our parents
who know you,
it's our friends
who know you,
it's our pastor
who knows you,
but we ourselves
don't know you.
For others of us,
we knew you,
but somewhere along the way,
you've become a memory.
You've become the God
that was there with us
in Beersheba
or Bethel
or Gilgal,
but we're not walking
with you today.
Lord,
would you help us
to hear
your voice afresh
saying,
seek me and live.
That you're not
commanding us
to do something
that we cannot do,
but that you are
in your very command
empowering us
through the gospel
to live a life
so fully alive in you.
And so God,
would you save us
from ourselves?
Would you save us
from trying to make
you our servant?
Lord,
we want to be
on your side
and we thank you
that because of
what Jesus has done
in his death
and resurrection
in real time,
real space,
that we get to seek you
and live
and live life with you
so fully alive
for your glory.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.