Seek Good and Live Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Hebrews 3:12-19; Mark 10:17-22 

Grace, mercy and peace be with you, from God, our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ, perfectly good in every way.

Today we’re going to talk about seeking God and doing good. 

There’s an old saying, be careful what you look for, because you might find it.

Adam and Eve learned that the hard way. They sought a life apart from God, and they found it, and wished they hadn’t. It brought death and misery down on them; it made their lives worse in every way. They only survived because God intervened.

The children of Israel often became dissatisfied with God, so they would go looking for different gods, with different values. And it always turned out bad for them.

Amos told to them and us, Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph. 

The house or descendants of Jacob’s son, Joseph, lived in the northern kingdom called Israel. 

The southern Kingdom was named after Jacob’s son, Judah, from which the word the English word, Jew, comes.

Amos was a prophet sent to both kingdoms. 

It was a time of great prosperity for God’s people, and with their wealth, sadly, came injustice and corruption and greed and indulgence and immorality; all kinds of corrupt and worldly ways, including the worship of idols, which glorified immoral behavior, kind of like it’s glorified in our culture today.

In this context, Amos pleads for the rulers and people to come to their senses, and return to God and His holy ways, Seek the Lord and live, Amos says, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph.

In other words, lest the Lord burn down or destroy the nation, or let it be destroyed by their enemies, the Assyrians, as, sadly, it was, because they wouldn’t repent and return to God and His ways.

As we become worldly, God calls us back to Him, warning us that worldliness will destroy us. 

And promising us that if we repent and come back to Him, He will welcome and forgive us; and make us better people for the good of all.

If we refuse, He calls us back again; and if we refuse again, again He calls us back, and over and over, until either we return to His mercy, or, finally, tragically, we’re so far gone, that we don’t even care anymore about God and godliness.

Then, with a sad and broken heart, God lets us go. And the sinful culture, combined with our sinful nature, destroy all faith and godliness in us.

Our Epistle today addresses this dilemma. 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 

If we fall from the living God, our lives are as good as over; we’re as good as dead. 

But God wants us to return to Him and live; and live for a godly purpose.

We all need a reason to live; we have to justify our existence somehow. God gives us the noble purpose of loving and serving Him and one another on earth, and in eternity.

When we refuse to believe in God, and have a good and godly purpose, then we try to substitute it with a worldly purpose: such as accumulating wealth, or exercising power, or substituting secular beliefs for spiritual beliefs, or seeking worldly pleasure and satisfaction, in place of loving and serving God and others.

This was the case with the rich young man in our Gospel; he was enthused to follow Christ, until he learned what it really meant, the changes that go with it.

Jesus knew his heart; Jesus knew what he loved more than God. So he challenged the rich young man to rid his life of what stood in the way of serving God and following Christ.

The man bragged that he had kept all the commandments since childhood, which shows that his understanding of God’s Word was pretty shallow; none of us keep  the commandments perfectly; we all sin daily.

So Jesus cut to the heart of the matter. Looking at him, Jesus loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and then, come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The young man’s substitute for serving God, was keeping his great wealth. That was his main goal in life.

In the end, any worldly substitute for following Christ and having a godly purpose and mission in life, just can’t deliver. Worldly substitutes can’t deliver the deep meaning and lasting purpose we need for our lives to have. 

We need an eternal and benevolent purpose, in order to be able to say that our lives were worth living. Only the eternal God can deliver that kind of meaning and fulfillment. 

To trust, love and serve God is that purpose. To know Christ and make Him known is that mission. 

Life with Christ in glory and joy, where we will serve and love God and each other forever, that’s our great and godly goal, our final objective, which Jesus has achieved for us. 

To seek God, and live, so that we can love Him and one another, is what we need for now, and for eternity. We need God and each other, today and always.

Which is why our Epistle tells us to, 13 Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” (in other words, as long as we live here in time on earth, and until we reach eternity in Heaven)exhort one another, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Sin can make our hearts so hard, so fast, and so subtly; it’s so sneaky as it gradually takes over our hearts, and lives, and priorities. 

So, 14 Let us exhort one another, for we have come to share in Christ, (as Christians we all bear and share His name) if indeed we hold to our original confidence (the faith we were baptized into) firm to the end. 

Or as Rev. 2:10 says, faithful unto death… when we will receive the crown of life.

In light of this, let us, Amos says, 14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; (the righteousness of Christ is your life now and is your eternal life) and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you.

Since this perfect, holy love, and lasting joy in Heaven is our future, let us, with the help of God, strive to be more that way now on earth, as Jesus calls us to be. 

Amos says, 15 Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate (that’s where court was held) it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

In the end, God was merciful to the people of Israel, and He brought them back home from exile, back to the Promised Land where Christ was born, to save them and us.

So, to the end, let us heed, take to heart, the words of Hebrews 3:15. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts...”

In this secular world with its changing values, it’s so tempting and so easy to harden your heart toward God and His holy ways; so easy to accept and assimilate, godless, selfish, loveless, immoral values, and worldly ways. 

This is how you resist: stay close to God in His Word; always remember and daily live in your Baptism; and often, in faith and repentance, receive Christ’s body and blood for your life and forgiveness; gather frequently in the fellowship of the redeemed, and be strengthened in faith for a way of life that brings goodness and love to the world, and that brings glory God.

And as you seek to serve and honor God, and to love and be good to others, His peace, which passes understanding, will guard your heart and mind, in Christ Jesus, our good and loving Lord. Amen.