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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text is the story of Amos in the Old Testament reading with references to the epistle and gospel. You may be seated.
So what do you think about this saying? Our Lord delights to call the humble to high service. Our Lord delights to call the humble to high service. Well, all of us can resonate with that statement because in our mind, in our mind it kind of connotes a rags-to-riches kind of a story or an underdog to finally win. And it is as far from that as is possible. If the Lord delights to call the humble to high service, we’ve got to define who are the humble and what is the high service. Because it’s not a rags-to-riches story and it’s not an underdog to a winning season. It’s humility that’s crucified. That’s the story.
The humble—we could probably make that a past tense, the humbled. Because God is always in the process of humbling you, is he not? And you know, as God’s child and as believers in Jesus Christ, we’re okay with being humbled. It’s just that we want it to end at a certain point. And God says, no, it’s going to go on a little longer. It’s not someone who has chosen that kind of humility. In fact, it’s the very opposite of the humility you and I would have chosen. It’s God’s version of humility. And such being humbled leaves you and me feeling in our flesh—not our spirit—very incompetent, incapable, and overwhelmed. But according to our faith, we are able to say, so be it, Lord.
It’s just that our flesh is like that one kind of kid in the classroom that always made too much noise. And the teacher was always telling him or her to be quiet. Your flesh is the same way. It does not stay quiet. It keeps saying to you, how can this be true? Why would you want to be humbled by God in such a manner? What about the concept of high service?
See, we kind of are willing to deal with the humble part, but the high service is the part that we go, there’s our victory. There’s our glory. That’s what it looks like, though, does it not? High service is not what the rest of the world says is high service. When they think of high service, the rest of the world is talking about things that are glory-filled, that attract great attention, that wow and woo so many people. Though that may attract attention, it does not wow and woo many people. It offends most.
So, according to your flesh… You and I would love to choose our versions of high service. Absolutely. What pastor would not want to be the church that can’t keep its pews big enough? That would be the high service that every pastor would want to choose. What teacher would not want to be in the classroom where all the kids go, you’re the bomb diggity, I’m getting everything I could ever learn from you? What parent would want to have their child say to you, there’s no other better mom and dad than you, when they’re teenagers? That’s the high service you and I would pick. It’s not the high service that God has called you to. That’s what it looks like.
It’s not gratifying to your flesh. It’s not gratifying to your pride. In fact, it’s very humiliating. It’s very mundane. And it even tempts your flesh to say to your spirit, this is ineffective and futile. Stop! Count your losses and call it good.
So here are a few examples of what high service looks like, that he’s calling you and I, who have been humbled, to love those who are grumpy. There are some people out there that just remain grumpy, and you try to love them, and you try to be kind to them, and you try to encourage them, and they are negative Nellie and are grumpy. It seems as if your efforts are futile and ineffective, but that is high service to which you have been called.
Another example of high service is forgiving people without the feeling of forgiveness going along with it. It is not a problem in this world to forgive someone when you feel forgiveness. It is a faith action to forgive someone when you don’t feel it. And yet that’s the high service to which you’ve been called.
We love the story of the prodigal son because there is a reconciliation that we see between the father and the prodigal son. You surely have lived enough life to know that it is not always that way in this life. That many people go to their grave with unresolved reconciliation issues, either on their side or the other side of the fence. And the high service to which you and I have been called is, in spite of whether we have it or not, we forgive because God has forgiven us.
It’s visiting shut-ins when they don’t even remember you’ve been in their room. When they call you their dad or their mom or their son or their daughter or their brother or their sister. You can think, is this doing anybody any good? That’s high service. High service is not, oh, you’re so wonderful for coming to visit me every day. No. Pagans do that. You’re not a pagan. You’re a child of God. And the high service to which God’s children have been called is everything that we do not define as high service according to our flesh.
Enter Amos the prophet. Amos was a happy shepherd and fig farmer. Amos must have been good enough at being a shepherd and fig farmer to have put food on his table. Amos did not seek to be a prophet. Amos did not seek to be a prophet. Amos did not want to be thrown into conflicting things.
And when you think about a shepherd, do shepherds interact with other human beings very often? No. You’ve got to be a pretty good loner. And now God is calling Amos, who is a loner, to be interacting with people, which must have drained him to his emotional core. Oh, and by the way, the people whom Amos is to preach are people who have been told by the religious leader, Amos is a crock. Don’t listen to him! Because Amos is talking about this nation being deported to Babylon for 70 years. That doesn’t print well in the papers.
And yet you heard the text. He’s called from being a fig farmer and a shepherd to proclaiming what God has given him to proclaim to people who do not appreciate him. That’s the Lord delighting to call the humble to high service. Amos didn’t pick that high service. Amos didn’t ask for that kind of being humbled, and yet Amos got it. That’s like us.
The temptation for you and me, like it would be tempting for Amos, is to change God’s calling. You know, God, this is what you’ve called me to do, but I don’t really like it. Let’s veer to the right or veer to the left, but let’s try to find another path that would be more fulfilling to my emotions or to my person rather than to your glory. And if Jesus did that, that wouldn’t be at the front of our church. He didn’t turn to the left or the right. He humbled himself for the high service of dying for people that not everybody does believe in him.
For every soul in hell that spends eternity there has had their sins paid for, full and free. Then you think about John the Baptist. Good grief. He himself was a loner out in the wilderness until God said it’s time to go proclaim. And then when he goes to proclaim, he does get a pretty good following. That’s exciting. But then the very people who should have been saying, listen to John, he’s telling you about the Messiah, were the ones condemning John. And then when he’s trying to be faithful to the concept of what marriage is and how sins should not be openly condoned, he’s thrown in prison to have his neck severed from him because of his faithfulness.
When he could have just gone, you know, if I stay quiet about this, I can do God’s work in the background kind of covertly. God didn’t call him to do covert work. God called him to do very public work. That’s the high service that God sometimes calls us to do. He’s called you to the high service of being a husband or a wife. You have to put up sometimes with someone who doesn’t do things the way you like to do things, doesn’t pick up the way you like to have things picked up, doesn’t see things in an optimistic way but a negative and fatalistic way. That’s the high service to which sometimes God has called you.
It’s not always glory-filled, and you don’t always get appreciated for every single act. But God changes that, doesn’t He? Sometimes takes that away from you. And your wife or husband dies. You’re released from that high service. But that doesn’t mean that you’re done. He calls you to another high service. Son or daughter, brother or sister. He even uses people who think that they have screwed up so badly they can’t be used. He chooses to use single people who never choose to get married. He chooses to use divorced people. He chooses to use people who have remarried. He chooses to use people who are struggling with addiction. He chooses to use people with mental problems and struggles. He chooses to use everybody that he calls as his child because they are his child.
And it’s nothing within you that makes you worthy to be called his child. And it’s not as if you’re standing in the front of the class with your arm being raised, choose me, choose me, because the high service to which he has called you is very humbling. But it is what God has chosen for each of you.
Enter St. Paul with his phenomenally encouraging and affirming statements in his epistle reading. How do you know He has called you to do this thing that is not seen by the world as high service and yet is God’s high service? Because Paul says He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Before you ever had the ability to make those right decisions of which you are very proud, and before you were ever able to make those decisions of which you are not proud but ashamed, He chose you.
Before you failed to do the things that God laid in your lap to do, or before you did the things that you thought were what He wanted you to do, He chose you. It’s not about you; it’s about Him. Paul goes on. He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. When you’re given children, you don’t get to pick. You’re given children. And because you’re a sinner and your spouse is a sinner, you get sinners. Great gobs of fun.
God knows everything about you. And He still chose you for adoption as His child. He knows everything that you’re going to do and fail to do. And He still says, I want you as my child. And that’s your baptism. He sealed the deal. You’re adopted. That’s why we confess, I believe in one baptism for the remission of sins, because I only need to be born to Him once, because it’s final.
And then the last one that he says, says it all. Paul says, he has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. That says that you are not walking around with empty pockets. You’ve been filled with everything you need for the high service to which God has called you. That high service that brings lots more humbling than you ever want. He has given you all that you need spiritually to do those things that God has given you to do.
He didn’t say to Amos, go out there and walk, you who are a paraplegic. He gave Amos the ability to walk. Now Amos, as he’s walking and proclaiming, he’s still thinking to himself, according to his flesh, I don’t have this. I never was trained as this. How could I ever do this? Same thing you as a parent and you as a husband or wife. No one gives you an instruction manual for your spouse. No one gave you an instruction manual for your child. No one gave your parents an instruction manual for you. You fumble along, right? That’s the high service.
It doesn’t look clean like rags to riches, underdog to the winning season. It looks like that. But by faith you know that’s not the final statement. And so by faith you know that the humbling service to which he has called you is not the final statement. You shall be glorified, but not in this world and not in this life, just as Christ was not glorified in this world and in this life, but after he rose from the dead.
Avert your eyes to seek results from your service in Christ. Be useful to Him by turning your eyes away and looking at what doesn’t look like worth, value, or victory. Because there is worth, value, and victory right there. His love for you makes you worthy. His victory for you makes you victorious. But it’s not seen in this world yet.
This is what it means to be called to the high service of God as one whom He has humbled. You’re His Amos. You’re to be used by Him in proclaiming to those people that God has placed in your life for the time they are in your life, and then you will proclaim to other people that have been placed in your life when you move and when you interact with someone else or when you’re grieving over that one being taken from you. You are His chosen vessel, warts and all. Because He chose you in Christ.
In the name of Jesus. Amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
