The Worship You Love to Give Text: Amos 4:4-5
Introduction: The Poison of Pleasing Worship
There is a kind of religion that God despises. This should be a startling thought for us, because modern evangelicals tend to think that any activity with a religious gloss on it, anything that happens inside a church building, is automatically a credit in God's ledger. We think sincerity is the standard, and that so long as our hearts are in it, God must be pleased. But the prophet Amos is a wrecking ball to this entire way of thinking. He shows us a people who are intensely religious. They are zealous. They are active. They are giving. And God is about to bring the whole house down on their heads.
The message of Amos is that it is entirely possible to be meticulous in your religious observances while being in a state of high-handed rebellion against the God you claim to worship. It is possible to love the act of worship more than you love the object of worship. Israel had fallen into a state of syncretism, a comfortable blend of Yahweh-worship and pagan practice, of religious fervor and moral rot. They had customized their religion to suit their tastes. They kept the parts they liked, the festivals, the sacrifices, the public displays of piety, and they jettisoned the parts they did not, namely, justice, righteousness, and obedience from the heart.
And so God sends Amos to them with a word of blistering, holy sarcasm. He does not say, "Stop your sinning." He says, in effect, "Go on then. Double down. You love your sin so much? You love your corrupt worship? Then by all means, have at it. Go to your holy places and pile your sins up to the heavens. See where it gets you." This is one of the most terrifying things God can say to a people. When God tells you to keep sinning, it is not because He has changed His mind about the sin. It is because He has made up His mind about the judgment.
This passage is a divine mockery of all worship that is designed to please the worshiper instead of God. It is a warning against the kind of religion that makes us feel good about ourselves without making us holy. And in our therapeutic, consumer-driven age, where churches market themselves based on the quality of the coffee and the emotional experience, this is a word we desperately need to hear.
The Text
"Enter Bethel and transgress; In Gilgal multiply transgression! Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days. And offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened, And call for freewill offerings; cause them to be heard about. For so you love to do, you sons of Israel,” Declares Lord Yahweh.
(Amos 4:4-5 LSB)
A Sarcastic Invitation to Sin (v. 4)
We begin with God's scathing invitation:
"Enter Bethel and transgress; In Gilgal multiply transgression! Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days." (Amos 4:4)
This is divine sarcasm, sharp as a razor. God is not commanding them to sin; He is ironically describing what they are already doing and daring them to continue. He says, "Go to Bethel, and transgress." Bethel means "house of God." This was the place where Jacob had his vision of the ladder to heaven, where he wrestled with God and built an altar. It was a place freighted with sacred history. But under Jeroboam, it had become a center for idolatry, one of the two homes for his golden calves. They had taken the house of God and turned it into a house of rebellion. So God says, "Go ahead. Go to the place you call God's house and sin your hearts out."
Then He adds, "In Gilgal multiply transgression!" Gilgal was another site of immense spiritual significance. It was the first place Israel camped after crossing the Jordan. It was where the reproach of Egypt was "rolled away," where they were circumcised as a covenant people, where they celebrated the first Passover in the land. It was a place of new beginnings and covenant faithfulness. And now, it was a hotbed of syncretistic worship. So God says, "Don't just sin. Multiply your sin. Go to the very place where your covenant was sealed and trample it under your feet." Getting the details right while you are in the wrong place just compounds the wickedness. The groom doesn't understand why we won't come to the wedding. "All the right words are in the vows," he says. The problem is that he is trying to marry another man.
And their religion was not lazy. It was zealous. "Bring your sacrifices every morning." The law only required this on special occasions, but they were so pious they did it daily. "Your tithes every three days." The law required tithes every three years, but they were so generous, so devoted, they brought them every three days. From the outside, this looks like revival. It looks like extreme devotion. But God sees the heart. Their meticulous, over-the-top religious activity was a smokescreen for their injustice and idolatry. They were trying to bribe God with the sheer volume of their worship. They thought they could buy Him off with punctilious ritual while their lives were a mess. But God is not impressed by the flurry of activity on the deck of a pirate ship.
Worship Your Way (v. 5)
The sarcasm continues as God details their self-styled worship.
"And offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened, And call for freewill offerings; cause them to be heard about. For so you love to do, you sons of Israel, Declares Lord Yahweh." (Amos 4:5 LSB)
Here we see the fine print of their rebellion. "Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened." This was a direct violation of the law for certain offerings. Leaven in Scripture is often a symbol of sin, of pervasive corruption. While there was a place for leavened bread in certain fellowship offerings, the point here is that they were picking and choosing. They were worshiping according to their own appetites and preferences, not according to God's clear command. Their worship was self-willed. They were doing what was right in their own eyes, which is the very definition of idolatry.
And their giving was not quiet or humble. It was for show. "Call for freewill offerings; cause them to be heard about." They wanted everyone to know how generous they were. Their piety was a performance. They published their freewill offerings, turning an act of devotion into an occasion for self-congratulation. This is precisely what Jesus condemned in the Sermon on the Mount, the man who sounds a trumpet before him when he gives to the poor. This is religion as public relations.
And then God delivers the punchline, the diagnosis of their spiritual disease. "For so you love to do, you sons of Israel." This is the heart of the matter. They were not doing this because they loved God. They were doing it because they loved doing it. They loved the feeling of being religious. They loved the emotional buzz of the festivals, the public acclaim for their generosity, the sense of self-satisfaction that came from their zealous activity. Their worship was not directed upward to God; it was directed inward, to gratify themselves. It was spiritual narcissism. And God says, "This is what you love." He sees through the whole charade. He is not the audience for their worship; their own ego is.
Conclusion: Whom Do You Love?
The warning of Amos lands in the middle of our contemporary church culture with devastating force. We have become masters of the religion that we love to do. We have tailored our worship services to be entertaining, our sermons to be therapeutic, and our churches to be non-confrontational. We measure success by the size of the crowd and the emotional response, not by the depth of repentance and the pursuit of holiness.
We are tempted to think that as long as we are busy with "church things," we are pleasing God. We can have our morning quiet times, tithe meticulously, serve on three committees, and still have hearts that are far from God, still harbor injustice, bitterness, and idolatry in our lives. We can use the very acts of worship as a way to avoid true submission to the Lordship of Christ.
The question God puts to us through Amos is this: Whom does your worship serve? Is it for Him, or is it for you? Is it done according to His Word, or according to your preferences? Does it lead to holiness, justice, and righteousness, or does it simply make you feel better about yourself while leaving your sin untouched?
God does not want the worship we love to give. He wants the worship He has commanded. He does not want the sacrifices of rebellious hands, but the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. He is not looking for religious consumers; He is looking for obedient sons. The true worship that pleases God is not found in the multiplication of our religious activities, but in the glad submission of our entire lives to His authority. That is the only worship that is not a transgression.