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A part of the chapter I wanted to focus on is there, look at verse 12, where the Bible read, All's lamb of Ziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there. But prophesy not again anymore at Bethel, for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered Amos, and said to Amos Ziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. And the title of my sermon tonight is From Pasture to Prophet. From Pasture to Prophet. We see a really profound thing here that Amos was just a herdman. He wasn't anything special. He wasn't something really great, but then he used this big word for God. He even has a whole book of the Bible dedicated from the words that God gave to him to preach. Why? Well, we're going to get some, there are four reasons I have tonight of how Amos went from the pastor to being a prophet. Now the point of this sermon is a lot of people today, they kind of have a poor outlook on their life. They see, well, there's seven billion people in this world. There's all these different people. I'm nobody. I can't be anybody. There's nothing special about me. What am I going to do with my life? But the Bible makes it clear that you have unlimited potential. Every single person in this room, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, there is no limitations with God. If you give yourself holy to the Lord God, his word, to following what he teaches you, you have unlimited potential. You can go from any destination that you're in now to going to be a full prophet of God, to be doing big works for God. Look at verse 16, we see this big work that Amos is doing, one of the things he's preaching. In verse 16 it says, Now therefore, hear thou the word of the Lord, thou sayest, prophesied not against Israel, and dropped not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, thy wife shall be in harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. So we see Amos preaches a really negative message, but he preaches with a lot of power. He says, look, because you're telling me to flee, because you're telling me to go, this is what the Lord has for you. Your wife's going to be a harlot. Your wife's going to be lying with all kinds of people. Your sons and your daughters are going to die by the sword. I mean this guy has to have a lot of boldness. He has to have a lot of faith in the Lord to just stand right in the face of the king and the king's prophet, the king's priest, and just be preaching right against them right to their face. I mean imagine Donald Trump's like highest priest. I don't know who that is. I mean Robert Jeffers or there was a Rodney Howard Brown or something like that. He was praying for the president recently. There was a bunch of pictures of him, this charismatic guy, this holy roller, this guy that's famous for doing holy laughter. I mean just some weird freak show is in the oval office praying for the president Trump. And imagine a guy standing in there just preaching hardcore against Donald Trump and his prophet, just getting in his face saying, look, you're an adulterer, you're wicked, you're doing all this evil stuff in our country. I mean this is what this Amos guy's doing. Now that's not just your average Joe. That's not just some run of the mill dude. No, this guy was used in a big way by God because he just trusted in the Lord. He just did what God had him do. And we have four reasons I think from this passage that we can see how did Amos go from being in the pastor to being a prophet. Look at verse 14, look there kind of the middle, he says, I was no prophet. I think my first point tonight is Amos was humble. Amos had a lot of humility. He said, you know, he's trying to tell him to go back to Judah because that's where all the prophets and the priests are. And he's like, look, I'm not going to go back there. I wasn't a prophet. I'm not, I'm not someone great. I'm not someone of high importance. I'm just a hurdle, right? Look at, go to Deuteronomy chapter eight, if you would. Deuteronomy chapter eight. The Bible says in Psalms 19, seven, it says the law of the Lord is perfect. Converting the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The Bible promises that through the laws of God, you can be a very wise person. You can be the wisest person on this planet. If you give yourself to the Lord's laws, if you give yourself to the Bible, if you study his word, he'll make you wise. You say, well, I didn't do that good in school. I, you know, my parents aren't that sharp. You know, some people say I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. Look, if you give yourself holy to this Bible, you can be the wisest person on this planet. I believe that with all my heart, you say, I want to be smart. I want to be wise. Just give yourself to the law. Give yourself to God's word. Study his word and you become the wisest person on this planet. So let's get some of the law. Let's get some of what the Bible teaches us. I'm going to read kind of a longer passage here. Let's look at Deuteronomy eight. Let's start in verse 11. It says, beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God and keeping his commandments and his judgments and his statutes, which I command thee this day. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full and has built goodly houses and dwelt therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up. And now forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, sounds like Arizona, where there is no water, who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end. And thou say in thine heart, my power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he swere unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if thou do at all, forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them and worship them. I testify against you this day, that you shall surely perish. And I read kind of a longer passage here, but there's a lot of good stuff. And I think it'll help us understand why we should be humble. But we see, we could forget the Lord if we're not keeping his commandments. If we just forsake his word, we're not gonna be following his word. Nobody just accidentally follows God's commandments. No, you got a purpose in your heart. You gotta be reading his word. You gotta be putting forth effort if you wanna follow God's commandments. It's definitely work. Now, of course, that has nothing to do with being saved, but if you want God to be pleased with you, if you wanna have great rewards in heaven, you gotta work at it. You gotta decide, hey, I'm gonna force myself to read the Bible. Hey, I'm gonna make myself, you know, go to church. I'm gonna read God's word. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna sing songs of the Lord, even when you don't want to. Because let's be honest, sometimes in the Christian life, you just don't want to. Sometimes the flesh is just getting the better of you. Maybe you're tired, maybe you're weak. The spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak. But we have to have the resolve, we have to have the character to just force ourselves to continue in God's word. Why? So we won't forget him. So we won't forget the Lord. Look at verse 14. It says, then thine heart be lifted up. Whenever things are going well for you, whenever you have a lot of blessings, whenever you already start out with a lot of prosperity, the Bible makes it clear you have a tendency to think really highly of yourself. To kind of say, well, do I really need to read the Bible as much right now? Do I really need God? Do I really need to pray right now? I mean, everything's going well. I've got a good job, I've got a lot of money, I'm eating really well. Do I really need to be praying as much? Do I really need to get on my knees and pray? Do I really need to be reading my Bible as much? My kids seem really good right now. Do I really need to be reading them the Bible? Do I need to be teaching my children the Bible? Yes, you do. And the Bible makes it clear, look, God uses the humble because a lot of times their attitude and their perspective is different. The people that have things going well for them and everything's great, and they have it all handed to them, they don't want to seek the Lord. They don't want to follow His commandments. They don't want a purpose in their heart. Hey, I've got to read His word. Hey, I need God every single day. The person that's trusting in the Lord, not just for salvation, but for everything, for daily bread, to not be led into temptation, to be successful in all that He does, He's gonna be more likely to get on his knees and pray, to read His Bible. God wants to use those that are humble because their hearts are right towards Him. And then we look at verse 16. He said, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers do not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee to do thee good at thy latter end. The children of Israel, they weren't eating filet mignon every single meal. They weren't eating some great meal. You say, well, you know, we don't eat really fancy all the time. Look, God could use that to humble you, to make you see, hey, I need the Lord. I'm not some great person. I'm not gonna lift up my heart. And look at the end of that verse. He said to do thee good at thy latter end. Sometimes we don't understand that the struggles or the trials or the temptations or being without or not having the blessed things are actually God trying to do good unto us, to help build us to have the right character, to have the right heart. As I think about this in my own life, there's been times where me and my wife, we made a lot more money than other times, maybe even more than double. I mean, at one point, me and my wife were both working and we were making a lot of money and we could go out to eat all the time. We could go shopping. We could buy all kinds of stuff. We could travel whenever we wanted. I mean, we could virtually do whatever we wanted within reason. I mean, we were like rich, but we were definitely well off and we could buy a lot of things. And then at the point where we had our first kid, you know, my wife wasn't gonna work anymore. So now our income was cut in half, even more than half because my wife always made more than me. You know, so now we're looking even less and we have way more expenses. And it was a radical change in our lifestyle as far as like what our mentality was. No more travel, no more just going, eating out, you know, at the steak dinner, whatever we want. Things were different. But I can say this, our lives were so much happier in that time when we made less money than we were making all the extra. When we could go out to eat all the time, because why? Because now we were spending more time with each other. Now we were spending more time one-on-one. We were trying to find different things to do. We were interacting. And it was a blessing that we got to have that time and we got to realize the perspective of having more money doesn't make things better. You know, a lot of times we would just go and we'd go shopping and maybe we wouldn't even have a good time. But now we can't do that. So we're just stuck home. We play games and we talk and we go do stuff together. And that was way more enjoyable than just going out and spending money and fighting about money and having all these problems. When you don't have money, you can't fight about it as much in some ways. Now look, obviously as a husband, you need to be able to provide. Your eyes can get pretty angry if you can't even put food on the table, if you can't even buy clothes. But we don't have the extra spending cash to just go out and do whatever you want. Well, you're just kind of forced to just stick it out together, you know, have a good time. And that can be a blessing. And sometimes, you know, the modern evangelical churches, they want to teach that God's constantly wanting to give you the extra raise. God's wanting to give you an extra buck in your pocket. He's wanting you to just have something more and more and more. I think a lot of times God wants you to have less. Why? So that your heart can be right towards him. So that you can appreciate the things of God. So you say, hey, instead of taking this vacation, hey, we can go on this soul winning trip. Hey, instead of going out to eat the dinner, let's make sure we go to church every single time. Hey, let's go more soul winning. Let's do more Bible reading. Let's just sit down and read the Bible together as opposed to going out and, you know, spending money and wasting all of our time and just doing vain things because we have the money to do it. We see that you don't need money to read the Bible. You don't need money to sing songs in the Lord. You don't need money to go to church. But God's not going to give you all these extra blessings as, you know, the modern evangelicals will do because he wants you to have a right heart towards him. And we see that Amos, he came, he was like, I'm not a prophet. There was nothing special about me. I'm not some high value. I'm not some guy that was already, you know, had it all together. He was very humble about his beginnings. Go to First Peter chapter five, if you will. First Peter chapter five. I'll read for you a few other verses. It says in Proverbs chapter 16, better is it to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoiled with the proud. The Bible says, look, it's better to just be humble and with other humble people than to have a lot of money and be around a lot of proud people. It says in Philippians two, verse eight, and he being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Jesus Christ humbled himself. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings, the only potentate, the Lord of Lords. And guess what? He became a man. He became just a lowly servant. Just, he really humbled himself and took away a lot of the blessings, a lot of the glory of being God in heaven. A lot of these things, he became this man. And we see that that was a blessing for us. Why? Because he humbled himself. We can humble ourselves and it can be a blessing to ourselves and others. In James chapter four, verse 10, the Bible says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. You say, I wanna be somebody really great one day. I wanna do a big work for God. But you gotta humble yourself first. You gotta decide, hey, I'm just gonna be a humble person. I'm not gonna think more highly of myself than I ought to think and God will exalt me in due time. Look at first Peter chapter five, verse five. Or chapter five, verse five. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility for God resists the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he careth for you. Go to first Corinthians chapter one, if you will. So you see again, God's saying, look, he's gonna resist the proud of heart. The person that, well, I'm a prophet. We see that God wasn't using the prophet in Amos. He wasn't using Amaziah to preach that message. He was using somebody that was humble, some guy that was gonna preach his word faithfully. The prophet, he was too proud in his heart. He was never gonna preach that negative message to the king. He was never gonna preach the negative message to Israel. Joel Osteen's never gonna get up and preach that USA Babylon or preach against the president or preach against the governor. In Houston, where Joel Osteen is, the mayor there is a lesbian. He's not gonna preach against her. He, in fact, is the one that brought her into the office, that prayed for her to come into the office. Some died. That's not the guy that God's gonna use. God resisted that guy. He's proud because he doesn't like God's word. He just wants to go with the flow. He just wants to live on easy street. We see that Amos, he was humble enough. He said, look, because you preached against me, this is what God said. He said, look, your wife's gonna be a harlot. Your kids are gonna die. You have to be really humble to preach that kind of a message to that kind of a person. It's not a proud person that can preach that type of a message. The Bible says in Philippians 2, additionally, in verse three, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. True humility is when you value other people's lives more than your own. When you look at the other people and you say, this person is more important to be successful than me. You know, a lot of times I go out soul winning and when I'm looking at people, I mean, I honestly look at them and I think, you could do big works for God if you got on fire for God. If this guy got in church and this guy started reading the Bible and this guy just sold out for God, he could do big works for God. It's more important for someone like that to get in and change their life than for me to just go and knock the next door or something, you know, insignificant for me. I need to look, it's more important for me to spend time with this guy than for me to just go out fishing or just go out and enjoy my own life. Look, it's not about me. It's not about how many people I can get saved. I need to try and get, you know, other people on fire for God because I can't get 7 billion people saved. If I just say, well, I'm just gonna go and soul win 24 hours a day, I can't get half as many people as I could if I could turn other people on to Lord Jesus Christ, if I could get other people saved that wanna become soul winners, if I could influence other people who live for God, if I could get other people in church to go out soul winning more, you can do a lot more through other people than you can do through yourself. But the, you know, the proud person doesn't think that. The proud person is just thinking, what can I do for me? Look how great I am. Look how big a church I can get. Look how, you know, look at all the things I can get instead of what can I do for others? How can we spread the gospel? How can we reach the most people, you know, from a grand scheme, not just from how many people can I get saved today? Look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 24. It says, but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Look at verse 28. And the base things of the world and the things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto his wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that gloriest, let him glory in the Lord. Now you gotta get God's perspective here. God wants people to go out and preach the gospel. God wants to be mighty on the behalf of some man. But when God's trying to find a vessel, when he's trying to find the person that he wants to use the most, he's not looking for the guy that's already really strong, that already has a really good speech, that's real elegant, that's really well liked. He's looking for the humble guy. He's looking for the weak guy. He's looking for the guy, what's gonna give me the most honor and glory? Well, nobody thinks this guy can do anything, but you know what? He's gonna sell out for God. He's gonna put all his trust in me. And by his power, I'm gonna do mighty things for him. You say, well, I don't have a great tongue. I can't preach really well. I didn't come from some great lineage. I'm not some great person. I'm not real strong. People don't like me that much. Look, it doesn't matter. You're probably more likely to use me by God. He said, look, not many mighty after the flesh. He said that he's chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that you're mighty and the base things of the world. Look, he's just looking for some humble servant to get on fire for God. And he wants to use them greatly for God. You say, well, I'm not someone special. I'm not the smartest guy. Look, if you get the law in your heart, if you study God's word, you can become the wisest person. And if you decide to just be humble and lift others up and do time, God will lift you up. And you can do big works for God. You think Amos was sitting out there in the field thinking, man, I'm gonna be the greatest guy ever being out in this field. No, he's very humble. He's just doing his job. He's just being probably a faithful servant unto God. I mean, he's probably reading this Bible. He's probably praying. I don't think this guy was just a random unsaved person just walking through the field and God's like, tractor beam, you're gonna be a great prophet. No, this guy was probably, obviously he's already very humble. He was always doing the things of the Lord. The Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please him. He's not gonna pick somebody that has no faith. Go to Judges chapter six. So we see humility is very important. I think we can see this through the Bible in a lot of different ways. In Amos' life, it doesn't necessarily highlight his humility, but I think in that one statement, we can draw some conclusions that he's a pretty humble person. He's saying, look, I'm not a prophet. I wasn't somebody already great. There wasn't something really special about me. And the second thing he said in verse 14 was, neither was I a prophet's son. So the first point I had is that he was humble. The second point I had, I'm kind of making up a word here, he was heritage-less. So he didn't have some great heritage. He wasn't of some great lineage. He wasn't of some nobility. He wouldn't have like a great, he wasn't from a prophet. His father wasn't a prophet. His grandfather probably wasn't a prophet. He wasn't coming from this long line of prophets. He wasn't coming from a long line of pastors. Maybe not even saved people. We don't even know. He could have been the first generation Christian in his family after a while. But we see he was used big by God because you don't have to have this family lineage. You don't have to come from a big line of prophets to be used by God. You can just get on fire for God and be used greatly. Did you go to Judges six, say what your term. Go to verse 11 there. We see another guy who has a similar story. Says, and there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak, which was an ofra that pertained in a Joash, the Abazerite, and his son, Gideon, threshed wheat by the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him, the Lord is with thee. Thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles, which our father told us, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him and said, go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor and menassy, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said unto him, surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. So we see the great man of Gideon. And Gideon was a man who defeated many of the Lord's enemies and was used greatly by God. But we see a very key statement here in verse 15. He says, behold, my family is poor and menassy, and I am the least in my father's house. This guy was not of some great lineage. He was not, you know, menacity is not one of the tribes that most people think of right off the bat. I mean, they think of Judah, they think of Levi, maybe Benjamin. I mean, menacity is not one of the just big tribes that everybody just thinks of. He wasn't from some great lineage. He wasn't from some great heritage. No, he was one of the poorest. And he was even the least in his own house, even of his own brethren. This guy is just the run of the family. This guy's the weakling. This guy is not the quarterback on the football team. This guy's not, you know, getting the straight A's. Mom and dad don't think he's the greatest. He's the least in the family. Nobody really likes him. But guess what? He was used great by God. And what did the Lord say to him? Look at verse 12. And the angel of the Lord appeared on him and said to him, the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. Gideon had a lot of valor though. And you know, valor is one of those things that you control. You can't control. Can you really control who your parents are? Can you control what your flesh is like? I mean, how tall you're gonna be? Can you change the hair of your head, the color of your hair? Can you change, you know, even one height, one cubit of your height? Can you change anything about your physical appearance really? No, you're just born a certain way. And we see that Gideon could still be a mighty man of valor, why? Because that's a personal choice. That's a personal choice. Do you wanna be a man of valor, one that's always doing right, one that fears God and eschews evil, that does good things? Then God can look at you and say, I'm gonna use this guy. I'm gonna use this guy because he's humble, because he's a mighty man of valor. I don't care that he's poor, I'm rich. I don't care that he's weak, I'm strong. We see the importance is that he's sold out for God. It doesn't matter what family you come from. Look at, let's look at verse 12. Go to chapter seven and look at verse 12. It says, and the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers or multitude, and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for a multitude. So there was this great host against the children of Israel. And it says, look, just the camels were without number. I mean, that's a lot of camels. I mean, this is a big host against the children of Israel. Look at verse 18, skip down. This is talking about Gideon. He says, when I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow you the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and say, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So Gideon and the 300 that were with him came onto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch. And they had but newly set the watch and they blew the trumpets and break the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets and break the pitchers and held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands to blow with all. And they cried, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. We see, he was a great man who was in the Bible as having the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He's likened under the sword as unlikened of the Lord and of Gideon. What a great man of valor. What a man used big by God. And see, he was just this poor guy and then he does a big work for God. We see immediately he does a big work for God. Why? Because he didn't come from some great family. He didn't come from some great lineage. Is that why he was used? Is that why he was special? You say, I'm not special. I don't, you know, my parents aren't anything special. I wasn't born in anything special. I'm not some great king. You can still be used big by God if you sell yourself for God, if you put all your trust in the Lord, if you decide I'm gonna follow his works. We see the whole host was defeated. We see people like Joshua. He was called the son of none. And I like that, you know, he didn't come from some great lineage. He was the son of none. It's just kind of a play on words. I mean, these guys that are used by God are not from some great lineage. They're not from some great heritage. They're not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. No, they're humble lowly men. You say, hey, that sounds like me. You can be used greatly by God. You can do big things for God. God can say, hey, this guy's a mighty mountain ballad. Hey, this guy has a lot of humility. I can use him. Go to first Samuel 15 if you will. We see another guy that was the same way. I'll read for you in first Samuel nine. And Samuel answered Saul and said, I am the seer, go up before me into the high place. For you shall eat with me today, and tomorrow I will let thee go. And I will tell thee all that is in thine heart. And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set not thine mind on them. For they are found, and on whom is all the desire of Israel? Is not it on thee, and on thy father's house? And Saul answered and said, and not I a Benjamite, and of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Wherefore then speakest thou so to me? We see even Saul. He said, look, I'm with a tribe of Benjamin, the smallest tribe of all the land. And my family, I mean, we're the least of all the families. I mean, we're the least of the least of the least. Why are you talking to me? Look, God's not looking as eyes of a man. God doesn't look after the flesh like we do. He's looking into the heart. He's looking, hey, are you a guy that's humble in your heart? Are you a guy that's got a lot of valor in your heart? God's looking at that guy. This guy I can use greatly. I can use this man. I don't look at how many pushups you can do. I don't look at how much money you got in the bank. I don't look at how your parents were and their grandparents were. No, I'm looking at your heart. Is your heart right towards me? Look at 1 Samuel 15, where I turn to verse 16. It says, then Samuel said unto Saul, stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said unto him, stay on. And Samuel said, when thou was little in thine own sight, was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. So he said, why did he use Saul? Because he was little in his own sight. Because he was humble. Because he didn't think, well, I came from this great lineage. I came from this great family. I'm some great person. No, he was little in his own sight. And that's why God chose him. God chose the guy that was humble. He even said, in God's opinion, when he was talking about Saul, he said he was a choice young man and a goodly. There was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. Again, so the attributes of God's looking for, he's looking for someone for valor. He's looking for someone that's a good person. Those are things that you control. You control if you're a good person or not. If you're humble. God's looking at you and he's saying, are you a humble person? Do you have a good heart? Are you a man of valor? Are you standing for truth? Are you standing for righteousness? Are you doing the things of God? God's gonna use you. But we see it's not about, well, this guy's from a great family. This guy's really strong. This guy's really special. And he uses people of all sizes and shapes. I mean, Saul was a tall person. David was a really small person. We see that there are people, he's considered ruddy according to the Bible. God doesn't care about the physical appearance. He cares about what your heart's like. Go to 1 Samuel 16 now, the one in the chapters. We see even David. He went from the pastor to the prophet. And we see a lot of these guys, they go straight from the pastor to doing big works for God. They don't go, they're not just eased into it. A lot of times they go straight from the pastor to doing a big work for God. Look at 1 Samuel 16 verse 17. It says, and Saul said to the servants, provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants and said, behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite that is cunning and playing and a mighty valiant man and a man of war and prudent in matters and a calmly person and the Lord is with him. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and said, send me David thy son, which is with the sheep. Now I think this is a really important thing to understand here. My third point comes from verse 14 again, back in Amos where he said, I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. So he said, look, he was not a prophet. His father's not a prophet. He's just a herdman. And you say, well, I don't have some glorious job. I don't have some occupation where I do this really, amazing work. I'm not somebody that's of high value, of high importance. I just kind of do a menial task, right? Just do kind of blue collar work or I just do something that's not looked in society as being the most glamorous job. I mean, being a herdman was never a glamorous job in Bible. They didn't look at this as like, oh, these are the greatest guys. These are the smartest guys. These are somebody that's really special. Even the Egyptians, they thought the shepherds were an abomination. But we see David, even though he had a humble job, even though David was a humble person, he could still do a lot of great things in that job and in his life. Look at this description of him. He was cutting and playing. Look, you can play musical instrument no matter what your job is. You can praise God. God, one of the most common commands in the Bible is to praise the Lord. And who do you think God used to do that? David. David wrote almost all the songs and is constantly talking about praising him and God used him mighty, why? Because I think he was constantly thinking about praising the Lord. He was cutting and playing. He must have been practicing. He must have been playing all the time. Says he was a mighty valiant man, meaning what? He was a man of valor again, right? We see this guy standing for truth. This isn't the guy that's gonna compromise. This isn't the guy that's, well, in certain situations I might lie or in certain situations I might disregard God's commandments or I'm gonna just forget God's commandments. No, he had a lot of valor. He was a man of war. I mean, this guy knew how to fight. This guy, you know, he took everything serious. He was prudent in matters, a calmly person. And the Lord is with him. Even in your humble job, you can be a godly man. You can be a person or a godly woman in the home or a godly child. We see that it's not necessarily important what position you're in. You don't have to be the president of the United States to think that your job's important, to think that you as a person are important. And God makes it clear, look, if you're following his word, if you're constantly reading God's word and you're singing praises unto him and you're following his commandments and you're going out and you're being humble and you're preaching the gospel and doing those things, eventually God's gonna use you in a big way. God's gonna say, hey, I'm gonna exalt this guy in your time, because he's following all my commandments. He's humble in his heart. He's a valiant man. God's gonna find you. You might be hiding in the field like David and someone's gonna come and grab you and say, let's use this guy. And I promise you, anybody that paid for a Baptist church, anybody that's going to a church that's following God's commandments, that is zealous after God, that's reading his Bible, that's humble in his heart, that's esteeming others better than themselves, God's gonna exalt you. It's inevitable. You're gonna be lifted up. You say, I wanna do a big work for God. Then you gotta decide to be humble. You gotta go out and work in the field. You gotta be the herdman first though. A lot of these guys didn't start out with a great work. They weren't already exalted. They weren't of high esteem. And being in the herdman, it's probably pretty lonely. How many times you got soul winning, maybe by yourself or with just somebody and you're just kind of knocking the doors and it just seems kind of worthless. It just kind of seems like maybe this isn't that beneficial. It just seems really vain. It just seems like you're just out there by yourself. Galat sees what you're doing. God saw David in the field. God saw that he was a man of war. That he was valiant. That he was a good person. That he was praising the Lord, his cunning and playing. God sees what you're doing. And if you're building that character, God's gonna say, I'm gonna use this guy. This guy, no matter what's happening, no matter what the situation is, no matter how much it seems menial or insignificant, he takes it seriously. He takes the things of God seriously. Go to Matthew chapter five, if you will. We need to be good stewards of what we have today because if we're a good steward of the little things or the small things that God gives us, God will eventually give us great things to use. I'll read for you some parables in the New Testament. It says in Matthew 25, verse 23, as the Lord said on him, well done, good and faithful servant. Thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Luke 19, verse 17, it says, and he said on him, well, thou good servant, because thou has been faithful in very little, have thou authority over 10 cities. It says in Matthew 25, 21, his Lord said unto them, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. I already read that, but it's so clear that when God gives you just something small, he's testing you. When you might think, well, I'm just in the herd. I'm just tending to the sheep. There's nothing special about that. There's nothing significant about that. God's watching. He's looking at your heart. He's looking at how your actions are. Are you constantly reading your Bible? Are you constantly singing praises unto him? Are you constantly doing the things that are right? God's gonna use you in a big way. And we see that David went from the herd straight to doing what? And for a second time, we won't read it. He goes and kills Goliath, some great giant. He comes straight from the field to kill and slay this great giant right off the bat. You never know when God's gonna bring this opportunity into you, and you're gonna have an opportunity to just lay a giant. What if David wasn't ready? What if David hadn't been preparing himself in the field? What if David hadn't been a mighty man of valor? What if he hadn't been a man of war? What if he hadn't been, what if it said the Lord was with him? Would he have defeated the giant if the Lord wasn't with him? Do you think he, no. I mean, this was obviously a mismatch. This is obviously something that was gonna go horribly wrong. You think Amos could go into the king and preach such a hard message to the king if the Lord wasn't with him? No, he needed the Lord with him. And we should pretend, we should just realize that everything I'm doing is matter. And at any moment, at any point in time, God could open a huge door. I could have an opportunity to go preach to thousands, to go preach to anybody, to go preach to just one person and that person would be the next apostle Paul. Just think about that. You say, well, I'm just a lady. What can I do? You could win the next apostle Paul to Jesus Christ. Think about that. Can you imagine going to the door and winning somebody to Christ and they go out and they win multitudes and nations and turn the world upside down because you preached them the gospel? But God can use anybody. He could use a child to do that. He could use any person on this planet to do a big work for God. And we need every single person to realize it's important. I mean, look at that map. There's just like no orange. Someone's gotta knock those doors. Someone's gotta go out there and be with the sheep. Just be with all the sheep and the pastor and realize, hey, what you're doing is important. Hey, what you're doing God sees and he says, hey, this guy's faithful with little. I'm gonna give him much to rule over. I'm gonna give him a big work to do. I'm gonna use this guy in a big way because look how big he is with just the little that he gives. With just every little thing he has, he's so serious, he's so sober, he's a mighty man of valor. Valor, look, he's always gonna do the right thing. He's always gonna take it seriously. He's always gonna look at the next person at the door and think you could be the next apostle Paul. You could be the next greatest person. It's so important for me to preach you the Bible, to get you saved, to encourage you to come to church, to try and pour in your life and say, look, this is the most important thing in the world. Please let me show it to you. Compel them to come into the house of God to change their life. I think everybody in this church virtually admits this is one of the best things ever happened to them coming to faith or Baptist church, learning the Bible, being taught how to live a godly, righteous life. We need to see how important that is and share that with other people. Share our zeal for the Lord. Hey, do you wanna go to heaven? Hey, can I show you? It's really hot out here, man. Oh, I mean, look, what we're doing's important. It's not just a game here. We're not just playing some game. Look, he took a lot of serious effort with the sheep. David wasn't just messing around. He killed the lion, he killed the bear just for one sheep. He wasn't gonna let any of them go by the wayside. He cared for all of them. And that's why I think God used them as a great work. We have so many people like that in the Bible. Joseph, Joseph, his life wasn't great. He wasn't having all the good things happen to him. But even though things got worse and worse and worse for Joseph, he continued to be faithful, faithful, faithful. And he went straight from prison to being the second ruler in the entire land. And we see Egypt becomes this great mighty nation because all the other nations have to come into them and buy corn. We see Joseph went straight from prison to being the second ruler in all the world. I mean, talk about it, it's a change overnight. We see the shepherds came to Christ's birth. Who got to see that Jesus Christ born right after he was in the manger? Shepherds did. We see that Christ chose who? The rich nobles, the really famous people to be disciples? He chose fishermen. He chose just the lowly blue collar worker. He chose the guys, though, that were faithful, that were valiant, that were gonna, you know, follow Christ to the end. We see Paul, he was a tent maker. I mean, talk about a good profession. I mean, this guy is not making the big bucks. He's a tent maker. But we see, he was probably used the greatest of anybody in the Bible. He said he labored more abundantly than they all. Your job doesn't matter. Your job doesn't matter as far as limiting you as being used by God. We should take everything, you know, as is important. I'm not saying that your job is not important. You should take it seriously. But it doesn't matter what job you have. You can do big things for God. And we should take our job very seriously. We should do everything with all our might unto the Lord. And then one day, when we're not even expecting it, God's gonna open a big door, and he's gonna use us, and he's gonna insult us. Why? Because we're humble. Because we're not trusting in our heritage. Because we're just taking serious our menial job, being a hermit. Some people say, well, I just work at McDonald's, and I don't make that much money. Look, God can use you greatly. I don't care where you work. You can be cleaning toilets. And the next day, God can send you to some country, and you can win thousands and millions of people to the Lord. If you're a faithful soul winner, if you're following his commandments, say, well, I'm not gonna go to college. You know, I think, honestly, when I was reflecting about this, I think going to college was probably one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Say, how is that making sense? Well, growing up, I did go to church my whole life, and I wasn't, I had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. But I was always against alcohol. I thought alcohol was very wrong. I never wanted to touch the stuff. I thought drinking was very wicked. And I had a pretty strong resolve about that. But then going into college, and being constantly around it, and all my friends constantly drinking, and constantly hounding me, and hounding me, hounding me, finally I just gave in, and I started drinking. And I made a lot of horrible decisions in college. And I believe if I had never gone to college, if I had never been around all that filth and wickedness, I probably would have never touched the stuff. I probably would have never drank. But because I just constantly was around wine bibbers, and drunks, and fornicators, and just wicked people, I succumbed to some of the most wicked things. You know, I probably would have gotten married younger if I hadn't gone to college. Me and my wife thought about getting married before we even went to college. And I wish I had, because then I might have had another kid. We would have had more years together. You know, when I was in college, I almost tried to throw a relationship away. That would have been one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Going to college is not gonna fix your problems. You're not, oh, I went to college, now I can be used by God. That's just a lie from hell. Look, you can be used by God and have the most menial job ever. Who cares? Do you really think Paul's in heaven? Man, I just wish I had a better job than being a tent maker. I mean, do you really think he's agonizing over the fact of being a tent maker? No, he could care less. It's not what job you have that's important. It's being faithful to that job. It's being, doing with all your might. It's being a man of valor. It's being humble. Bible says in Matthew five, I think I turned there. Look at verse three. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God wants to use the blessed, he wants to bless those that are poor in spirit. Look, they're not looking to make a big buck. They're not laboring to be rich. They're not chasing after money. Bible says in Ecclesiastes four, better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king who will no more be admonished. Go to second Chronicles 16, if you will. In the second part, if he said he was not just a herdman, he was a gatherer of sycamore fruit. For a second time, I won't go to all the verses, but the Bible makes it clear that the sycamore tree is a tree of lower value. It's pretty much the least esteemed tree in the field. I'll give you one verse. It says, and the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the veil for abundance. The Bible said, look, if you compare silver to stone, just all the rocks that we see in Arizona, I mean, there's millions of rocks. The comparison of that is a cedar to a sycamore. It's not a seemingly great value. And you go out and you knock doors in these neighborhoods and you think, oh, these are just sycamores. But guess what? He was faithful in gathering that sycamore fruit. I think it's important. I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna gather all the sycamore fruit no matter who they seem, no matter what neighborhood, no matter what I think about them. No, I'm gonna go out and get that sycamore fruit. I'm gonna go out there and preach to those who I think aren't that special, aren't that great. God's gonna use those people anyways. You need to get the right attitude. The Bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. Look at 2nd Chronicles 16, verse nine. It says, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou has done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. There's a big gap today in America. There's a huge gap of so many people dying and going to hell, of people not living for the Lord, of apostasy in this nation. There's so many false prophets. There's so many false teachers. And the Bible says the eyes of the Lord, he's constantly running his eyes to and fro through the whole earth. He's just looking for that one man who says my heart is perfect towards you, Lord. I'm gonna read your Bible. I'm gonna go to church. I'm gonna memorize your word. I'm gonna constantly sing praise unto you. I'm gonna go soul winning. I'm gonna just be faithful unto my pastor. I'm gonna do big things for you. And God's gonna use that guy. God's looking for the man to stand in the gap to go from the pastor to being the prophet. To look for the guy that says, hey, I just wanna be used by God. I'm gonna follow his word. I'm gonna do the things that he said. And God says, I wanna use that guy. I wanna make this guy big. You have unlimited potential today. But you know what? It's not by you trying to seek your own glory. It's by you getting humble and just being a faithful servant. And then when you least expect it, God's gonna use you in a big way. God's gonna make sure that you get exalted. I'm not saying that you shouldn't seek to have a vision to go preach the gospel, to be a pastor, to do big things for God. But you need to be humble and just follow his word and be faithful to what you have. And God will make sure you get exalted. God will use you. He said, he's constantly looking for you. You say, oh, that's me. I wanna do those things. God will find you and he will use you. It's a promise. You say, well, I'm just a lady. God can use you in a big way to raise up godly children, to win people to Christ, to set an example for other ladies in the church. The Bible says that people will be won to the Lord by the conversation of the wife, by the fact that she's just a godly, meek and humble servant. People are gonna look at that and it's gonna make them wanna live for God, make them wanna do good things. Go to 1 Corinthians 11, if you will. Someone's gonna knock the doors. Who's it gonna be? It's gonna be the Amos, who's going out there and gathering the sycamore fruit. He thinks it's important. Other people might think, oh, that's just worthless. That's not important. The guy that goes out and gets all the sycamore fruit, God says, I'm gonna go let you get the good fruit now. I'm gonna let you get all the really good stuff because this guy's faithful with the little stuff. Look at 1 Corinthians 11, verse 11. It says, nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, the Lord. Whereas the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman. You know, every great man of God had a mother. Every single guy that was used by the Lord had a mother. Paul had a mother. Jesus Christ had a mother. All of them had a mother. Every man had a mother. You say, well, is this a sermon just for the men? No, look, every lady needs to realize, hey, if I have a son, hey, I'm gonna influence my children. Hey, it's important for me to get a godly example because if I want some guy to go out and be a big prophet, if I want a guy to be a big work, I should be a godly mother. I can be that influence in him to make him humble, to make him realize his importance, to realize his potential, to give him the right beginnings, to not make him have, you know, covet his eyes and cares of this world and take him out of church. No, I need to be teaching him the Bible and stilling him the word of God. You see, Solomon, his mom was constantly teaching him the Bible. He was one of the wisest men to ever walk on this planet. He spake 3,000 Proverbs according to the Bible. How do you get to that point, 3,000 Proverbs? I mean, it's probably from your mom teaching you a lot when you were a kid. Probably getting the word of God in your heart as a young child. Go to Amos chapter eight. Soul winning's not a waste of time. Don't ever get this idea, oh, it's just a waste of time that I was out there. God sees what you're doing. God sees that you're faithful. God sees your character. God sees your valor. God sees your humility. Say, oh, I don't wanna go to this neighborhood. I don't wanna knock on that door. God sees, hey, this guy, if he's willing to knock on that door, maybe he'd be willing to preach in the face of the president, preach in the face of the king. The guy that's afraid of the door that says, no solicitors, we found Jesus, we found this. Look, the guy that runs away from that sign, he's not the valiant guy. He's not the guy that's gonna stand in the face of the king and tell him the word of the Lord and say your wife is gonna be a harlot. That's a pretty strong message. That's a pretty, I mean, you gotta be a valiant man to stand in front of the king and tell him that message. You gotta be humble in your heart and let God give you that power and that might. Amos chapter eight, look at verse 11. It says, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. We don't have enough of these valiant men in the world today. We don't have enough Amuses. We don't have enough people going from the pastor to being a prophet today. Moses said, would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets. Look, God wants every single one of his people to be a prophet, to go out and be a preacher, to be preaching the word of God, for mothers to be preaching to their children, for ladies to be preaching to the younger ladies, for men to be preaching to other men, for the pastors to go out and sound out like a trumpet the word of God. But we see when people, their hearts aren't right towards the Lord, when they're not humble, when they're not seeking with that, oh, I've got this great heritage. I come from a line of Baptist preachers. Usually those guys are the worst. I mean, they're just awful. Their lineage isn't helping them. It's making it worse. Yeah, that's right. And we see the words of the Lord. God can send a famine of the word of God. What a horrible punishment. What a wicked punishment to not have the words of God being sounded forth in your country. Can you imagine living in like North Korea today or China where you can't even read the Bible with a clear conscience and safety and peace? You can't come to a good church without worrying about for your life. We need men of God to stand up so these things won't be taken from us so that the word of God can be sounded forth. We need to be more humble. We need not care about our heritage. We need to be heard. My last point, I'm not trying to hurry for the sake of time, is that he heeded God. He said, go prophesy on my people. He was obedient under God's word. Go to 1 Samuel 15. I'll read you a few verses that says, in Psalm 39, one, I said, I will take heed to my ways that I said not with my tongue. I will keep my mouth with a bridle. Jesus said, take heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees. 1 Timothy said, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. 2 Peter says, where until you do well that you take heed. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not the things which I say? The Bible makes it clear in Matthew, it says 28, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. You say, well, God told Amos to go. Look, he told you to go too. He's already told you to go and preach the gospel. It's a command of God to go you forth into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So you gotta heed it. God's not gonna use the guy that's not gonna heed his word. That's not gonna heed his commandment to go. Look at verse 15, verse 22. And Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken in the fat of rams. Look, it's better to obey God's commandments than to make some great sacrifice. You know, the modern evangelicals, they have it wrong. They think, you know what? I can commit a bunch of sins and I can not follow God's word and I can not go out and preach the gospel, but I'll just give like a $10,000 in the check to the church and God will be happy with me. God doesn't want your money. God doesn't want some big sacrifice. He just wants obedience. He just wants the guy that's humble enough to say, hey, I'm just gonna follow God's word. God is way more pleased with a guy that just tithes. Tithing is a command of God. So you can't be right with God without tithing, but maybe never gives an extra special sacrifice or this big offering, gives all his money, but just hearkens unto all of God's commandments. He's a faithful soul winner. He's gathering that sycamore fruit. He's reading his Bible. His heart's perfect towards God. God wants to use that guy more than the guy that's willing to give. You know how the abundance of his money. Oh, here's $50,000. Oh, here's $100,000. God doesn't need your money. God doesn't want that. He just wants obedience. He wants the guy to get his heart right towards God. We need more people to be like Amos. And here's my conclusion. The humble, heritage-less herdman heeded the Lord. That's who God used. He used the humble, heritage-less herdman that heeded the Lord. That's who God wants to use today. And you have unlimited potential if you humble yourself, if you don't look to where you came from and who your parents are, if you just decide, hey, I'm gonna be faithful in all that God gives me, all the work I have, whether it's being a herdman or a fireman or an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter or a toilet cleaner or a student or whatever, I'm gonna follow God's word no matter what, and I'm gonna heed his commandments. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you that you don't choose just the mighty and the strong and those that all the world would look to and say, oh, that's a great guy. So you use the meek and the lowly and the humble and those that have their hearts perfect towards you, the things that we can control, being a good person, being a man of valor, being someone that fears the Lord with all our hearts, that you could use us and that we can know and have the promise that if we get our heart towards you and the things towards God, that you will exalt us in due time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.