Has the Church Confused Comfort with Blessing?

Has the American church confused comfort with God's blessing? In this episode of Truth in a Compromised Culture, we open Amos 6:4–7 (NLT) and ask a question most Christians never sit with: What if our comfort isn't a sign that God is pleased with us — but a test of whether we'll go numb?

From ivory beds to air-conditioned sanctuaries, the posture Amos condemned in 760 BC looks uncomfortably familiar today. We'll dig into what the NLT's word "sprawl" actually reveals about Israel's spiritual condition, why God called their prosperity a catastrophe, and what it means for a church that, in many places, has absorbed the prosperity gospel without even knowing it.

📖 Scripture: Amos 6:4–7 (New Living Translation) 🎙️ Series: Truth in a Compromised Culture ⏱️ Episode 1

In this episode:

• Why material comfort and spiritual blessing are not the same thing
• What Amos 6 reveals about the prosperity gospel
• How "sprawling" on our blessings makes us numb to the people around us
• The difference between a gift received and a gift hoarded
• An honest prayer for those who can't look at their comfort the same way anymore

New to the series? Truth in a Compromised Culture explores modern Christian living, church culture, and biblical truth — without the easy answers.

🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. 💬 Drop a comment: What's one comfort in your life you've never asked God what it's for?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

What if I tell you that one of the most financially prosperous generation of Christian in human history was also the least generous, the least other focused, and the most spiritual shadow. Will you be surprised? Because I didn't invent it this. This wasn't my opinion. A sheep farmer, Amos, said those exact same words to one of the most financially comfortable nations during biblical time. And God called it cast your food. So I have a question that I believe American churches need to desperately sit on as we become too comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

That we are calling it a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

We have to do renovation, right? We have to fix some things. And to God be the glory, I was able to work with all our members. We were able to get funding. So we were able to renovate your building and fix it up. I was so excited. I saw that as a blessing from God because the funding comes in, we were able to get the funding and the work done without being charged extra.

unknown 2:33

Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So this was a wonderful thing for our church. Now we can get to start going back in person. And I remember when I was thanking God, I remember that scripture in ecclesiastic. I don't remember exactly where it is off the top of my head, but it says God made everything beautiful in its time. And when I went to the church and I see how beautiful it looked, that's what came to my mind. It's a wonderful, wonderful blessing that comes from God. But now what? I remember, you know, I was thinking that this is such a wonderful work being done. We now have a building, we now can go back to the building, we can worship, we can gather, we can be a part of helping our community. We have a place now that we call it our own. It's a wonderful blessing. To God be the glory. You know, we can triumph and celebrate that God has given us this blessing. But is that it? Because it's something that also was on my mind during the process of fixing this building up. I asked myself, then what? Because everything we do must be given glory to God, right? And so now my mind is we have to use this building as much as possible so that we are glorifying God, even if it's a blessing from Him. I also felt like the focus on the building was too much. Because not that God doesn't want us to have a place to call our home, not that God doesn't want us to have a place where you know we gather together and worship him, but we have to be mindful that we don't get so focused on the blessing that God has given us so that we forget the main work out there that needs to be done into the world. And so now that God has blessed us all, made something beautiful in a stand, now we have to use that to go out into the community and help the community. That has to be our next step as a church, all right? But I I see something going on in American churches today, as a matter of fact, I recently hear one of those popular pastors preaching that we misinterpret prosperity as prosperity gospel because God bless the idea is that God bless you if you are faithful to Him. But the blessing that, according to them, that God gives to you is finances, good health, and comfort. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that because we read about people in the Bible that God bless, but it's not just for their faithfulness. God bless whomever He wants to bless and whoever he sees writing to bless. But what do we do with that blessing? How do we use it? I think that's where prosperity gospel is a problem. It's when we make the blessing that God places in us about us, because it's not about us, right? But how can we see that? Because sometimes we get so comfortable in our personal health, in our personal way of life, you know. Oh, God made this happen to me, so I am going to live it out. But what if God didn't make us comfortable as a blessing? What if God gave us comfort to test us to see if we are going to let's look at that scripture in Amos. Now, the entire book of Amos is about this, right? This sheep and fake farmer who God called was also an outsider. Before I read it, let me just tell you really quickly about this sheep farmer that God chose to speak to the people. Not only was Amos um removed because he keeps speaking these truths, and you know what the king did? The king called him a terrorist and expelled him from the kingdom, but his writing still hit the book. Yes, God still used Amos to bring this message to his people. So you know what's so wonderful about Amos when I read everything you hear is the Lord said, He was so confirmed, he was so completely assured to give them everything that God said. He wants them to remind me, this is not my opinion. God is telling you this, and so throughout the book of Amos, it says, The Lord said, the Lord said, it's beautiful, it's beautiful when God speaks to people, it's not their opinion, it's about what God says, and the way of Amos gave the command, the way he owes nothing back. He tell them it tells it exactly as God said. So come with me. Let us explore what happened in this ancient time where this generation of people of God were financially secure and comfort. Let me tell you how comfort they were, how comfortable they were. For 40 years, King Jeroboam had success. That means military success. No battle was lost, all battle was wrong. The people were comfortable, they were relaxed, they didn't have any pain, they were just comfortable. Doesn't mean that the poor was not suffering, but let's look at just one part of this book of Amos, chapter six, and we are going to look at verses four to seven. That's Amos chapter six, verses four through seven, and I am reading from the New Living's Translation. Here is what it says how terrible for you who sprawl an ivory bed and lunge on your coaches, your coaches, eating the meat of tender lamb from the flock, and a truce cuff pattern in the stall. You sing trivial song to the sound of the hop and fancy yourself to be a great musician like David. You drink wine by the bowl full and perfume yourself with fragrance lotion. You care nothing about the ruin of your nation. Therefore, you will be the first to let away as captive. Suddenly all your parties will end. Now, I mean, I kind of understand, you know, how they feel when they hear this word. Think about it. Nobody wants to hear this kind of word. But this was the message that God gave to the sheep farmer to bring to his people. The beautiful thing about it is that God always wants us, he always prepares us before we get to the path where we can turn back from. He was about to help them to get back before it's too late or before they go too deep in spiritual numbness that they can't come back from it. But let's let's look back at all of these four scriptures, how big it is. The first thing I noticed, the New Living's translation, it used the word Paul. That's in verse 4. It says, Oh, terrible for you who spall and ivory band. It didn't say lay down, it didn't say resting, it says pall. You know, it was like you take up total ownership of your spot, and nobody is gonna move you. You have absolutely no care in the world. You are spalled out, you know. So these weren't just wealthy people, they were people who are privileged, they were people who um think that they deserve everything they get, and they were living their best life. So when Amos speaked during Jehoma Reim, a 40-year stretch of military, look how things were going. Things were going so good for them. They didn't have to worry about another nation coming and fighting them, they didn't have to worry about being disrupted because and hold. So everything seemed to be going right for them. But yet, God sent this cheap farmer to say, No, I'm not pleased with this. But in your mind, think about it. God is the one who's allowing them to be comfort, God is the one who's allowing them to be prosperous, God is the one who allowed Jeroboam, their king, to not lose any victory. God help him to win, God helped him to be successful through all that facts. Yeah. So they are enjoying the work of what God gave to them. The next verse here is that you know, it the assumption is that they are not full of spiritual things. It says they have they're lying down, they're eating meat of tender lamb from the flock. And so he's giving you an idea that they have everything they have. Everything they not just have the necessary need, you know, they didn't just have food, they had the best of everything. I noticed the part about, you know, ivory bed. He said, ivory bed. In the ancient world, ivory bed were fancy stuff. There wasn't just a bed that you laid on, it's insulated inside of their place. So while they're in their ivory bed, they came, they don't need to be disturbed by what's going on outside. They won't be able to hear the noise of the poor or the crying or the desperate outside was was immaculate to them because they were living on their iber bed. So look at this. None of these are simple in itself, none of these are saying that it's wrong, none of these are saying that God, you know, God is doesn't want you to enjoy the comfort or the favor you put on him. But what it's saying is that when God gives you favor, how you use it, must honor him.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Right?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

But anyway, I think that today we are making the exact same mistake of this generation. We may not all be rich, but I believe most of God's children are situated in a way that their needs are being met. And I believe that even now there are so many Christians who believe prosperity gospel is necessary for them to live. You know, they drive the best car, they live in the biggest house. We have many pastors, and I am not condemning them because God's favor is on them. So they but they live in fancy house, they drive fancy cars, and they don't see anything wrong with that because they believe it's a blessing from God. Which brings me back to that question. Are we becoming so comfortable that we just see our comfort as blessing? But what if your comfort is God testing you to see if you have gone now? Let's keep looking at the um Amos here. Um in verses 6, you know, it says that's the big word right there in verses 6. It said, you care nothing about the ruin of your nation. You see, that word care nothing is not some passive thing, it's that they're actually ignoring everything that was going on out there. They had, they are so comfortable, so you know, so situated that they are not concerned with what's going on out there. You know, they were like, they were so wired, they couldn't see the people who were suffering. It said, yes, you care nothing about the ruin of your nation. And I sometimes wonder, does our comfort I believe a distract us from the suffering of the world? Are we ignoring the suffering of people out there? I am not saying that we need to go out there and help everyone, but we need to be aware of the things. Awareness is way better than just trying to do something. When you are aware of what's going on into the world, it changes your interaction with God, it changes your relationship with God. How much are we aware of all the suffering that's going on into the world? And sometimes we get so caught up in our comfort. The other day when I was reading my Bible, it came to my mind what a blessing this is, that I can open this book and read it. I can share with you, I can have the physical Bible or the digital Bible in my hand without being ashamed of it, and without worrying about something, someone knocking on my door, trying to take it away from me. That's a privilege, which is why I do this. This is why I do this podcast, because I want as much as possible to share God's word, especially to those who don't have the opportunity to hear it. And the the verse 10, I'm gonna just go down to verse 10. It says, Suddenly your parties will end. So Amos is not saying prosperity is sinful. Don't get me wrong. What he is saying is that prosperity without accountability to the community is not pleasing to God. He's also saying that God will indefinitely protect people who abused his gift to isolate him from his purpose. God does eventually get tired of seeing the people using his giftedness or the things he gives them for their purpose. My understanding of how God operates in a kingdom way is that when he blesses us, he doesn't do it for us to enjoy in our home.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

He blesses us so that we can be a blessing. This is not easy.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I know it is hard for us to hear, but it's hard to be told that our comfort that we work so hard for is spiritually dangerous. We have been faithful, it only feels right that we enjoy the things that we get from our faithfulness, it only seems right that we can enjoy some of the blessings that we see from God, right? But prosperity didn't become popular because it's wrong, it became popular because we misuse it in what it really means, but we believe that prosperity is personal and internal, Amos didn't want us or Israel to stay here. The question ethos is not are you blessed? The question is what are you doing with this blessing? Are you making it for your purpose? Are you internalizing it for your comfort, or are you using it purposefully to make God be glorified in the world? The blessing that we have in the scripture, blessing is never about just our comfort, it's also about using it for God's purpose. Yeah, I think of how God blesses people in the scripture. God blesses Abraham so that all nations will be blessed to him. God bless and allow the Israelites to be prosperous so that they can be a light to the nation around them. This is how God operates. How God operates often seems different from the way the world operates. But God blesses us so that his purpose can be obtained to us. There's nothing wrong with blessing, but when it becomes internal, when we spoil our comfort, then it allows us to distance the person who gives us the gift. In other words, we become more focused on the gift than the person who gives us the gift. We internalize our comfort instead of sharing it with those around us, and that's when the judgment starts. We don't have to fix this today, but if you have listened to this whole podcast, you cannot unhear it. Something has to be acknowledged or changed, and that's this could be where we start. Not being able to don't, I'm not saying. We we have to give up our comfort, our blessing. But this is where we start to acknowledge and look at how we are using our comfort.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

God is a giver of good gifts. He blesses his children.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

But when he does, it's so that we can be a blessing to someone else. God didn't just stop Abraham, where he blessed him to be a blessing to all people. He is still doing that. He's still operating in that same transactional way. Where he is pouring out his blessing on children so that they can be a blessing to others. Which takes me back to our church renovation. Now he has blessed us with the opportunity to have a place where we can gather to worship, right? If we don't show up and use that, if we you if we show up only for our whole good, if we don't invite someone to come in, how are we honoring God with it? The God we serve, he will always give good gifts to his children, but he is also a God of community. God really blessed us just for ourselves alone. It's not easy to hear, and it's not easy to do. I am living in that same place. I'm comfortable here in my home. I have all I need, and this is how I am trying to give back. But I still have to start somewhere to make sure I'm being a blessing to people out there. We can all start there.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

We don't have to fix anything right now. We just have to be willing to hear what needs to be there.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Like the scripture said in Revelation, we just have to be willing to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Let us go ahead and close in prayer.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

God, Lord God, we come to you tonight.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

We don't come asking for you to take away what you have given us. We are grateful and thankful for all that you have given us. Thank you for always looking out for us and for being our provider. You are Jeovajire, our provider. But we come tonight asking us to look internally to what is doing to us. If our comfort has made us small, if it has eased us and made us numb, wake something up in us that refuse to stay that way. Teach us the difference between a give receive and a give order. And give us the courage to ask honestly what our prosperity actually is for.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And speak to our heart.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

So that we are willing to hear what your spirit is saying to us as individuals. I thank you for everyone who is listening and praying along with me right now. As we pray for each other, as you convict each of us, let your spirit open our eyes to see and know what we need to change so that we can honor you and that we will not become spiritually dumb, but be spiritually renewed by your word. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for each person who's praying with me right now. Thank you for blessing them. Thank you for keeping them. Thank you for loving them. May we all together pray for each other and continue to grow in your life as your children that come before you and seal this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our prayer. Amen and amen. I thank you for joining me tonight. Make sure you subscribe and share this with someone that you know need to hear. Someone you know gotten too comfortable, share it and subscribe and turn on your notification. And then I will see you again for the next time or the next episode. Until then, keep seeking, keep axing, and keep unpacking the chute. God bless you.