“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”—Amos 5:21–24 (ESV)

Now that would be a rough Sunday! Can you imagine if Jesus were to show up at your church’s after-service debrief and, while everyone is sharing their thoughts on what they feel were wins and losses, He offers His thoughts and says, 

“Well . . . I totally hated it.” 

Wait. What? Which part? 

“Pretty much all of it. It was actually a painful experience to even be here.”

Wow, not what we expected from gentle and lowly Jesus, right? Why so harsh, Jesus?

That’s the same question God’s people must have asked when the prophet Amos delivered these words. The very assemblies that looked holy on the outside were hollow on the inside. They lacked lives marked by justice and righteousness toward the poor, the forgotten, and the hurting. I can’t stress how much of a big deal that is to a God who loves justice.

Here’s the truth: Sometimes we forget how deeply our vertical relationship with God is connected to our horizontal relationships with others. We sing to the God of love but treat people made in His image with indifference. We raise our hands in worship yet keep them closed when someone’s in need. And in those moments, what we reveal (often unintentionally) is that our view of grace has grown small and our understanding of God’s heart has missed the mark.

Amos’s message is sobering because it exposes a timeless hypocrisy: religious people who believe they can separate their love for God from their love for their neighbor. But throughout Scripture, God refuses to accept worship that ignores injustice. From the Law and the Prophets to the Gospels and the Epistles, He ties our devotion to Him directly to how we treat those He calls “the least of these.”

If our worship never moves us to compassion, then it’s just noise . . . it’s beautiful melodies with no message, offerings without obedience, hands lifted high but hearts locked shut. It’s like trying to sing a love song to God while turning our backs on the people He loves most. And through Amons, the Lord says, “I will not listen.”

God isn’t rejecting songs or sacrifices themselves; He’s rejecting the contradiction. You see, the clearest evidence that we know Jesus isn’t found in how loudly we sing about Him, but in how faithfully we love like Him. And that’s where grace meets conviction. The call to justice is not a call to performance; it’s a call to remember. 

Remember the gospel. Remember the God who entered your poverty, who stepped into your brokenness and met your need with mercy. And when your heart grasps His kindness, generosity flows naturally. When you remember your own helplessness, you become the kind of person who runs toward the helpless. 

So, maybe it’s time to examine the kind of worship we’re offering. Do we care about what God cares about? Do we see the people He sees? Because real worship doesn’t end with the final song . . . it begins there. Every “amen” on Sunday is meant to echo into Monday through acts of compassion, reconciliation, and mercy.

When the grace of Jesus grips your heart, the dividing wall between sacred and secular crumbles. Work becomes worship. Service becomes song. Loving your neighbor becomes an extension of loving your Savior. And when that happens—when the melody of our faith harmonizes with the rhythm of God’s justice—that’s when heaven leans in and says, “Now that’s a worship service I love.”

Pause: Take a moment to consider your own spiritually poverty and neediness that Jesus enters into without hesitation or reservation. Do you see God as someone who relentlessly lavishes His love on you all the time? Would you be willing to repent of your small view of grace and come back to Jesus as the one who loves you like no other? How might a fresh perspective and experience of God’s love effect the way you love those in need around you?

Practice: First, remember this: The same Jesus who is gentle and lowly is also filled with justice and righteousness. If you truly love Him, you’ll eventually love what He loves. After reflecting on this, this week, take a step. After repenting and believing the gospel afresh—not in place of it, but as an overflow of it—take one step towards bringing justice into a much-needed community like foster care or the homeless. Make or buy a meal and be sure to deliver it to either a foster family or homeless person with love in your heart, kindness in your eyes, and a word of encouragement about how much Jesus loves them! Now that would be a worship service God loves!

Pray: Holy Father, Your law is perfect and Your way is just. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus, and that Your justice is revealed through mercy. Give us hearts after Your own, Lord, that Your justice would saturate our souls until our worship rises before You as a pleasing aroma. Teach us to freely give what we have freely received, to uphold Your way in our actions. Help us to care for the vulnerable, honor the lowly, boast in our weakness, grant mercy to our enemies, and depend on Your grace to judge rightly. Write Your law upon our hearts and teach us to walk it out in our lives. Let Your justice roll down like waters and Your righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, turning the dry ground around us into a garden. We repent for clinging to our own ideas of justice and for making excuses when we have failed to uphold Your ways. Forgive us for the times we have offered praise from proud, self-centered hearts. Purify us, Lord. Make us holy vessels who reflect Your justice on the earth as Your ambassadors, that our worship may be holy and acceptable before You. Cause us to hate what You hate and love what You love. Holy Spirit, empower us to walk according to God’s law. For Yours, O God, is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.