Exodus - 32:1-14, 24-32

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Just last week we were talking about the 10 commandments and

Moses goes leaves the people Israel at the base of Mount

Sinai and goes up the mountain and says I'm, I'm going to get

these things this this way that God has for us to live, these

laws and these precepts and, yeah, other things that sound

like a checklist and A and a big long thing of things to do and

things not to do and but it's really for our good, right?

Pastor Chris was talking about last week, It's all good for

human flourishing, right? It's, it's for our benefit.

It's this blueprint that if we could perfectly follow it, it's

the way that God designed us to live our lives.

Moses is up on this mountain for about 40 days, which seems like

a long time for like, you'd think God could just snap his

fingers and put this stuff on some stone tablets and let it

be. But there's a process in in

there that we don't we don't see.

Maybe it was just good and perfect time with Moses.

He maybe needed that filling time as as their shepherd.

However it happened, we come to chapter 32 and the people of

Israel are in this place. Verse 1, chapter 32, when the

people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the

mountain, they gathered around Aaron, Moses older brother, and

said come make us gods who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we

don't know what has happened to him.

They're out that Moses dude, never going to see him again.

We better find something else to follow because he's not it.

It's not, it's not happening. It only took 40 days.

They've been wandering out in the desert for about almost

three months at this point. Got to deliver them from

captivity in Egypt, had parted the Red Sea for them to escape,

had provided them manna from heaven and quail to eat water

out of a rock. All of these things.

And it took a 40 day absence, a 40 day period of waiting for

them to get to a point where they were looking for something

else that they could put their hope in, that they could put

their trust in. How long does it take us to

replace God with something else? How long does it take our

wandering eyes or wandering thoughts to find something else

to put our hope in? In this story, it took the

Israelites 40 days and they were done with God.

Who moved? Did God move?

Did the Israelites fixed eyes move?

They took God's plan and said, you know what, I got some better

ideas. I got a way that we can make

this better. It's going to work better for my

life, so let's do this instead. Aaron, who Moses trusted, left

in charge of the people as he was leaving and going to be gone

up the mountain. Get into the 10 commandments.

Aaron answered them. Take off the gold earrings that

your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing and bring

them to me. So the people took off their

earrings, brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and

made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it

with a tool. Then they said, these are your

gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

So this thing, how crazy is this declaration, this thing that

didn't exist until yesterday, they are now declaring this is

what delivered you. This thing that we didn't even

know existed until yesterday. This is what we're going to

worship and give thanks to. This is what we're going to

trust in. This is what has delivered us.

It sounds nuts, right? What's the latest and greatest

thing that you've found in your life that all of a sudden is the

fixation of your attention is the greatest thing that you've

ever come upon that is now replacing the God whose

faithfulness has brought you thus far?

Our eyes stray, our desires and affections stray in exactly the

same way, and it's really easy to look back.

Oh Israelites, you guys sound crazy.

And we do the exact same thing. We find things to replace God.

It certainly doesn't take 40 days for us to replace God with

other things that divide our attention and affection for Him.

So these are your gods, Israel. These are your gods, people of

God, who are going to deliver you, who you can put your trust

and your hope in. When Aaron saw this, this

declaration, he built an altar in front of the calf.

Give the people what they want, right?

That's what he's playing. That's how he's going to do it.

Not the strongest aspect of a leader, but it's what he did.

Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.

He's trying to save it a little bit.

Hey, maybe you're right. Maybe we just need this image,

this thing that represents God. There's still Yahweh, there's

still this Lord that delivered us from Egypt.

But OK, we'll make this, we'll make this thing that represents

who he is so we can see it, so we can experience it and feel it

and look at it. Meanwhile, up the mountain,

what's one of the first things that God is writing down on the

tablets for Moses to bring down? First thing you don't do, make a

thing in that replaces my image, right?

Don't make something that replaces Yahweh, OK?

That's why we need boundaries. That's why we need guardrails

because we as broken, sinful people, we imagine each and

every way that we could rebel against God.

And most of the time it's at the top of his list, right?

It's the first thing that we shouldn't have done.

So the next day the people arose early and sacrificed burnt

offerings and presented fellowship offerings.

They're they're worshipping this golden calf and calf is a little

mild of a of a term. It's it was actually more

accurately, it was it was probably more like a small bull,

like a like a three-year old bullet at the peak of it's just

like physical prowess and and angry and strong looking and and

all these things. It wasn't so much as like a

small meek calf, but that's that's the word more literally

translated. It has more of those bull

attributes to it. So it was this fierce, strong

looking, hopeful thing that they sacrificed burnt offerings and

presented fellowship offerings to, and afterwards they sat down

to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

That doesn't sound good, but it's what they did.

Then the Lord said to Moses, while all this is going on,

Moses still at the top of the mountain, verse 7, the Lord said

to Moses, go down because your people whom you brought up out

of Egypt have become corrupt. They've been quick to turn away

from what I commanded them and made themselves an idle cast in

the shape of a calf. They've bowed down to it and

sacrificed to it. And I've said, these are your

gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.

Notice who God's pointing the finger at in this passage.

Go down because your people, Moses, the people that you're

supposed to be leading, the people that you're supposed to

be guiding in my ways, they didn't get it.

You didn't do it. Somehow along the way, you

tripped up, you messed up. You had them put their hope in

something that wasn't me. I hope and pray never at any

point in the history of this church, me or Pastor Chris, who

isn't here today. But if you haven't met him, you

know you will know him. Me, Pastor Chris, any future

pastors who happen to be at this church, I hope and pray that you

do not come here on Sundays looking to me as the figure of

your faith. Because the moment that I fail,

and I will, it might not be in spectacular grandeur or all

these things, but I will let you down.

Or at least I'll let you down in the eyes of someone else.

Because I'm not perfect, broken just like you, sinful just like

you. But if you put your hope in me

that day that I fail, your faith is shattered.

What Chris and I are trying to do and trying to lead, we're

trying to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

We're just dudes disguised as a dude pretending to be another

dude trying to lead you in the footsteps of Jesus.

But we got to keep our eyes fixed on him, right?

God's pointing out Moses. Moses, at some point you have

them take their eyes off the ball.

At some point you let them put their hope in things that

weren't me. So they're your people now

because they were following you. I'm out.

God says he throws up his hands. Verse 8.

I have seen these people and they are a stiff necked people,

a stubborn, obstinate, unturning people.

God says now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against

them and that I may destroy them and then I will make you into a

great nation. God's out threw up his hands.

Let's start over, guys, husbands, maybe if you've ever

been in a serious relationship with a girl, with a woman,

gotten a new argument, a fight, maybe, maybe sometimes there

comes a point where she says leave me alone.

Done with this. Don't want to hear anymore.

You should abide by those words for for a moment.

Red flags. OK, boundaries are going up.

Don't do what Moses did. Moses comes back.

But, but, but, but, but, but Moses bold sought the favor of

the Lord his God. He said, Lord, why should your

anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt

with great power and a mighty hand?

Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he

brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them

off the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce anger,

relent, and do not bring disaster on your people.

Whoa, Moses is telling God what to do.

Leave that anger alone. God.

Relent. Do not bring disaster on your

people. It's interesting because God

certainly would have considered this as an outcome.

It's not as if God was fixated on one way to go about this, but

he had come to a point that seems very limited.

Graciousness that he was ready to say, Nope, Moses, you get it,

He said. He said I'll make you Moses into

a great nation. We're we're still buds like you

understand? You get me.

But he doesn't want to include the people in it.

Moses goes on. Remember your servants Abraham,

Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by our own self.

I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the

sky, and give your descendants all this land I promised them,

and it will be their inheritance forever.

And Moses won. Moses won the argument somehow.

Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the

disaster he had threatened. God was even offering to Moses.

I will make you into a great nation.

Moses knew the promises that had been made to Abraham, Isaac,

Israel to be the people of God and God saying I'm going to wipe

the slate clean. I'm going to start over with

you. You are Abraham, you are Isaac

Israel, You are the one that I will make my people out of.

And the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the

disaster he had threatened after Moses advocates them because

Moses stood his ground. Moses, caring, kind hearted,

kind hearted shepherd for these people, said, no, you've

delivered these people thus far. And yeah, they got their

problems. They're they're broken and

they're mixed up and and prone to evil and they are sinful.

But you, you brought them this far.

You delivered them. I care about them.

May it not be. Moses went to advocate for the

people that he cared about and God listened.

Moses approached God in the same way because he knew he wasn't

saying us and them. He wasn't saying me and them.

He was approaching God in the same way that he hoped God would

look back on him. If Moses was in the position of

the people, Moses would have cried out for mercy for himself,

and he's crying out for mercy from God for this broken, messed

up people. So God relents.

All right, we're not going to hit the reset button, but now

what? Moses, why don't you go back

down the mountain, check out what's going on.

Maybe if you had seen what's going on, you'd be just as bad

as I am. This is what God's saying.

We're going to skip over a few verses not to like not cloak and

dagger into anything. We're just going to summarize

the next little bit here. Moses goes down the mountain.

Here's rejoicing and celebrating assumes that their Sabbath thing

in festival to God and celebrating his goodness.

No, they're dancing around this golden calf and providing burnt

offerings and and things to this idol, which is like, guys, it's

number one on the list. Like, what do you I just got

this thing and you're already checking it off and doing the

wrong stuff. Moses has a little bit of a

rager here after this. If you if you read the next part

of this passage in chapter 22, he gets angry.

He takes the golden calf, He grinds it up into powder, puts

the powder in this water and he makes all the people of Israel

drink this gold calf powder water.

Seems really weird, but he was just like, Nope, this is this is

what you get. And this is how I'm going to

enact my rage on all of you for for making this thing.

Then he goes to Aaron, older brother Aaron, and he says, man,

how did have this happen? I left you in charge.

Did they like, what are they threatening to burn you at the

stake? Like what?

What how did we get here? And Aaron says, OK, well, we

didn't know where you were. We thought you were gone.

We thought you were lost. It was it was hopeless.

We were just looking the people were looking for someone, not me

to to guide them. So I told them to get their

jewelry and whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.

They gave me the gold and I threw it in the fire and out

came this calf. Just magically this calf just

appeared, which is not what the first part of this chapter.

There were there were tools and a cast.

He planned to make this calf. But in this moment, Aaron was

feeling all the weight of his brokenness of I really screwed

up, feeling the weight of sin and shame.

But he spits it out in a way that was just I don't know how I

got here. It just it just happened right

when parents you got a kid who did something.

What's what's the first thing out of their face?

Well, how how did that vase break?

I don't know. Just jumped off the table like

calf, just calf just appeared, just came out.

I don't know, It seems like a comical reaction, and it seems

strange that he's trying to hide up, hide what actually happened.

But it's also a very natural reaction to our sin because

there's truth in that. I don't of that I don't know.

I don't know how I got here. I don't know how I got to this

point in my life or with these things in my life.

More pointedly, I don't know what to do.

That's really what Aaron's saying here.

I don't know how this happened and I don't know how to fix it.

The truth in that is we don't we that that's a real feeling.

I don't know how to fix it because we can't.

We can't in and of ourselves fix our sin.

So of course we don't know what to do.

Of course, we don't know how we got here, how to get out of it.

I met with several of you this week and not all weeks are like

this. I, I met with no less than 10 of

you that came to me with something in your life that was,

I am in this broken, messed up situation and I don't know what

to do. And that's not every that's not

every week. We're we're always available to

meet with and and shepherd through situations.

And some of you hear that and you're like, oh, wow, you

working out on Sunday? I didn't realize that.

And some of you are like, yeah, you better be.

I hope you don't only work on Sundays.

You better be meeting with 10 people.

But the point is, Chris and I are here to care and shepherd

this people, this church, as Moses was charged to shepherd

that people, the Israelites. And each and every one of those

situations I encountered this week, it might not have been

that individual that was that was that fault or wrapped in

sin, but something related to the situation, whether whether

it was them or someone they were in relationship with, or even

just the brokenness of the sinfulness of this world.

It had afflicted them. It had brought them to a point

of I don't know how I got here, but I don't like it and I don't

know what to do. Moses tells him what to do.

It's going to be hard, but there's going to be a way.

There's going to be truth in it. The truth's going to hurt, but

there's going to be a way out. And each and every one of these

situations that I had this week, there were none of them are

easy. I didn't solve any other

problems in an hour. I, I don't, I don't.

I'm not the magic man. Just be able to step my fingers

and make it good. But what I was able to

encourage. That Jesus has to be in the

middle of these situations. He has to be a focal part of

this relationship or this conversation or this scenario.

Otherwise we are going to wind up right back here in this

scenario that was already broken with a lack of Jesus.

And then we are going to be here and we're going to know exactly

how we got here because Jesus wasn't present in this thing.

So Moses Moses was a bit of a hot head still still on a little

bit of a rager, anger and frustration with the Israelites.

Verse 26, he stood at the entrance to the camp and said,

whoever is for the Lord, come to me and all the Levites rallied

to him. The Levites were were the the

holy priesthood. They were they were one of the

tribes of Israel, Israel. That was they were the temple

workers. They were the lead worshippers.

All the Levites rallied to him. Verse 27 Then he said to them,

this is what the Lord the God of Israel says.

Each man strap a sword to his side, go back and forth through

the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother

and friend and neighbor. That sounds extreme.

If you're for the Lord, all right, get your sword.

We're going to use it. Verse 28, The Levites did as

Moses commanded and that day about 3000 of the people died.

Tragic, sad, confusing that God would act in this way.

But remember a few verses ago he was ready to wipe them all out.

Lot more than 3000. The question that isn't in this

text that I think is also a part of what God's commanding here.

Moses asks. All those that are for the Lord

come to me, and they rally around, but each one of them

left brother and friend and neighbor who weren't there right

alongside them. These people, brother, friend,

neighbor, that you say are closest in your life, right?

Those are very close relationships.

Why aren't they here beside you for the Lord?

And more pointedly, it's because they're not pointing you towards

the Lord. What are the relationships, the

things, the activities, the things that you pay attention to

in your life that you would say are near and dear to your heart,

that are close to you? Maybe it is people, maybe it is

things, maybe it's whatever. A hobby.

But are they pulling you towards the Lord, or are they fixing

your eyes elsewhere in a way that has become corruptible?

If so, I think what Moses is getting at here.

These, these things are not pulling you towards the Lord.

They're not for the Lord. Those things got to die.

Those things in each and every one of our lives that aren't for

the Lord got to go away, got to be killed, got to be beaten

back. Then Moses said after they go

through this, after they root out these things that were

closest to them. Moses said, you've been set

apart to the Lord today for you are against your own sons and

brothers and he has blessed you this day.

Even Jesus said this is it's it's not that it sounds extreme,

but this killing isn't that crazy because Jesus said truly,

truly whoever leaves father and mother and sister and brother,

whoever leaves his family for my sake.

That's how you follow. That's how you are a disciple is

truly my disciple. I'm not saying to sign up for

this Jesus train that you got to leave everyone that you ever

knew or was ever close to you even a little bit behind.

But if they're not for the Lord, if they're not rooted in Jesus,

I do think you need to consider where they fall on the priority

and influence in your life. If you're trying to make a big

decision who to date, who to marry, what job to have, where

to move, what to do with your life.

Do you have those that are for the Lord in your life that

you're going to and seeking counsel and and having them

refine your decisions and be in prayer with you?

Or do you have those that don't know the Lord as your chief

advisors, as the ones that are speaking most into your life?

We got to reorient that. And I'm not saying you need to

give up on the ones in your life that don't know the Lord.

Of course we want to chase the one more.

We want them to come to know Jesus.

We want we want them to follow the Good Shepherd.

But until they are, they don't need to be your number one.

Go to God first, brothers and sisters and mother, Jesus said.

Those who love the Father, they are my brother and sister and

mother. Those who are for the Lord

should have the chief amount of influence in your life and in

your time. So verse 30, the next day Moses

said to the people, you have committed a great sin, please

calm down now anger fits over. Now I will go up to the Lord.

Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

So Moses went back to the Lord and said what a great sin these

people have committed. You're right God, they're

terrible. They've made themselves gods of

gold. But now please forgive their

sin. Here's the twist.

But if not, then block me out of the book you have written.

If you will not forgive them, take my life in their place that

they be spared. The answer to the where's the

Jesus in this passage question is it's not that hard to answer.

Jesus is a foreshadow or Moses is a foreshadowing.

The Christological implications in this passage are great.

Moses was willing to lay down his life.

Greater love has no one than this, that he would lay down his

life for his friends. Moses was willing in their place

to be that sacrifice. Please forgive their sin.

But if not, then block me out of the book you have written.

Block me out of the book of life.

In a similar way, when Jesus disciples asked him, how then

can we go where you are going, how then can we enter into this

life? Jesus answered, I am the way and

the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father

except through me. If you really know me, you will

know my Father as well from now on.

You do know him and have seen him.

Those who are rooted in the sun, those who are rooted in Christ

Jesus and it's very appropriate that Jesus lists these three

things off because why God didn't move, God didn't change

even back to this passage in Exodus.

We have a way Moses was coming down the mountain with the way

these 10 commandments. This is the way to live your

life. This is the way that God has

commanded you follow him as his people.

The truth that's, that's hard to hear because some of these

things, some of these things I'm going to command you to do,

you're going to have to do away with other things that get in

the way of living out this way. The truth's hard to hear

sometimes. I may be upset a few of you in

here this morning by saying there's some things that got to

die in your life. There's some things you got to

kill away if you're going to follow the way in Jesus.

But at the end of all this, Moses being willing to be a

replacement, a sacrifice for the people of Israel, Jesus, a few

thousand years later before the Father saying, Yep, these crazy

mixed up people, they still haven't figured it out.

They're still just as broken and sinful as they were back with

your boy Moses. Somebody's got to die.

Something's got to die. Something needs to be killed.

Jesus says, it's me. Jesus says in my death there is

life after you know the way and you hear the truth of the things

that have to die in order to follow Him, He offers life.

There's hope in him at the end of this.

Yes, there are hard things. There are things you're not

going to like to cut out of their life.

There are things you're going to have to say no to that the world

wants to scream yes to. It's going to feel hard.

It's going to feel weird. It's going to be unnatural, but

in order to follow in Jesus's way, we have to answer that

truth so that we may have life. There's a big difference.

There's a lot of differences between Jesus and Moses.

The biggest difference is, though Moses was willing to

sacrifice his life, he would have stayed dead.

Jesus sacrificed his life and rose from the grave three days

later, still perfectly lived out the way.

He can say he's the way because God's 10 commandments, he

perfectly executed them, did not come to replace the law, but to

fulfill it, to be a perfect life, to be the truth.

And he conquered sin and death by rising from that death three

days later. You might say that's what that's

that's weird that such a technicality.

No, it matters. Each and every word in that book

hinges on whether or not Jesus Christ actually rose from the

dead, because nobody else did that.

Nobody else rose from the dead and stayed living.

Nobody else can truly say I am the life that you can now have

hope in. The resurrection matters.

So while Moses had good intentions, he was not the true

Lamb of God. He was not the one who took all

of the sin. Because that's really what Jesus

did. Moses would have been in place

and maybe God could have even reasoned it as a sacrifice.

But when the Bible says that you are made new and clothed in the

righteousness of Christ, that means Jesus has taken taken your

sin, taking your shame, taking your guilt, taking all those

things that you're like, I don't know what to do with.

I don't know how to deal with this.

He took your sin, He erased it. It was on Him and it was nailed

to that cross. They could be washed away by His

blood that you would be left with life and righteousness in

the eyes of the Father. Not some idol, not some golden

calf, not some 2 bit replacement.

The true Lamb of God. Thanks for listening to ERC

Sundays. To support the work God is doing

an Emmaus Rd. church, visit emmausrdonline.org/giving.