Who Is Your God?

We all serve something. In fact, some of us serve things and we don’t even know it. In Exodus 34:14, God declares that he is a jealous God and that we should worship no other god than him. Do you have a god other than the Lord that you serve?

Does anybody here know what yesterday was? Maybe not here in the US, but on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu it was John Frum day. John Frum, is part of an ideology we call a “Cargo Cult”. During and after World War 2, many island nations were promised by American soldiers benefits and goods if they helped them out.

The islanders took and ran with this idea and even to this very day still celebrate John Frum. Why “John Frum”? Well the Americans would introduce themselves as John… From… America. They are praying to John Frum to return with radios, coke cola, refrigerators and the cargo of the West. These Americans with great technology show up seemingly out of nowhere and to them, it appeared to be magic or another world.

Their fascination for the wealth of the west and desperate desire has led them to do all sorts of things. On February 15th every year they dress as GI’s and carry bamboo that are representative of the rifles they once saw. They raise the US flag, a medic flag, and some have reported a flag from the state of Georgia! They do marches 2 by 2 and an honor guard.

They even have gone as far as to build runways for John Frum to land on when he returns. They’ve built large warehouses to store the items he will bring as well. This sounds silly! But I bet the angels of heaven, who have the perspective of heaven and eternal things think we are just as silly with our idolatry.

The amazing part of our passage today is that God has done amazing works in the midst of these people, and already, they have forgotten him. Our struggle today as believers in Jesus is forgetting what God has done for us and pursuing a god of our own making.

The golden calf is a reminder of the depravity of man despite the powerfulness of God. Despite all of God’s provision to the Israelites, despite his powerful rescuing of them, despite all his power displayed on the mountain right in front of them… all it took was their leader being gone for a few days for them to turn to their sin nature and pursue the world once again.

The main idea this morning is this: we must avoid the idols of our hearts and not put anything in the place of God.

Exodus 32

Idols are everywhere

When Moses was a long time coming… What we will see in this text are obvious comparisons for us. First of all, not to ruin a later point, but Moses is playing a very key role here. He is representative of Christ in many ways in scripture. Spared from an evil king trying to kill the babies, a leader of the people who brought them out of slavery and brokenness, a savior figure. He was chosen by God for a task, and was leading the people to the promised land.

Christ is all over the figure of Moses. Who else has been gone for a while and has been promised to be coming back soon… Jesus of course. And while Jesus has been away… the people have played. And not in a good way.

With time comes apathy, with absence comes compromise. But may I remind you as in this story, God saw them and he sees you. Our culture is surrounded by idols. Pick your poison: lust, greed, anger, selfishness, comfort, etc. If you want it, you can find it. They may not look like a big shiny golden calf, but they play the same role.

The enemy is really smart in his attacks. We are too civilized for a golden calf aren’t we? We are modern folk, we aren’t so silly like these silly Israelites. But we have more in common with them than we think. Just because your idol doesn’t look like a calf doesn’t mean that you don’t have one. Our hearts are deceitful and wicked, so much so that we don’t even see our error.

This is our depravity friends! The Bible is very clear in his commandments just last week in our reading. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Ex. 20:3–5)

Idol: An image used as an object of worship. A false god. One that is adored, often blindly or excessively. Something visible but without substance. So what is idolatry? The worship of idols. Blind or excessive devotion to something. The question is, what idols do you have?

Own your sin

Moses breaks the tablets which is important, it symbolizes the breaking of their covenant with God. He also breaks the calf, why? He wants to break their covenant with carnality and sin.

What bothers me most about this passage is Aaron! Aaron, what are you doing?! You are Moses’ brother, you should know better! You’ve been there for all of the miracles, you have seen the hand of God firsthand! You can’t even trust family out here!!! But what does Aaron do? He passes the buck. Instead of repenting, he shifts the blame AND tries to minimize the sin.

We might look down on Aaron here, but how many times have we done the very same thing? Instead of confessing our sin, we find excuses for our behavior. “God, you don’t know what they did to me! God, you don’t know how much pain I am in, this is how I cope with that pain. God, this is too important to me, I need this. You just don’t understand.”

Hear this friend, you may not be able to control the situation or the circumstances, but through Christ you can overcome temptation and sin. Aaron sounds so silly here. They came to me, I had to. I put it in this fire, and out came this calf! Our excuses are exactly the same.

What should we do? Repent, and believe that your God is gracious and will forgive you. 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Do you believe that today? All we have to do is repent and trust our hearts to the loving and gracious Father in heaven.

Don’t let shame and guilt keep you from healing. Shame and guilt put Aaron and the Israelites in a really bad spot. It put them in a place to face even more consequences had they just repented.

This reality is true for each and every one of us. Romans 3:23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23, for the wages of sin is death. Now what?

Who will save us?

Moses plays the role that we so desperately need: intercessor. What does God say? Verse 10, “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” But Moses pleads on behalf of the people.

Even though the people had repented, atonement was needed for their sin. He offers himself as a substitute. Kenneth Barker: “In his role as a divinely raised-up mediator, Moses appealed to the Lord. He reminded the Lord of his special covenantal relationship with his people, which he manifested in the Exodus.”

1 John 2:1, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Do you know that you have someone that is interceding and advocating on your behalf? His name is Jesus. Here is what is so great about Jesus, he is the judge’s son.

The term advocate is a lawyer term. It means to speak, plead, or argue in favor of. Jesus is advocating on your behalf. And here is the beauty of it friends, he doesn’t go before the Father and say: “Oh Father, you know Jordan Hilkey? He screwed up again. I know right! Again! Please, just one more time, give him one more chance. I think it’s going to stick this time.”

No, he doesn’t do that. He argues for God’s justice. Which might make you squirm for a second. I don’t want justice… if I got what I deserved… I’d be in big trouble! No, he argues for the Father’s justice. Christ’s argument is this: “I died for that sin in Jordan’s life. I lived a sinless life in his place. I carried that sin and dragged it up a hill. I bore it on my shoulders, I was nailed to a cross with it draped all over me, my blood ran and my life was given for it. If you demand another payment for that, it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be just. That sin is already paid for.

Jesus deals with the cost of your sin. You spend eternity with the Father because Jesus paid the price and is your savior. But not only do we need saving from that reality, we need saving from another one: how do we overcome this idol on earth right now?

I’ve said it before, how do you get a rottweiler to put down a bone? You give it a steak. Christ, seen in the true and glorious light of who he is, will far outweigh the value of any idol we behold on this earth. When we see Christ in his full majesty and light, we find fullness.

John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus is the good shepherd. He is the true fullness.”

We can’t help that we are wired and built to serve something. All of us are. That is hardwired into each of us, right out of the box. But who will you serve? Just a little further down in Israel’s history God gives the Israelites a choice, just like he gives us one: Joshua 24:14-15, “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Conclusion

My conclusion is this, who will you serve? Some of you need to choose this day and stop living in the middle. Because the truth is this: there is no middle. The Israelites tried that. They wandered in the wilderness and were kept out of the promised land for 40 years until they all ultimately died and only their kids could go in because why? They never could choose only God.

They picked God when it was convenient. They bowed when they saw his power or life tugged on them and forced them to turn to God. But they never picked God exclusively. They picked God plus. God plus this. God plus that.

Some of us need to make a decision today. We need to slay these idols and pick the way of Jesus. We need to pick the narrow road and leave the broad one meant for destruction. We need to pick Jesus and him alone and make him the Lord of all of our life for every day of our life.