The Grizzly Cost of Sin

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Really good to see you guys this morning. We're gonna be jumping back into our return to God series. And we are focusing in this series. Last week we started it, this week, we are jumping back in. We are focusing on a huge rift that develops between God and his people. Huge rift. And this huge rift, this incident is the Golden Calf. It's a very famous incident, even if you've not been in church a really long time, you may have heard the idea of a golden calf or worshiping a golden calf or anyway, something about a golden calf because it's kind of made its way into just society generally. We talk about a golden calf. Well, this is that incident. This is the golden calf. Last week we looked at it and the incident itself and how God spoke to Moses about it, which was surprising. And if you're interested in more of that, you can always go on our website. You can search up any sermon.

So you can see last week's sermon. And we saw that as God was speaking to Moses, that he was stirring his heart toward mediation. Stirring his heart toward mediation and it worked. So God is talking to Moses and Moses kind of has this moment where he's just like, he starts begging God on behalf of Israel. He starts mediating. He's saying, look, don't wipe out Israel. So God did that to Moses and it worked.

This week we're going to look at how Moses responds to the golden calf incident. If you think about it, Moses and God are up on this mountain. Israel is down here. They haven't seen Moses in like three months. So they freak out and they start putting their gold together and worshiping a golden calf. God knows that's happening and brings it up with Moses. What we're going to see today is whenever Moses comes down the mountain and sees it for himself and what he does. I will tell you, it is moderately disturbing. Okay. And I will try to work through this as much as possible. There's a reason that people don't preach on these sermons or in these verses a lot. Okay. They're just difficult. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's God's word. We can be confident. But I would ask you maybe hear me out on some of this as we try to work through what it looks like for us today.

We're going to be in Exodus chapter 32 today. The verses are going to be on the screen. You can have a Bible in front of you. We have Bibles kind of scattered throughout here. You can also find a Bible on your phone. Exodus 32 verses 15 and 16 is where we're going to start. Exodus 32 verses 15 and 16. It says, then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides, on the front and the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. So Moses is coming down some precious tablets written on with the finger of God. Skip down to verse 19. As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot

and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Remember, these are really precious tablets, okay? You know, if you ever like receive a really frustrating text or something really frustrating, you want to throw your phone and then you think to yourself, that's really expensive. I probably shouldn't throw this phone. Even though I want to throw this phone, very expensive, very precious thing. Moses was so mad that he threw his phone. He was so mad that he threw the tablets down and broke them, okay? This is how angry he was. Look at the next verse, Exodus 32:20. It says, he took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it into powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. I know my life verse now. His, Moses' reaction, this is just the beginning, Moses' reaction to all of this shows us everything

that we need to know, okay? Just in case you're like reading through these verses and you're like, I don't know what to think about this. Moses is showing you what to think about this, okay? Moses is angry. His anger is burning hot and he really illustrates how we should see this. More on that in a second, okay? Because where Moses starts is where you and I stop.

This action right here of grinding it up and making people drink water with gold bits in it, it seems a little excessive to us, right? We tend to downplay idolatry in the Bible. So we look at Moses doing this and we're like, I don't know if I'd do that. Like, I don't know if that was me. And we have a tendency to consider this and what follows. We have a tendency to call this an overreaction or to kind of look at it and go like, I'm not sure. So I'm gonna try to help you get there emotionally, okay? Like what's happening? I want you to imagine that you are part of a really great church. Some of you don't have to imagine that hard. Some of you do. Imagine that you are part of a really great church, man, and things are lying. I mean, they are going so well and you are finding a family and you are starting to grow spiritually and you are starting to trust these people.

You're starting to really... And then you find out that the church is caught up in trafficking child slaves. Exactly. What? Imagine that you find this out and it's these people that you trust that it's... And like the pastor's caught up into it and the whole thing. It is... We don't really have a category for that. And imagine the children, hundreds of children with like stolen childhoods, innocence lost, unspeakable acts, and the church is totally caught up in it and you find this out. Dare I say, you would lose your ever-loving mind. You would be blind with rage. You'd be angry in a way that it's kind of uncomfortable to think about. And you might ask, what were you thinking? Because it would be impossible for you to fathom how a whole church got into trafficking child slaves.

Okay, now you are where Moses is. Now, how you feel right now. This is where Moses is. In fact, this is the question that Moses asks Aaron in the next couple of verses. Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? And Aaron said, let not the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know the people, they are set on evil.

Israelites are gonna be Israelites, am I right? That's his answer. That's his answer. You know the people? He continues, Aaron continues verse 23. For they said to me, make us gods who shall go out before us. And as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So he completely blames the people at this point. So Moses pretty much left Aaron in charge. Moses comes back and he's saying to Aaron, what did you do? And Aaron is deflecting, he's blaming Israelites, he's trying to normalize best he can. He completely fails. Look at the next verse, verse 24. So I said to them, let any who have gold take it off. This is last week, he's making the idol out of this. So they gave it to me, I threw it into the fire and out came this calf. Okay, great job, Aaron. Not taking any responsibility, zero. He's blaming Israel, he's blaming people.

And he's just saying like, I mean, I don't know, there was this fire and we threw gold and this calf just like jumped out. I don't know, it's weird. He completely fails. It would be like this church that's caught up in child slavery. It would be like that church. You asking them and they'll say, well, you know, I guess children really need structure. It's awful, it's awful. That's not an excuse, it's not a reason, it's nothing. It's terrible. It's a really horrible thing to even think about, honestly, it's uncomfortable to think about. The reason I chose that this morning is because that's how uncomfortable all of this is. We're just not used to it. This next part gets a little grisly, versus 25 and 26. So he's ascertained information from Aaron, nothing is going right, nobody's taking responsibility. And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose, for Aaron had let them break loose

to the derision of their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. So Moses draws lines, he gathers the Levite priests to his side. Verse 27, and he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, put your sword to your side, each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor. Take your sword and kill indiscriminately. It's grisly. And there's no take backs on this, this happens. Verse 28, and the sons of Levi did, according to the word of Moses, they say about 3,000 men of the people fell. 3,000 dead should really leave us speechless.

We get a why to help us understand kind of what's going on. Because I gotta be honest, like in 21st century Burleson, Texas, this doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem normal. And it's because we don't understand or feel the gravity of idolatry. That's it, let's keep going. Moses gives them a why, it's pretty instructive. Verse 29, and Moses said today, talking to the Levitical priests, today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day. We're taking them three parts. Today you have been ordained for service. The Levites in that particular situation needed to be reordained.

Why? Because who else is going to bear the people before God? Moses can't, that's not his role, he's not a priest. Aaron and all the priests are, but they've just worshiped the golden calf. They need to be reordained. This was part of that process. Second part, so today you've been ordained for service at the cost of his fellow Israelite. Listen, sin costs a life. I want you to go back to the child slavery ring inside the church. And for those of you who walked in late, this was not a real church, this is an imagined situation. A church running a child slavery ring. And when you see those children, and when you see their lives stolen in your outrage, the haunting thing is that there is no answer, none. There's no answer to the question, how can we make this right? There's no answer. How can we make it right? How do you make it right? How do you make it right that children

whose innocence has been stolen, whose lives have been stolen, whose childhoods are gone, families who haven't seen their children, all that's gone. How are we gonna make that right? Community service, we can't make it right. There's no way to do it other than ruining another life or taking another life. You might say, well, maybe we can rehabilitate them. Maybe. And that's great for them, but what about justice for the child slaves? Rehabilitation doesn't give them justice. The innocence lost cannot be accounted for with rehabilitation.

And not even just the child's loss, think of the parents' loss, the siblings' loss, the families' loss. And what is the cost for all this? What does it cost for that to happen, for that to be made right? What does it cost? It costs a life. It costs blood. Sin takes away life one way or another. Sin takes away life one way or another. Sin, put it a different way, sin costs blood to forgive, and somebody has to pay.

And this is a grisly reminder for us of both the nature of our sin, it's heinous, it's severe. You and I, we really don't understand on an emotional level we don't see our sin happening to the same degree or with the same intensity that it is. In our very nature, we downplay rebellion against God. We do that. It also is a grisly reminder of the price that had to be paid to forgive it. The price was high. So Moses is saying to the priests, today you have been ordained for service at the cost of his fellow Israelite, so that God may bestow a blessing in order for the relationship to happen between you and God, a sacrifice needed to be made to pay for your sin.

We'll get to that in a second. First, I wanna address the thoughts that people have on this, because people have thoughts. Scholars have thoughts, theologians have thoughts, influence, they got thoughts, okay? In fact, if somebody on TikTok is gonna slam the Bible and talk about how terrible it is, they might even bring up Exodus 32. They might talk through this. Like, look at how savage that is. Look at how barbaric. Talking down to the Bible. People got thoughts on this. I'll just give two thoughts and answer them. I don't think that's going to settle the whole thing for people who would be mad at this, but it's at least something. Here we go. Our first thought is that doesn't seem fair. This doesn't seem fair.

And to that, I would say simply that you and I are not more qualified than God to determine justice. That God holds justice, he understands justice, he knows what's fair. You and I, we can't fathom what's fair. We don't know. We don't understand. We can't parse that out. We can't account for all those variables. We just can't. When God says justice belongs to me, when God says vengeance is mine, it's not just because he wants all the vengeance to himself. It's because when you and I take vengeance into our own hands, it's never right, ever. We can't weigh it.

We are finite beings. So this doesn't seem fair. It really just assumes you can understand what would be fair. It's a bad assumption. The other thing is couldn't God have handled it another way? And this really may be the biggest miss of all. Couldn't God have handled it another way? Here's, we read the story and we see that it's grisly and it's disturbing, but here's what we miss. The fact that only 3,000 were killed that day was grace. Only 3,000 died? Not all of the several hundred thousand, probably million Israelites that didn't all die? Only 3,000? Everyone in that camp, except Moses, deserved to die immediately, according to the law that they already swore to. This isn't some surprise. They knew this. They knew not to do this. And to be fair, when we say couldn't God have handled it differently, God did handle it differently. God didn't like open the gate on all of his justice

and just let it roll. God held a lot back and we underestimate really all of what's happening there. This is not where the story ends. It keeps going. Exodus 32, verse 30. Chapter 32, verse 30, excuse me. The next day, Moses said to the people, you have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses is going to approach God and Moses has a plan on his own. He's got an idea and here's what it is, 31 and 32. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, the people has sinned a great sin. This people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold, but now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.

Moses is speaking euphemistically. What Moses is saying is if you won't forgive them, then erase me. Condemn me to a life forever without you. Blot my name out of your book so that these other people's names won't be blotted out of the book. Moses is not saying they didn't deserve that. Moses is not trying to appeal to some sense of justice that exists outside of God. Moses is simply saying,

let me be eradicated so that they won't be. And this is like last week, Moses' actions were pointing forward toward a mediator that would come. And this week here, Moses is offering himself as a substitute. Moses' actions are pointing forward to a substitute. Moses didn't just offer to take the punishment of Israel, he offered to be blot out for an eternal separation. And remember, look, these are people that are in the middle of effectively running

a child's slave ring. These are people that just came off of probably a couple of weeks of feasts and all kinds of debauchery with the golden calf. These aren't people that are repentant at all. Aaron is not repentant at all. Nobody's got sackcloth and ashes whenever Moses comes down. Maybe they know they did something wrong, but there's no response recorded in the Old Testament. Nobody, nobody is saying, hey, you're right, Moses, maybe we shouldn't have done that. Nobody, nobody deserves any kind of grace in this moment. No lesson has been taught. They just had to eat gold flakes in water and 3% of them had to die.

But if you're part of the 97, you kind of got off good. These aren't people that were repentant. Moses owed them nothing. Moses was very likely still angry at them. No explanation, no defense, no repentance. And if you look, look, as strange as Israel's actions are, Moses's are stranger. And part of the reason we have this story, part of the reason that we're looking at this, Jesus actually tells us a couple of times in the New Testament, like, hey, the Old Testament is there for you to kind of see, like learn lessons, see, like, let it point forward to what's happening now.

And honestly, this story makes the gospel, the good news crystal clear. This story makes the gospel crystal clear. It's that the entry point of the gospel is astonishingly easy. And it is also very hard. Let me tell you what I mean. The gospel offer, we talk about the good news here all the time, another word for that is the gospel. And in scripture, Jesus is preaching the gospel. He's offering people connection with God. But here's what had to happen, connection with God. But here's what had to happen. Jesus faced eternal separation from the Father, from God, so that you and I could be united with God. And not when we were feeling bad for what we did, not when we were like, man, if only I could become a Christian, not whenever we were like praying hard already. Second Corinthians 5:21 says, for our sake, me and you, God made Jesus to be sin. Jesus did not know sin.

So that in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. Here's what that means. Jesus, who didn't deserve to die, he faced eternal separation with God so that we could be declared righteous. You and I, righteousness that we do not deserve. Nothing is more hypocritical than a Christian who thinks they've earned their righteousness. It's really bad. It's an adventure and missing the point is what it is. It's wrong-headed on every level, in every way that you can think about it. Jesus went through hell so that we could live eternally. This is the message of the Bible. This is what we see in this story as Moses is offering himself up. And the starting point for all of this is that you and I deserve death. That's uncomfortable. That's not like a fun thing you talk about at the coffee shop. You and I deserve death. And here's something, I mean, this is just helpful to think about.

You and I deserve death even if we were judged by our own standards. We're not even talking about God's standards at this point. We're talking about just normal human behavior. You and I fast-track to hell. Don't pass go, don't collect $200. That's a board game reference for some of you, sorry. Sorry, I'll quit that. Even if you were judged by your own standards, if I was judged by my own standards, we would all fail that test. We would all deserve death. To believe the gospel, to believe that it is good news in the first place, you must see your own guilt. And you must feel it. If you think you're doing God a favor by being here or by reading your Bible or by praying, I'm afraid you've missed the point. I'm afraid you don't understand exactly what's there. And I'm not trying to be condemning about that. I'm saying like you're trying in the wrong direction that if you begin the question

or begin the conversation with, like, I know Jesus, you just kind of did me this favor. You don't understand the offer. You don't understand that you deserve death. Because if you're not guilty, then you don't need a savior. And if people aren't lost in going to hell, then they don't need to hear the gospel. They don't need your testimony. You're just bothering them. There is this sentiment out there that telling children that they're sinners in need of redemption from God is emotional manipulation.

And I'm not making that up. I'm not gonna bring up the people that are saying it. You can look that up on your own. It's actually pretty easy to find. That telling children that they are sinners in need of redemption from God is emotional manipulation. The reason that they say that is because they say you're starting kids out by thinking that they need to climb out of a hole, thinking that they owe God something.

Let me just say, sure, there might be a time and age to begin to introduce that. That's cool. Every kid's different. Awesome. That's great. However, most children, when they begin to understand themselves and the world around them, understand that they are deeply broken individuals. It doesn't matter what you tell them. It doesn't matter if you tell them that they're the best things to slice bread every day of their life. It doesn't matter. They know, just like you and I know, we know that we are broken on the inside, that we mess things up, that we touch. We know it. It is haunting. It doesn't mean that nothing goes right in our life, but it does mean that nothing's gonna go right forever, not in our lives. We live in a broken world, that we are broken people, and that children coming to terms with that fact is an explanation of reality. It's not manipulation at all.

Real emotional manipulation is telling children that they can't do wrong. That's emotional manipulation, to the highest degree, actually. Treating them like they're perfect, treating them like they could do no wrong, or worse, that they're right and all the adults in their life are wrong. It's horrible to teach a child that. But you know what? It makes your child like you for like five years. This is a grounding fact of being human. And I wanna just spell it out so I'm clear. Here it is. I am a sinner in need of a way through to God, and Jesus has paid the debt for me to do it. This, this, and you can quibble with wording, that's fine. This is the grounding fact of being human.

This is the truth no matter where you're from, no matter where you've been, no matter where you're going. I don't care what era you lived in. I don't care what generation you are, that's true. That will snap you back into reality. It's not, listen, it's not fun. It's not gonna make the fun of a Hallmark card, but it is reality. It does acclimate you to what is real and dismiss what is fantasy.

And this is why, this is why the good news is good, because without it, we're sunk. This is why we call it the good news. And this good news changes you. I don't wanna belabor this, but I do wanna help you see it. Sometimes sermons stop here. You deserve death. Let's go have Sunday lunch. It's, you know, I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying sometimes they do in there. I just wanna push past that a little bit and kind of build on that. Because when you see your sin, when that becomes real to you, when that weight comes down on you like a ton of bricks, when that happens, when you see that, and then you say, Jesus, I'm a sinner and I need you to help me. I need you to make me right with God. When that happens, a huge, all of that ton of bricks that was on you is lifted. The weight is lifted.

And do you know what replaces shame in your life? Gratitude. And do you know what replaces dread in your life? Joy. Peace. Worship from a pure heart. Man, I love, Eliza, thank you so much again for leading this morning. It was just so good. You know what the best part of that for me was? Just hearing everybody in the room going full volume. I just loved it. Thank you for singing out. If you didn't sing out, I'm not saying thank you to you. I am saying thank you to those who sang out. But man, like when you understand that you are a guilty sinner and you can take all of that off of your own back, when you can say like, I can't carry this, this is crushing. And when you put it before the Lord, man, that is the weight lifted. That is a new life. And gratitude follows, joy follows, worship follows. You will see yourself differently. You will see other people differently.

You will see your problems differently. It's not sunshine and unicorns, but it is a perspective that leads to hope instead of a perspective that doesn't lead anywhere. Romans five, six and eight says, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And when you really grab ahold of that, it will change the very conversations you are having. It will change, it will change you on the road, Drew Ivey. It'll change you whenever you are driving and somebody cuts you off. It will, brother, it'll free you.

You know, I had a really interesting conversation with my wife a couple of days ago. I didn't tell her I was gonna tell this story. So here we go. We were talking about just a different phase of our relationship that, you know, where empty messers and things are happening and it's good, right? It's good and weird, it's good. And we were just talking about like just things that we could do better or things. And on my bingo card of stuff that I think bothers my wife about me, this did not make that card, but she said it. And I thought, okay.

She said, you get really mad when you drive. And look, I know that's funny. It's definitely funny. For sure it's funny. It's funny if you're in the car with me, except it's not funny for my wife and it's not at all, not even close to funny. It makes her very, very, very uncomfortable. And she just said, I feel like it just puts you in a really bad mood. Like just for things after that, right? Like during the car ride, for things after that, like it just is taking a toll on you. Well, I want you to know, like I had been convicted about that privately. I had not said anything about that to her where I would be like worshiping the car and somebody would cut me off and I would go from the chorus to like yelling at the dude in front of me to learn how to drive. Okay, so it was pretty polarizing, right? Like it was kind of just, I was like jekyll and high in the car, okay?

So it was kind of rough. Here's my strategy out of that. My strategy out of that is not to try really hard to not get mad. It's to examine what I believe when I'm driving. It's to examine what I'm actively meditating on as I'm on the road. My wife has a really great formula for this. It's not one that I can do yet because I'm not at that master level. But she says, imagine that people are driving with a wedding cake.

So they can't take turns too quickly. They've got to go a little slower. They got precious cargo back there. And it helps her give the benefit of the doubt to somebody else, which is amazing, right? But it's not a situation where she says, look, I'm getting mad while I drive, so I'm gonna try to not get mad when I drive. Okay, that's just not a good plan, okay? It's just not. It doesn't work very well. It works for like maybe a day. And you're just white knuckling. You're just learning to trust yourself. Jesus wants me to calm down when I'm driving for many reasons. Pleasing my wife is a pretty good one. But for many reasons, Jesus wants me to be chill when I'm driving and to do that, to change that, I really have to examine and choose to believe other things while I'm driving. And if I mess up here and there, it's fine. I'm not going for perfection. I'm going for a change of perspective.

Look, for some of you, you need to understand that the gospel is not some offer for you to live a more religious life. That's not the gospel. Sorry, it's just not. The gospel, plain and simple, is changing you from the inside out. It's saying, Jesus, I'm gonna give you what's in here and I'm gonna receive from you things I could never earn on my own. And that does happen all at once at the beginning, yes. But then also, it happens on a journey where we become more like Him.

You can't become more like Him if you have not given Him everything. So you definitely need to do the first thing first. But when you are working to become more like Him, it's not about trying to be religious. It's not about bearing down and forcing yourself. It really is way more like letting go and asking Jesus to change your perspective, to change your heart, to do the work that only He can do.