EXODUS 32:1-16 [NLTse]
When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”

2 So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”
3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!”

6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.

7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

9 Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. 10 Now leave Me alone so My fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”

11 But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are You so angry with Your Own people whom You brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? 12 Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from Your fierce anger. Change Your mind about this terrible disaster You have threatened against Your people! 13 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound Yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’”

14 So the Lord changed His mind about the terrible disaster He had threatened to bring on His people.

15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 These tablets were God’s work; the words on them were written by God Himself.

Sermon
“CALF OR CHRIST”
There’s a couple things I’d like to highlight from this Word of God to us today before getting into the main meat of the message.

First: Wait on the LORD. Patience is one of the many fruits showing that the Holy Spirit is alive and living within a Christian person. The people of Israel began putting pressure on Aaron to make an idol for them to worship because Moses had been on the mountain, with no word from him or from the LORD, for more than a month. At the heart of their demand for Aaron to do something so that they could worship God was unbelief: The LORD had worked wonders to free them from slavery in Egypt; the LORD had worked wonders to keep them safe and deliver them when Pharaoh’s army chased after them; and the LORD had provided food and drink for them miraculously as they traveled towards Sinai and the Promised Land. But, Moses is gone for a month and more, and not only do they quickly craft a statue in the form of a golden calf and begin worshiping it as their god (even though the Lord had told them not to), but they begin celebrating and partying in ways the LORD told them not to, as well. So, yes, it can be foolish to sometimes wait too long, but more often in the Scripture we see examples of the foolishness that comes from impatience, giving into our feelings of desperation, and from not waiting on the LORD…

Second: Do you see in verse 6 where it tells us that “The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” Well, let that be a lesson to us: Just because people are excited about something that they believe God is doing does not mean that God has any part of it. People have attributed much to Jesus over the years that, if they’d read and trusted their Bibles, they would have clearly known to have been selfish and brutal and idolatrous and not of Jesus at all. The LORD tells us in Scripture and shows in Jesus how to worship Him and how to celebrate and truly “party” well. If that’s not what’s clearly going on around you, stay out of it until God shows Himself to show you the Way.

Third, do you see how the LORD distances Himself from those engaging in unrepentant sin? That’s the LORD God’s attitude towards us apart from Christ: He disowns the people, speaking of them, not as His people but, as Moses’ people; and He’s prepared to destroy them for their selfishness and wickedness, for all the harm they are doing because they think they can decide what is best apart from Him. It is Jesus’ sacrifice, and His sacrifice alone, that has God persevere in calling us His people and calling Himself our God, even when we sin in our ignorance or weakness. It’s Jesus’ sacrifice, and His sacrifice alone, that keeps God from keeping us away from Himself and destroying us through death and Hell. And yet, it’s so much more than that! Jesus’ sacrifice has moved God to draw near to us and to draw us near to Him, as sons and daughters, as beloved, the apple of His eye!

But let me bring us back to the main message as I understand it this morning:
This record of the “golden calf” episode shows us that people are looking for something or someone to lead them. History shows us that we’ll follow tyrants, we’ll follow madmen (and ‘women), we’ll follow movie stars and superstars, even if they don’t know where they are going any more than we do, as long as we have someone to follow.

The LORD has never allowed His people to make a statue of Him or draw a picture of Him: Not anything that was ever to be worshiped or bowed down to, at least. Living and breathing human beings are and always have been the image God has given us of Himself. He won’t let us belittle that through statues and pictures and other lifeless images.
Of course, humanity has messed up God’s image in ourselves through our sinfulness. The very best of human beings are trash bags compared to the loving goodness of Yahweh Almighty: The Great I AM; the Great He Who Is! And so the LORD had to come among us in the Person of Christ Jesus of Nazareth, to show us Himself in person. And Colossians 1:15 says, “Christ is the image of the invisible God.” And later in Colossians Paul writes: “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (2:9) Who or what has the LORD God provided so that people might rightly bow down before to worship Him? Jesus Christ. Anyone else? Anything else? … No.

Paul goes on to say, “And you have come to fullness in Him.” (2:10) Yes, you, Colossians, yes you, EPCMilfordites, you have come to fullness in Him.

The Father has given the Son into the world so that we can see His image in Jesus, and know Him and worship Him. And the Lord Jesus has poured out the Holy Spirit on those who trust in Him so that non-Christians can see Jesus in us and, through seeing Jesus in us, come to know the Father and worship Him.

All of us have that role to play: Living surrendered to the Holy Spirit – His fruit and His gifts clearly seen in each of us – in order to point people to Christ Who is pointing people to the Father. Of course, this is especially true for us, Elders and Deacons, because the people of God themselves are looking to us (in addition to all the non-Christian people around us looking to us) to see what the Christian life looks like lived out. To see what a godly husband looks like here in the 21st Century, and to see what a godly wife looks like. Christian-folks are looking to us to see how to faithfully live out the conflicts they experience in their marriages, and how to faithfully relate to their parents, and how to faithfully relate to their children. They’ve read about these things in the Scriptures, many of them, but Christ has given us to them, Elders and Deacons, to show them what it looks like to be faithful employers and employees, what loving God looks like day-by-day, what loving neighbor as self looks like day-by-day, …

And just as the Lord Jesus said that “by their fruits we would know them”, Christ’s people and the people around us will know we are Christians and will know Christ Himself as they see the Holy Spirit’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control being produced in our lives. We cannot have Christ live in us by His Spirit and keep participating in immoral sex, giving into impure thoughts, words, and acts, lustful pleasures, idolatry, witchcraft (not even so-called “white witchcraft” that’s so popular out there these days); we can’t keep quarreling, being jealous, bursting out in our anger, pursuing selfish ambitions, taking sides, giving into envy, getting drunk, wildly partying, and other “pagan revelries” like these. Christ doesn’t keep living in us if we keep participating in such things.

We, and those around us, can know whether or not we’re worshiping the LORD because our behavior will begin to be transformed from these types of “revelries” to God’s kind of “fruit”. And we, and those around us, can know whether or not we’re worshiping the LORD because, when we fall short, and people call us on it, we will regret our bad behavior and we’ll be sorry and we’ll repent…

Two things I want to specifically point out to all of you Elders and Deacons. (These things are equally true for any of us who are Christian leaders or seen by those around us as Christian leaders. But here in this place they especially apply to our Elders and Deacons.) Do you see how quickly the LORD responds when His peoples’ leaders intercede for them? The LORD is going to cast them off and destroy them, but Moses intercedes, and God changes His mind! So, carry the people before the LORD in your prayers. Pray for them in their needs. Pray for them in their failures. Pray for them in their rebellion. Pray for them to our God Who wants to forgive and Who has already forgiven us in Christ.

And lastly – and again this specifically applies to Elders and Deacons but is likewise true for us all – Just as Moses comes down the mountain not knowing what he’s walking into but bearing God’s Word into it, regardless, bear God’s Word into all your interactions with the people. Bear His grace, bear His mercy, bear His blessing, bear His image – restored in you through your faith in Christ – bear God’s Word in all your interactions with God’s people: God’s people in your homes, God’s people in your workplaces and neighborhoods, God’s people in God’s Church. Bear His Word to them, always…