Golden Calf or Golden Crown?

Intro

I just want you and nothing else

“If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing.” ― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods

“As many have learned and later taught, you don't realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” ― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Moses ascends the mountain and the people of israel wait at the foot of the mountain

They get the presence of God, and it becomes wallpaper to them.

Think of the Garden, and how quickly they came to doubt what God said. It is in our nature to forget God’s word and doubt Him.

The enemy is constantly testing our faith in God’s truth against the truths that our culture offers.

We are at constant risk of twisting and bending God’s word to fit what we believe about the world instead of trusting scripture.

We are constantly trying to shorten the distance between the world and God to make the jump to faith easier for people who are seeking. The truth is that the gap is one that can’t be jumped, you have to walk across that long and narrow bridge that is Jesus. He is the one way.

Egyptian culture followed Israel and instilled doubt that Yahweh is really the one true God and offered this question that we ourselves have to answer today. Do we want a golden calf, or a Golden Crown?

What if the Golden Crown isnt real? what if it isnt there? The golden calf is right in front of us, and we see how it benefits Egypt.

Well we too see how the things our culture says lead to success in this life are constantly pushed on us over what God says will earn us the Golden Crown

2 Timothy 4:1–8 “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

is this the best way to live my life?

Did God really say…?

If you devote yourself to the things you can touch and taste and see, you won’t need so much faith, because the things you want are right in front of you.

John Calvin once said that the heart is an idol factory. Tim Keller has an excellent work that builds on this idea called Counterfeit Gods. In it, he says this,

“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.”

Instant vs delayed gratification

Matthew 4:4 “But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ””

Exodus 32

v.6 Apis, bull-god of fertility, sexual immorality

v.7 Your people

v.10 This is what the people deserve

v. 20 later in numbers we see an adulteress must drink the waters of bitterness

David Foster Wallace- Novelist and philosopher

This is water, the wise fish passes the two younger fish and says “Morning boys, how is the water?”

the thing we cant see or feel is the thing we worship, and culture doesn’t really talk about it.

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.” Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.” ― David Foster Wallace , This Is Water

going back to kellers definition of an idol, its anything that you feel like you couldn’t live without or anything that elicits a strong, unexplainable emotional response

search your heart for your idols. a good way to do that is through fasting. fasting from food and certain pleasures in life that are not inherently bad. anything you say doesnt own you, give it up and see.

Romans 1:18–25 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

“If we look to some created thing to give us the meaning, hope, and happiness that only God himself can give, it will eventually fail to deliver and break our hearts.” ― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods