Idols

Counterfeit Presence

Intro Hook:

· Show hole

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV)

“In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we come to understand that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished.” - Karl Rahner

Restless

Anxious

Seam: That is where we find ourselves today in the narrative of Exodus. As Pastor Ben set up, God’s people are in the wilderness, having been delivered from oppression in Egypt, they are being guided into a new future by God.

Exodus 32

· First, though they stop at God’s mountain, where are going to have a “DTR conversation” they are going to define the terms of their relationship.

· You know how when you

· Now this covenant ceremony was pretty common practiceduring that day. It was a ceremony where a king would promise to a people that he would protect and provide for them, if they swore allegiance to him. So God promises to be their God and protect and care for them. They are to just live as his people in a way that represents that they are his people. They are to worship him alone. To bring their allegiance to him.

· And so they agree, and God invites them up to the mountain to meet in his presence. But the people are afraid. God’s presence is described as fire and darkness on the mountain. So they let their leader, Moses, go on his own. And the people wait. And we start in verse one.

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron 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.” (Exodus 32:1, NIV)

· The people are sitting and waiting. And they begin to grow anxious. Anxious that they have been abandoned. Anxious that Moses is not returning. So, what do they do in order to find a way through the wilderness? They ask Aaron, the brother of Moses, to make them a god to see them through.

· “Instead of waiting for the instruction given by God through their leader, Moses, they manufacture a counterfeit god out of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty.”

· Anxiety is the birthplace of counterfeit presence, or as scripture calls them, “idols.”

· Think for a moment about the things that make you most anxious in life.

· For many of us, it can be, “am I safe? Can I provide for my family? Do we have what we need to live?” So what do we begin to do? We begin to work. And work. And work. Trying to gain as much money as we can in order to support a kind of good life. Money and safety becomes an idol that we create to get us through.

· On the other side of anxiety though, we try and numb ourselves from the pain around us. We acknowledge that there is something missing in the world. A universal ache that we all feel. But instead of finding something to guide us out of the ache, we turn to comfort to try and numb it.

· Entertainment like binge watching our favorite show, video games, football, over eating, drugs, alcohol, pornography, dating around… all of these become a way of numbing ourselves to the pain around us.

Seams: And while it seems like the idol is helping provide what it is you need, it is never free. As we see in the story, Idols always demand a price.

“Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.” (Exodus 32:2–3, NIV)

· These people are nomads. They do not have a lot. One of the most valuable pieces that they probably had was this gold. It would be like a treasure for them. Treasure that they had carried all the way from Egypt. t

· But what is it that Aaron needs in order to make them a god? He needs their treasure.

· Every single Idol that we create requires treasure in order to live. It requires what is most valuable to us. For this group, it was literally gold.

Hobbies

·Idols will demand your treasure in ever-increasing amounts. Idols take and take and take from us. And maybe they reciprocate. Money gives you a better life. A Boyfriend or Girlfriend fills the void. But You will never rest feeding them. There is never enough for idols. And if you stop feeding them, they will either abandon you or die. Leaving you where you were or worse.

· It entraps you. In a reflection on the history of God’s People, one poet describes what happens when Israel begins to give themselves over to idols.

· And Idols follow the law of diminishing return. There is never enough money. Never enough food. Never enough entertainment. After we binge watching the show we need to find a new one.

· And in ever increasing amount, idols begin to demand our worship. Our time, our treasure,, our attention. They begin to demand more and more until there is nothing left.

Seam: And as you are enslaved to the idol, listen how to how it begins to whisper its messages to us.

“So all the people took off their earrings and 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.” (Exodus 32:3–4, NIV)

· Did you catch that? “These are your gods… who brought you out of Egypt.”

· Did this calf get them from Egypt?

· No, of course not.

· The counterfeit Presence in your life is going to try and convince you it can help because It has helped you before.

· Counterfeit presence… idols want you to begin to believe that they are not only good… but that they are your savior.

· The Idol in your life is going to demand more and more from you, convince you that it is helping and you do not need anyone, and then demand more of you.

· Our idols continue to suck us dry by lying and manipulating us so that we are unable to see God or his goodness in our lives. You become little more than fuel for an idol. That Idol puts you in bondage, giving you less and less and taking more and more.

l.

Seam: Idols don’t go quietly, though. They don’t just change the way we look at the past; they change the way we live today.

“When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day, the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” (Exodus 32:5–6, NIV)

Seam: And what does that lead to?

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.” (Exodus 32:7, NIV)

· God tells Moses to get down to his people because they have become corrupt.

· The word corrupt carries baggage for us. When we think of corruption, we think of a corrupt government or organization. A corrupt individual is someone who is not living morally like.

· But the Hebrew word behind this is important to see. Sahat

· Sahat is usually translated as “destroyed or destroying.” it is the picture of someone bringing destruction upon another person or place.

· Used in this context, God is saying that because they are disobeying the way God designed them to live, they are destroying themselves.

· The counterfeit presence that they have created is destroying them.

· Our idols slowly consume us, and ultimately destroy us.

· See, you and I were created to love God and love other people. Whether you look at the Ten Commandments or the teachings of Jesus. Over and Over again they give a vision of what we were created for live to be like. In harmony and love with God and others.

· Idols take over that love, making us love ourselves, or objects, or causes. They cause us to have what CS Lewis called “Disordered loves”.

· They can be good things. Tim Keller, even says an idol is something that is “good that we make the best.”

· And because what we love acts as a compass to our lives, determining how we live, when we have disordered desires, our lives are aimed at the wrong things. And when this happens, we live in self destructive ways.

· Work

· comfort

· Religion

· And as we are destroying ourselves, because we are seeking things that are not God, we are not entering into God’s presence.

Seam: So how are they, how do we get ourselves turned around? We cannot follow Counterfeit presence and God’s Presence. So what are we to do?

Repent

· The answer all through scripture is Repentance.

· For example, As the church planter Paul is speaking to the church of Thessalonica, he celebrates their repentance.

“for they report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” (1 Thessalonians 1:9, NIV)

· Notice he says that they turned from idols in order to serve the living and true God. There is a turning point that has to happen.

· The Late Christian Philosopher Dallas Willard defines Repentance as

o Not beating your head on the floor or feeling bad about your sins — it’s to re-think your thinking so as to change the way you’ve been thinking and acting. We repent in light of the gospel of Jesus.

· A Changing of thinking to change the way we are going. And the light by which we make that change is Jesus himself.

· While Idols require you to give your time, treasrue and more to be in your life, Jesus gave himself to be with you.

Idols change your vision of the past, Jesus gives you new hope for the future.

Idols slowly destroy you. Jesus came to give you life.

All that Jesus is looking for is you. Not your money, not your time, not your thoughts. He wants all of you. And sure that sounds like more, but it is far easier to give ourselves.

· When the idols around us are screaming, “ Come to me, and I will scratch your back IF you scratch mine,” Jesus is saying:

o “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, NIV)

· See the difference. Jesus says come, and I will give you rest. Is there a need for you to give anything? Do you need to continually feed Jesus for him to give you rest? No! Because on the cross, he has already paid the price for you to come to him. He does not require anything of you but to come home, and he will begin to do the work in you. Not you doing the work in the idol.

· And not just a turning from, but a turning to.

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Seam: This is what is required to seek God’s presence. Turning from idols, from counterfeit presence to serve and follow the true God.

· Repentance is the core message that Jesus himself teaches. Matthew, in his account of Jesus’ life, says that the thing Jesus went around saying was

o “From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17, NIV)

· And life with God does not just begin with Repentance. Our life is a continual repentance toward him. Pastor Trevor Hudson says

o “repentance is not only the doorway but also the pathway along which we travel for the rest of our lives”

· Over and Over, we are constantly reorienting our lives towards him as he reveals areas of idolatry, areas of unchristlikeness, and ways we hurt the world around us.

· Repentance is the habit by which the Disciple of Jesus walks.

· And when we do it, we find God’s presence.

· .

Today

· So today, as we begin our wilderness season together as a church community, lets do three things.

· Reflect: What is the Counterfit Presence that has power in our lives?

· Turn: We need to make the choice to turn from them today.

· Walk: We need to walk forward into seeking his presence.