Swapping God for Burgers

Anyone else totally digging this sermon series? I love it, and I feel so privileged to take part in it.

For those of you not familiar with our current series, Steve and I are working through the entire narrative of Scripture - March through December - Genesis through Revelation.

I believe that when the church opens the Word of God together and begins to understand its identity as an Easter people - as a people who believe in the rescue and redemption of the resurrected Christ, then gnarly things begin to happen. As a Pastor, I often get a front row seat to see these gnarly things happen, such as:

Teenagers who never gave a single thought to Jesus begin to live a surrendered life to the one who saved them from the destruction of sin. Parents on the brink of divorce give up control and allow the power of Jesus to restore their broken relationship. Sick people without any hope of recovery turn to the hope of Christ and find healing.

Gnarly things happen when the church gets together, studies the Word of God, and begins to live into the reality of the power… and redemption… and salvation… and reconciliation of the resurrection.

We should be the kind of people who can believe in the impossible because God did the impossible by resurrecting Jesus from the dead on Easter morning!

The resurrection climaxed an unfolding period of history that continues to this day with the church.

And that includes what happened after God delivered Israel into freedom from slavery.

We begin our journey in Exodus chapter 19.

Let’s pray together…

Let’s pick up the narrative in Exodus 19, verses 1 through 8:

Exactly two months after the Israelites left Egypt, they arrived in the wilderness of Sinai. 2 After breaking camp at Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and set up camp there at the base of Mount Sinai.

Before we continue any further, please take a look at this map in order to gain a visual reference point for where in the world I am talking about:

MAP

At this point, God led Israel from Egypt into the wilderness, and two months into what will become their 40 year journey, God told Moses to meet with him on top of Mt Sinai to speak with him.

Let’s continue…

3 Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. The Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “Give these instructions to the family of Jacob; announce it to the descendants of Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.”

7 So Moses returned from the mountain and called together the elders of the people and told them everything the Lord had commanded him. 8 And all the people responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded.” So Moses brought the people’s answer back to the Lord. <<<end of passage>>>

What a proclamation by God! He says, “Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth, for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.”

Essentially, God told Israel that if they live in obedience to God, then God would love, provide, and care for them so that others may also know the love, provision, and blessing of God for all of the world.

When the elders heard this, they boldly affirmed their desire to keep the covenant!

For the first time since the the garden, God could finally dwell in love among his people, and his people could live in obedient love to God.

Moses went to the Lord, gave his reply on behalf of the people, and then the Lord instructed the people with 10 commandments for them to follow.

Because, ultimately, love requires boundaries and structure.

These commandments served 2 functions: first, that Israel may live in a right relationship with God and second that Israel may live in a right relationship with one another.

That simple.

The commands begin in Exodus chapter 20, verse 1:

1 Then God gave the people all these instructions:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

3 “You must not have any other god but me.

4 “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 5 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. 6 But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

7 “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

12 “Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You must not murder.

14 “You must not commit adultery.

15 “You must not steal.

16 “You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.

17 “You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.”

The first 4 commandments instructed the people on how to live in a right relationship with God.

They are:

Do not worship any other god. Do not make idols of any kind. Do not misuse the name of God. Remember to observe the Sabbath by keeping it holy.

The next 6 commandments instructed the people on how to live in a right relationship with one another.

They are:

5. Honor your father and mother.

6. Do not murder.

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not slander your neighbor.

10. Do not covet what belongs to your neighbor (or another way of saying, Do not be greedy).

That’s it. Regardless of what you may or may not believe about God, these 10 commands functioned for Israel, along with most every other nation and society as the moral bedrock for government.

For Israel in particular, however, God gave these commands to hit the reset button on Israel and get them back to basics.

Remember, the Israelites lived as slaves in Egypt for nearly 400 years, and - at least from what we read in Scripture - without any authoritative teaching about the nature of their covenant with God, their identity as a called people to live as a blessing, and what it even meant for them to live in relationship together as a nation.

Certainly, the people succumbed and acclimated to Egyptian culture and religious influences. Who knows, maybe some of the Israelites even converted to the pagan religions of Egypt and worshipped Pharaoh and the thousands of other gods in their religious system.

Thus why these 10 foundational, core commandments functioned for the nation of Israel as much as identity formation as rules for life.

God designed these commands for Israel to live their best life possible with God and with one another.

God gave these rules to Israel not to exclude them from the family of God or for them to either opt in or out into a relationship with God. Rather, God gave them because they belonged to the family of God.

Think about it this way: Good parents gives rules and chores to their children because they belong to their family. A parent does not say, “Obey these rules, or leave the family.” I would never say to Hannah, “Obey your father, or give me back my last name.” Of course not, that would be cruel!

God desired to make this nation holy and set them apart from every other nation in the world so that every person and family on Earth could look upon Israel and see the very reflection of the living God!

In the following chapters of Exodus - 21 through 24, God gave Moses additional instructions called the civil law so that the people could know how to interact together on a day to day basis that reflected their covenant.

Following the civil law, God instructed Moses on how to build the Tabernacle so that they could worship God in a right and holy manner.

Chapters 25 through 31 record those instructions, and then chapters 35 through 39 tell us how the people carried them out.

In these instructions, God provides Moses with a detailed list of the fine materials and goods they needed to use, along with specific and intentional instructions on how each item must be assembled.

All to say that our God does not belong in some lamp like a genie or dwell in an animal. Our God created the heavens and earth and deserves only the best.

God went into great length about the construction of the Tabernacle. Its portability demonstrated the desire for God to truly dwell with his people, exclaiming to all that God is not distant. God is not absent. In fact, even as God gave these instructions to Moses on Mt Sinai, the entire nation of Israel stood below gazing up at the cloud surrounding the mountain, resembling the very likeness of the Spirit of God.

But I also want to acknowledge that some of you might be wondering: why does this matter? You might be thinking: this happened so long ago. It seems archaic.

All of this matters - the 10 commandments, the civil law, the instructions for building the Tabernacle - all of it - because God wants more than anything to restore our relationship that we broke and redeem our sinful nature back to the time when we dwelt together… freely… wholly… and perfectly… in the garden.

Do you see? Everything that God did in Scripture - including everything that God does in the hear and now through our lives today and amidst the church - all points to that single, determined end.

I want to ask you this morning: Do you believe that?

You might be shocked to learn how Israel responded to this.

In chapter 32, verse 1, the author writes,

1 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.

WHAT?!

These same people who walked through the split waters of the Red Sea, who followed a pillar of fire, who ate manna from heaven, and who could see the presence of the Lord as manifested in the clouds on Mt Sinai… these same people made a golden calf, celebrated a festival to it, sacrificed offerings to it, danced, drank, and committed repulsive sexual acts in front of it, and even exclaimed… “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt.”

Apart of me wants to refuse to believe that something like that could really happen, as if to say this period of history did not actually take place as we read it in Scripture.

Seriously, could Israel really do something like this? Literally, days earlier, they just heard the voice of God and exclaimed that they would do whatever God wants them to do!

Yet, I think all of us know that not only did this incident happen exactly as it read it, but this same kind of thing continues to happen over and over and over again within each one of our own lives.

Personally, I am astounded that the people of God could see the very likeness of God before their very eyes, yet declare in unity that the god who actually led them from Israel was a cow made of their own gold jewelry.

I think this admission means something significant.

The people of Israel believed that they rescued themselves from Egypt. They are the gods represented in this cow. They are the gods to whom they make sacrifices. The festivals honored their own accomplishments. They indulged in sex, wine, and food for their own glory and pleasure.

Sure, Moses was taking too long, but he was talking with God. But the people grew impatient. In so doing, rather than relying on the God who just rescued them from hundreds of years of slavery just 2 months earlier, the people made idols of themselves, harkening back to the core sin of Adam and Eve and every human being: the desire to live as the god of our own life.

Every sin - every broken act - every hurt done to us - every hurt done by us - flows from that.

((LEFT HAND UP, RIGHT HAND DOWN))

God should be here. You should be here. Every sin puts you here and God there. It really is as simple as that.

Paul said it so right on. He wrote in Romans 3:23:

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”

Every person at some point makes the trade: giving up an obedient love relationship with the living God for the likeness of a grass-eating cow! How pathetic, right?! But all of us do this!

David wrote about it in the Psalms:

19 The people made a calf at Mount Sinai;

they bowed before an image made of gold.

20 They traded their glorious God

for a statue of a grass-eating cow.

All of us sin and fall short of the glorious standard that God set before us. We trade God for a grass eating cow. What an awful trade, yet we make it all the time - like trading a Ferrari for a matchbox car. It makes no sense!

We do this with so many things, and they all flow from our core desire to live like the god of our own life:

Power and control in the form of:

notoriety relationships sex wealth goods food time goals

You name it. We can literally trade God for anything. Even good things can be used to live like the god of our own life. Setting and accomplishing goals - for example - can be a good and productive thing to do! Yet, when misplaced and used for our own self-serving interests, your goals and objectives can become the stench of a greasy burger rather than a sweet and pleasing aroma for the glory of God.

BURGER and BIBLE

God calls us to feast on the nourishing word of his Scripture, yet we choose the empty calories of a greasy burger.

Our trades can occur in the most subtle way, and when we leave our intentions unchecked, then we can easily side on living life like our own god.

All of us fall short of doing this.

This morning, if you feel caught up in this and convicted about trading God for burgers, then let me encourage you to simply confess your sin and hear the good news for you that Paul wrote in the very next verse, Romans 3:24:

“Yet [[yet - yet - our lives - your life - can take great hope this morning because of this word, YET!]] God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.”

Hear the good news for you: You traded God for burgers, but God traded himself for you.

We traded God for our own sin and glory, yet because of his great love for us, God traded himself on a cross for us.

Let me close with this story from the end of Matthew:

Some yahoo Pharisee, attempting to trap Jesus in a catch-22 in order to prove him wrong, asked Jesus this question in Matthew chapter 22:

36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law of Moses and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

God gave Moses these commandments long ago to make Israel holy. Jesus died on a cross long ago to make you holy.

As you leave this morning, I want you to think on 2 questions:

1. What is your cow?

2. Do you believe that God traded himself for you?

If you believe that, then God promises to take your cow, forgive you, and bring you back to him.

May we be a community, a church, who can surrender our desire to live like the god of our own life so that we may live a real life with the one, true, and holy God!

Let us pray…