Breaking the Mold
Scripture / Text: Exodus 32:1-29 (NLT)
Browsing the web, I came across the top three signs of a dysfunctional family:
• Family discussions usually begin with, "Put the gun down."
• Bikers next door always complain about the noise
• Your mom threatens, “Eat your brussel sprouts, or Mommy won’t love you anymore”
Seriously speaking, dysfunction is a severe problem in society. Dysfunction is defined as “the malfunction of an organ or structure.” This can relate to the economy, the human anatomy or social interaction and relationships.
The solution to dysfunction is the effort of a person or group to break the mold. It is the deliberate choice to approach something differently from the way it’s always been, in the interest of achieving a different outcome.
Today’s teaching relates to how we function in relationship to God; what He intended versus the current reality. Some people have a healthy relationship toward God while other people are very dysfunctional. The same is true of faith communities in relating to God; some are healthy and others are not doing well at all.
There are ways to move out of dysfunction to healthy, functional relationships with God! To have that we must break the mold that prevents wholesome relationship.
Do you want an explosive-rock-your-world-never-believed-it-could-be-this-amazing relationship with God? Yes? Buckle in for the ride of your life!
First, if we want to break the mold of dysfunctional relationship with God,
1. Old habits must die
An alcoholic stays dry by avoiding alcohol; a person carrying too much weight resulting in high cholesterol, high blood pressure breaks the mold of bad practices; the answer to lack of marketable skills is higher education by taking the first step of signing up for a course of study. I’m not saying any of this is easy. As a matter of fact it’s quite hard. But it can be done for higher ideals, goals and dreams!
If you will have a rock-your-world relationship with God you must break the mold from doing things the way you’ve always done them. That’s the message in today’s story. The people had come out of Egyptian slave systems. There would have been hand-crafted images all over the place, images and totems that represented higher powers and gods of superior intellect and power. Moses had gone up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, the laws of God. He was gone a long time, something like 40 days – no Moses. So what did the people do when God’s representative wasn’t around? They went back to the old way of doing things. They ordered the second-in-charge to take matters into his hands; to craft images like they’d been used to. After collecting their gold he melted it and molded it into a golden calf. Then the “people exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt!” (Verse 4)
Now comes the probing question. What are our gods (v4) that we craft in response to our crisis of faith; the things we lean on when our confidence in God’s presence is on slippery ground? Is it arrogant confidence in personal achievement and abilities; self-interest and advancement; Maybe it is reckless abandon of God to fix a situation that we think is out of His authority, concern or control.
We have to break the mold.
Second, if we want to break the mold of dysfunctional relationship with God,
2. We must stop pretend-worship
When I was a very small boy my brothers and sister played church. We’d assign the preacher and congregation. The preacher was my sister or me (we’re both pastors – go figure!) All the components of worship were there though we agreed we’d all get our money back at the end of the service!
We may have what appears to be “worship language” or even so-called ‘actions’ that appear worshipful. But many times we may be guilty of playing church if we’re hanging on to the old gods and giving them place in our lives.
That’s what happened to Aaron and the people. The innocent truth is, they didn’t want to replace God but simply wanted a more permanent symbol of God’s presence in the absence of Moses who had been gone so long. Their intent to worship God is picked up in verse 5 where Aaron, seeing how excited the people were announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD!” They were sincere for sure but sadly, they were sincerely wrong.
If we will have God we must do things God’s way and His way does not allow room for other gods. He will not make room for idols. When we allow such behaviour we’re guilty of the indictment of verse 6, “they celebrated with feasting and drinking and indulged themselves in pagan revelry.”
What is pagan revelry? A good example is the scene of the Stanley Cup finals in Vancouver. After the Canuck’s loss to the Boston Bruins in Vancouver in game seven on May 8, 2011, scenes of riot destruction were powerful. Mayor Gregor Robertson still doesn’t know the cost of damages. People who were model citizens allowed themselves unrestrained, unchecked behaviour that would make the proudest parent, friend or spouse blush. As we watched we felt shame, horror and disgust. Our pride as Canadians has gone from glowing at the Winter Olympics gold-medal win over the United States in February of this year to disgraceful in the Stanley Cup challenge. It is an image of pagan revelry, a party gone bad where there is no restraint, respect or dignity.
Worship is only worship when the experience of coming to God brings me into deep awareness of His Majesty’s holiness and at the same time brings me face to face with my filthy rags of poor spirit and dirty soul. Isaiah says in best in 64:6, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall. And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away.”
Pretend-worship is the picture of a little boy looking up at his dad as a bird lies dead at his feet. His open, palms-up hands are accompanied with the caption at the bottom of the picture: “It wasn’t me daddy”. But, as we’re looking at the picture with the boy’s back to us, we see the sling shot in his back pocket.
Pretending in the company of Father is not worship but mockery.
Author Jill Briscoe wrote a book called “God’s Front Door”. She speaks of being in God’s presence and needing to be washed as she stood with him at a mountain stream. She poetically writes,
“We stood still and I looked at my misshapen feet standing next to His wonderful, terrible nail-pierced ones. I noticed then, that my feet badly needed washing. “It’s all that dust Lord,” I said apologetically.
“That’s what happens when you walk through the world,” he replied. “Sit down.”
“Uh?”
He took a cloth and wiped my dusty feet. I felt very “Peter like”. “Lord,” I blurted out. “I feel awkward – dressed yet strangely naked – humbled.”
That’s worship. No acting here. Being humbled and feeling ‘strangely naked’ – exposed if you will – we do the only thing we can do. We ask him to wash us.
Third, if we want to break the mold of dysfunctional relationship with God,
3. Our gods become disgusting to us (32:20)
Fretheim gives us insight to what is happening in this verse. “Not only is the calf destroyed, it suffers the {humiliation} of being dispersed more and more until it is reduced to human waste.”
That’s disgusting. And that’s what must happen to our gods. The things we turn to, even things that dispose faith and become symbols of God, must become repulsive and never be considered again as another option to the current reality.
We have several characters on stage in this story. There’s Moses, high in the mountain in communication with God. Joshua is almost missed. He accompanied Moses some distance up the mountain but stopped where he was instructed to wait for Moses’ return and Moses moved on up the mountain. There’s Aaron the priest, taking leadership of the people while Moses is in Session with God. Then there are the people with Aaron, pushing him to do other things.
Moses and Joshua waiting for God do His thing and Aaron in the valley with the people taking matters into their own hands. The important question is raised: Where do we spend the most time? Waiting on God or taking matters into our own hands? The answer to that question speaks to the extent that our gods are disgusting or still operating in our lives.
Finally, we will break the mold when
4. We take God’s side (32:26-29)
It is very difficult to capture images of a loving God and at the same time try to make sense of Bible accounts of God killing people and being very hard toward them; allowing bad things to happen and sometimes He’s the one who brings bad things about that are hurtful and painful.
Author / pastor, Max Lucado was on a Holy Land Tour. He and the people in his groups were raising questions around the story of Numbers 4 when the Ark of the Covenant – a symbol of God’s presence with his people – was handled by Uzzah. Because Uzzah didn’t handle the Ark properly, God killed him on the spot. The question among the people with Lucado was ‘why’? They questioned their tour guide, Joe Shulam who grew up in Jerusalem and studied at the Orthodox Jewish Rabbinical Seminary. He had a deep understanding of the Old Testament. They asked him for his opinion. Joe responded, “The question is not why did God kill Uzzah but rather why does he let us live?”
Commentator and Scholar, Terrance Fretheim reminds us that if everyone in today’s story had chosen God, the slaughter could have been avoided. The choice is always ours. But with choices come consequences; often times we don’t always know what the consequences will be until after the choice is made. But as Fretheim says, “radical sin is believed to call for radical measures”. God, being entirely pure and without fault, cannot tolerate sin any more than a spark to dynamic can prevent a catastrophic explosion; or mixing a heavy dose of arsenic in your food can prevent you from being poisoned. When you mix holy God with corruption there is a chain reaction that God cannot control any more than we can. He cannot be in the company of corruption because of who He is.
I quote Colonel Floyd Tidd, Chief Secretary for The Salvation Army in the Canada and Bermuda Territory. He said that “we think God is concerned with our temporary happiness. In fact, he isn’t. It is bigger than that. God is concerned about our holiness and the grander plan that He intended all along.”
If we want to break the mold we have to do things God’s way. Henry Blackaby and Claude King in their book, “Experiencing God” say, “Joining God requires major adjustments.” They continue:
“The first turning point in your knowing and doing the will of God was the crisis of belief – you must believe God is who he says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. “Adjusting your life to God is the second critical turning point.
“Every time God spoke to people in the Scripture about something He wanted to do through them, major adjustments were necessary. They had to adjust their lives to God. Once the adjustments were made, God accomplished His purposes through those He called.”
What is the conclusion to all this?
• Decide whether or not you want God to really rock your world and give you the life he always intended you should have
• Take a realistic look at yourself and face what is out of sync with God’s design
• Stop pretending
• Face the facts
• Make a decisive choice to passionately pursue what God wants
