What if You Could Choose Your Own God?
Exodus 32:1-8 Romans 1:21-25
Theme: This sermon deals with how would you go about creating your own God if you didn’t want the one found in the Scriptures.
How many of you have ever created something from scratch? It could have been a cake, a drawing, a building, a table, an outfit, a boat or a host of other things. But when you finished, whether you realized it or not, you had created something unique.
There was not another one on the planet that was exactly like yours, even if you followed a plan or a design. God created us to be creators, because we are made in the image of God. God is best known for what God has created.
We are in our series, “What If”, in which we allow our minds to run wild with all kinds of possibilities. We have been in a sort of Twilight Zone with our what ifs. First it was “What If-Jesus had not come”.
Then it was “What If The Bible was a Lie”, and next Sunday it will be “What If You Didn’t Get Saved”, but today we are going to consider, “What if You Could Choose Your Own God.” We are going to build God with our own rules.
Today it’s popular to run into people who will say they are a very deep spiritual person, but they have nothing to do with the church or any organized religion. They just kind of know God for themselves. The idea of being spiritual but removed from the God of the Scriptures has been around for 1,000’s of years.
There were a group of people in the early part of the Bible who had been slaves for over 400 years in Egypt in Africa. They were cruelly beaten and oppressed. They were ordered to kill their male babies as soon as they were born. They prayed that God would deliver them because without God they had no hope.
God heard their prayer and sent two men, Moses and Aaron, to lead them out of Egypt and to destroy the Egyptian nation that oppressed them. God did a host of miracles to make this happen. God even miraculously provided food and water for the people in the desert as they traveled toward a land that was rich with trees, fruits, pastures, and grasslands.
God even spoke to these people out of smoking blazing mountain causing the mountain to quake. The people were terrified when they heard the voice of God for themselves.
They were at a distance from the mountain, but they saw lightning and heard the thunder. There was smoke rising from the mountain and the sound of a trumpet. They told Moses, “you go up on the mountain to talk to God for us. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
So Moses goes up on the mountain to talk with God and leaves Aaron in charge of the people. Everything is okay for a while, but then the hours turn into a day, and the day into days. Somebody said, “Moses never should went up that mountain, I had a bad feeling about that from the start.” Somebody else said, “I bet you anything he is somewhere lost on that mountain.”
Somebody else said, “You saw all that lightning and the mountain shaking with all that smoke. I bet you he got hit by lightning or got burned up by whatever was causing that smoke. I’m telling you right now, he’s probably up there dead.”
Somebody else said, “well whether he is dead or not, if he was planning on coming back, he should have been back by now.” The gossip got to flying around. People started getting scared. They wanted some protection.
Some of the people decided something had happened to Moses, so they needed a new god. Obviously the God that called Moses up the mountain he couldn’t save Moses, so they certainly were not going to put their trust in Him.
They told Aaron, “Come out here and make us Gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Unfortunately Aaron was quick to start to create a new god with the people’s help.
The people are now right where we are today in our series, “What If you could choose your own God.” Today like the people with Aaron, you can start from scratch on a new god. I think the best thing we should do as we choose to create a new is to ask ourselves some questions. That way we will know what ingredients we need to arrive at the kind of God that we want.
The first thing we need to answer is how many gods are we going to create for ourselves. Will it work best for us to have different gods for separate areas of our lives? We create a god responsible for our wealth, a god responsible our health, a god responsible for our relationships, a god responsible for our love life, and a god responsible for getting us out of a jam.
That way we might not have to live up to the same standard in all situations. But with more than one god, they might have fights with each other or they might have fights over us. The God of wealth may keep opening all these doors for us to make more and more money, while the God of our relationships insists that we spend more time with our children if we want to have them love us when we get old.
Will it be okay to love one the gods more than the others? Will they have different duties, and who would each answer to if they were pulling us in different directions?
Or should we just have one God who can deal with everything. That could be a lot less confusing. That one God could show us to balance things without pulling us in 10 different directions. That one God would not be competing for our loyalty.
The next thing we should decide is what is this god going to look like. The people with Aaron chose a calf as a God. Will god be a bigger more powerful, more beautiful of more successful version of ourselves? Will God be like a valentine heart with love shining forth in all directions beaming in the sky? Will God look like two big hands open to receive us or ready to form a fist to get rid of people we don’t like?
The moment we decide on a picture of this god, we immediately place barriers around this god and limits the god to both time and space. No image can be every where at the same time. What would be our plans on how to worship this image that we have created or would we worship it at all.
Or should we create a God that is spirit so that God can be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. We don’t want to have to worry about whether or not God has the transportation to get to us on time in the middle of our crisis. For if our image of God is merely a reflection of ourselves, we know that it takes time for us to move from place to place.
The next thing we should decide is, who is going to have access to this god. Do we want to have this god like a genie in a bottle that answers only to us? Will this be our god alone who deals with others, but we are his favorite and nobody else can have god on quite the same terms as we have. After all, we are the creator.
Will this god be more concerned about me than anybody else and will I will be able to reach god whenever I think I need to make contact? Will this god have access to me whenever god wants to or is this god suppose to sit back until I give god permission to come forward. Can this god just show up and start putting my business in the streets?
Or is this God going to be available to everyone in the world on the same terms as you are. Is this God going to be equally concerned about every individual on the planet? Will this God be able to interrupt our schedule and try to get our attention when God wants to intervene in our lives. Will this God be able to come forward make us upset by the things He reveals?
The next thing we should decide is how stable and fickle is this god going to be. Can this new god change his/her mind from day to day on what he/she thinks is right or wrong? Will this god be able to promise something today, but change his/her mind tomorrow?
Can this God constantly change the standards without telling us in advance or can we change standards without first checking in with our God.
Or is this God going to be one that changes not. Is This God the same yesterday, today and forever so that you know what to expect from day to day.. Whatever He promises, that He will do so that you can trust his word. You can know for sure that this God can be trusted because He is faithful and true to his character.
The next thing we want to decide is whether or not this God is all knowing or not. Do we want to be able to hide things from this God so that we never have to answer for what we do under the cover of darkness? Will we be able to lie to this god and deny that we have done anything wrong knowing that we won’t get caught?
Will this God be limited to how far into the future that God can see? Because if we let god see to far into the future, he can see our sin before we do it, which will make it harder for us to lie about it if asked. But if we don’t let god see far enough into the future, then how will god be able to protect us from the dangers ahead.
Or is this God going to be omniscient, which means knows all things. He will know everything we do, everything we say, every place we visit, and every sin we commit. He knows every time we repent. Every time we hold a grudge.
He will know everything about the future so that he can cause us to avoid things coming into our lives. He can lead us through a minefield safely because he knows where every mine that could blow off our legs has been buried in the ground.
The next thing we need to decide is whether or not this god can tell us what is right and what is wrong? Do we tell our new God, here are our 7 commandments that people should follow? If somebody disagrees, is it okay as long as they agree to 4 of the 7? What kind of consequences can this god impose if the commandments are broken? Can we periodically vote on the 7 and decide which ones to keep and which are optional?
Or is this God going to be a Lawgiver. A God who tells us what he is like and what He requires of His people. A God who tells us these are 4 things you need to do in relationship to me, and these are six things you need to do in relationship to each other. A God who doesn’t think what is simply best for me, but what is best for everyone.
The next thing we want to decide is how powerful is this new god going to be. Will god have the power to wipe out all the evil in the world so that we could all live peacefully and happily together. How much power do we want God to use when he spots evil? Should he immediately wipe out people with sinful thoughts, people who tell lies, people who are envious, or jealous of other people, people who are greedy, people who kill or think about killing others?
Is there going to be a limit to how many times a person can mess up and a time limit for them to repent, before God takes them out so that everyone can be a happy. Will you and your family get any special exemptions from the rules since you are creating this god? Will you be pleading, “Well I know he’s hard headed and bent on selling drugs that are killing people, but he’s my son. Cut him some slack.”
Or is this God going to be all powerful, willing and able to do what God wants to do, when God wants to do it. A God whose power is tempered by mercy and grace full of patience and loving kindness. So that not only you, but everyone else can blow it time and time again, and yet God still reaches out to them in love to bring them to repentance.
A God who is no respecter of persons who genuinely wants everyone to be saved. A God who limits his power until righteousness demands enough is enough and justice demands that judgment be issued.
The next thing is we need to decide is what are we going to do about sin. Will this god even care about sin? Well if we don’t make him holy, then sin won’t be an issue. But if we create an unholy god, we can expect an unholy group of people. People become like the god they serve.
When people are left to themselves with no rules, things go from bad to disastrous. We won’t be able to ask this god for help in changing their behavior, because the god will see nothing wrong with it. Will this god even be able to help people stop sinning.
Or do we want to create a god who is holy who says be holy for I am holy. A god who lets us know that we sill have to give an account for the way we have lived our lives, knowing that there is a standard by which we are to live our lives. A god who says, if anyone is in me, he or she can become a new creation.
The last question is once we give this god power, do we have the right to take it back and change what this god looks like later on or will we be stuck with the one that we create. If we don’t give up the power once and for all, then we actually are the god we worship.
What if we could choose our own God? People are trying it all the time and each time they do, those around them suffer. They always want to redefine the meaning of sin, and the meaning of what’s right and what’s wrong. People do not leave Christianity saying, “It’s been proven beyond a shadow of the doubt, that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead.”
People leave Christianity because of what Jesus said, not because of what he did or did not do. People leave Christ, because they want to do something Jesus does not want them to do.
Jesus said, Luke 14:26-27 (NIV2011)
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Jesus is saying, ”if I don’t mean more to you than the most meaningful relationships you have in your life, and if I don’t mean more to you than your own happiness, then you cannot be my disciple”. Jesus is saying, “there are times it will hurt to be my disciple because I will expect you to die to your own desires on the crosses in send in your life.”
The world has a lot more appealing things to offer us than Jesus does in the present. That’s why we try to have the world and recreate God into another image so that we can have them both. We can be independent to do as we please, while claiming to be spiritual.
Jesus says we can’t have it both ways. What good will it do for a person to gain the whole world, but to do it at the cost of their souls.
If we really want to choose a God, we will do well to choose the One who has already revealed Himself in the Scriptures and desires to be in a relationship with you.
God is not far off that we have to go seek Him. He’s right here, waiting to be invited into our lives. You owe it to yourself to at least attempt to get to know the God of the Scriptures, before choosing your own.
