You Gotta Serve Somebody
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Exodus 32:1
Today, in our Central Reads 2024 bible reading plan, we read the (in)famous story of the golden calf. It is a foundational story that, if we are to understand God’s story with humanity, humanity’s story, and our own stories, we must catch a glimpse of it.
Moses, who was Israel’s connection with God, had gone up the mountain to meet with God and was delayed a bit. It happens to all of us. Give the guy a break. But they, Israel, do not. They don’t know what happened to him – and in fairness, it’s the wilderness…maybe a mountain lion ate him – and so they imagine they’ve lost Moses – which means they’ve lost God. And what do they want to do immediately, in Moses’ – and God’s – absence?
They want to do what we all do in God’s absence: replace God with gods.
It’s the story of our lives, the story of humanity, the story of Adam and Eve.
What did Adam and Eve do when God wasn’t around? They replaced his voice, word, and direction with the voice of another – the serpent. We replace God so quickly, and we’ve been doing it since the beginning!
In the men’s Wednesday morning bible study, we’ve been talking through Romans – and a few weeks ago, this idea came up. In Romans 1, it is foundational for Paul that at the core of every human problem, of the human predicament – sin – is always found idolatry (replacing God with gods).
It’s what’s responsible for the mess we’re in…whatever mess it might be.
We worship the creature rather than the Creator.
We exchanged the truth about God for a lie.
We worship the works our hands (‘these are your gods!’) rather the Creator of all.
We forfeited the glory of God for the “glory” we can produce.
Yuck. And it ruins us still.
And the worst part about it is it’s the way God has made us. You see, God has made us to be worshipping people. We were made to worship – and know and listen to and be fed by and be loved by and love and serve – God. It’s how we’re wired. The problem is, as soon as we sense God’s absence (or we get tired of God) – we replace God and get our wires crossed.
And so it makes us ask a very difficult question:
who – or what – have you replaced God with?
Success. Financial security. Our children’s future. Being right. Our iPhones. Our open floorplan. Following our dreams. Approval. Sex. Politics. Power. Our selves.
The list could go on and on.
We’ve all done it. We all – like Israel before us at the foot of the mountain – have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.