THE MISSION | WEEK 3

Today, I'm going to be speaking to us about how we can be a people shaped by God's Word. How can we be a people shaped by God's Word? Let's turn to Exodus, chapter 19, verses 3 to 6. Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain. Thus you will tell the house of Jacob and declare to the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I lifted you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. And now, if you will diligently listen to me and keep my covenant, then you will be my special position out of all the nations for all the earth is mine. And you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words, Moses, that you will speak to my people, the Israelites. This indeed is the Word of the Lord. Praise be to God. I have a five-year-old son. I have three kids. I have a daughter who is 14. I have a 10-year-old. No, he's 11 now. I live in your old son, who has a morsewag, then I just don't know what to do with it. Right? And then I have a five-year-old who, in many ways, he is my kryptonite when it comes to parenting. For those of you who don't know what kryptonite is, I hope you know Superman because kryptonite is a fictional radioactive material from Superman's home planet called krypton. And this kryptonite emits radiation that weakens or kills Kryptonians serving as Superman's vulnerability. L'Onoble, when it comes to parenting, is my kryptonite. I mean, look at him. Right? How could I not be weak at the knees? So my situation with L'Onoble is bad, okay? I'm here to confess the situation with L'Onoble is bad. I mean, it's not so bad that I would lose my black mom status, but it's bad enough that my older children have felt the need to remind me that mom, you can do better than this. We've seen you in action. We have experienced your parenting as they slowly walk toward me with the wooden spoon as L'Onoble and I are having an altercation. They believe in me, they say. The other day, after holding my ground with L'Onoble, my 11-year-old son, Kusa came to me and he hugged me, patting me on the back, then looked at me in the eye and said, "W parenting." The nerve, but also the pride that swelled in me. L'Onoble is currently obsessed with blocks and legoes because of a new found curiosity with the kids' matcho-called number blocks. As a result, our home is sometimes, if not always, a landmine of blocks, which I'm always having to ask him to pack away without fail. Every time I tell L'Onoble, it's time to pack up his blocks, he will protest. He will tell me what an incredibly arduous task it is for him to have to pack away all these blocks all by himself, and he will demonstrate how taxing this task is on him by saying, "Now, look, Mum, I'm moving in slow motion." As a child, L'Onoble usually needs an external cue and because I'm a good parent, I'll give him that external cue in order to let him know that it's time to pack his blocks and usually when I give him that cue, what I'll do is that I'll get his attention, L'Onoble, and then I will give him the instruction, pick up your blocks and pack them away, and he will hear my instruction and God willing. He will then act on said instruction and pick up his blocks. I'll be in slow motion. Now, if I had to choose between L'Onoble obeying me in slow motion and being disobedient, I would choose slow motion because this type of hearing, there's a word in the Hebrew that speaks to this type of hearing way, your attention is gotten, you hear their instruction, and on hearing the instruction, you are ready to act and obey on the instruction. This attentive listening that leads to action or obedience is a word called Shema, and this is the word God uses when he says to Israel, "If you diligently listen to me and keep my covenant." A number of versions translate this verse to say, "If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant." My favorite version says it this way, "If you really listen to my voice, then you have kept my covenant." If you really listen to my voice, then you have kept my covenant, which means the keeping of the covenant lies in really listening. Obedience flows from really listening. Shema to really listen. Today's text finds Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. Israel has arrived here three months after their deliverance from Egypt, and three months after being in the wilderness, they reach the mountain of God where God had spoken to Moses earlier on in their story. In Exodus 3, Moses encountered God in the burning bush. God told Moses that he had heard the cries of his people, he had Shema to the cries of his people, and now he had come down. He had been moved to action to come and deliver them from Egypt. In that same encounter, God commissioned Moses as the instrument of that deliverance and promised that after bringing the people out, they would return to this very mountain to worship. This moment at Sinai is the fulfillment of that promise. This is the place that God had carried and brought them to. This is the place of worship. As the first point of order, God doesn't start a band as it were. He doesn't gather the best voices in Israel and anyone who can play an instrument and say, "Now worship me." What God does at this place of worship as he's first point of order is that he speaks, and what he speaks to his people in that moment at that place is what is called a covenantal proposal because worship in the Hebrew is not just singing and dancing and praising and making a loud noise, but worship in Hebrew means to serve. It means to come and work. It means to come and cultivate. So the kind of service God wants, he wants to flow from covenant. In the biblical imagination, covenant is a big deal. I cannot overstate it. A helpful way to understand covenant is through the image of marriage. Two people freely choose to bind their lives together in committed love, promising loyalty and partnership as they pursue a shared future. Imagine service coming from that kind of relationship. Covenant in the Bible is not only a sacred relational commitment binding to parties permanently through promises and a common purpose. It is also a cosmic symbol that points to the culmination of God's story with these people where heaven and earth for all intents and purposes will be in covenant together or in other words bound together in such a way that God will once again dwell with humanity without the separation caused by sin. Covenant, union, oneness, being together in such a way that they is no separation. By the way, for those of you who are married, that's what makes your marriage sacred. That's what makes your marriage a covenant and not simply a legal contract. When you get married and you say yes to being in covenant with your spouse, you're committing to them. Yes, absolutely. You're committing to showing up for them and being in partnership with them. But more over, you say yes to your marriage together, being a pattern of the covenant of God with his people. You say yes to your marriage, your covenant, being a pattern of Jesus' covenant with the church. You are participating in a cosmic story. You are participating in a story that begins in the beginning and ends only in the end and goes back to the beginning and comes to the end. You are choosing to be a symbol of God's story with his people. You cannot hold your marriage covenant lightly. It is a prophetic statement of the heart of God. It is a prophetic statement of the intention of God. Your marriage is a symbol that pulls from a coming reality and brings into the now as a pattern what is and is to come. God's covenant proposal to Israel, if they agree, is that they would essentially be betrothed to him. He's saying, combine yourself to me because I want to be bound to you in such a way that when the nations look at how we relate, they will be drawn to me. He begins in this covenant proposal by calling them to remember how he dealt with Egypt on their behalf, how he carried them on Eagles' wings and brought them to himself. And now, in light of that freedom, if they really listened to his voice, then they would have preserved his covenant and would be a treasured possession. They would be a kingdom of priests and they would be a sacred nation, set apart for him and his purposes. Beautiful, right? An enslaved people who in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world have nothing and are nothing. They are freed by a powerful God who now says to them, "I want to bind myself to you." He says, "I want you to be among all the other nations, my treasured possession, not as God's private hoard in a sentimental way, but as a king's valued property, set apart for royal purposes. Do you know that as a child of God, you are set apart for the king's royal purposes? Israel would belong uniquely to Yahweh among all the nations, but this election is instrumental, not exclusive. It wasn't just for them. It was so they could live with God in such a way that others would come to know this Yahweh. The key point is that Israel would be a treasured possession for a purpose to represent Yahweh to the rest of the world. Not only would they be a treasured possession, there would also be a kingdom of priests unto him. They would not merely be a nation with priests like all the other nations, but they would be a nation that is priestly. I think that is so beautiful because being a priest is such an exclusive thing, but God calls all of them to be a priestly nation. In the Bible, being a priest speaks about mediating between God and people. It speaks about knowing God and making him known. It speaks about guarding sacred space. And it speaks about teaching God's instruction. God's covenant proposal is that their calling would now be to mediate the knowledge and presence of Yahweh to the nations, embodying what life under God's rule looks like. Their obedience would make Yahweh visible and credible in the world. A treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Holiness here means set apart for God's service. It doesn't mean cut out of the world and living outside of the world, just you and your holy idol. Israel is distinct in order to serve not to be separate from humanity. Israel's distinct way of life shaped by the covenant and the commandments which he would later give them would mark them out as belonging to Yahweh so that others can see what allegiance to this God produces. Friends, this is worship. Being a treasured possession. This is worship being a kingdom of priests and being a holy nation. This is what it means to be the church. The covenant proposal that God gives them gives them four things. The first is that it gives them identity. It tells them who they are. As much as freedom is wonderful, there is something unsettling about freedom, especially when all you've known is slavery, when all you've known is being bound, when all you've known is being instructed to do when how and how much there's something unsettling about freedom. But God, knowing this doesn't abandon them to their freedom, he says, I will tell you who you are. I will give you an identity. Freedom without identities, dangerous. He gives them identity. Then he gives them a purpose. He gives them a why. He gives their lives a why. Their why was wrapped up in the ego of this Pharaoh who out of his insecurity even burdened them even further. Why? That they couldn't escape. But God gives them a new why, a new purpose. In this moment, he gives them a vocation. He gives them a how they can fulfill their purpose and their identity. How many of you know that you can have identity and you can have purpose but still be confused on how to get all of that identity and purpose done. God gives them a vocation. He gives them a way they shall live. And above all, he gives them meaning, purpose and identity and vocation without deep meaning. It too can lack. It too can be empty. What do I mean by meaning? When I speak about meaning, I'm speaking about living within the song that God is singing over your life. Living within the song that God is singing over all creation. Living within the song that God is singing over all of history. That is what gives meaning. At least eternal meaning. Because some of the meaning that we have in our lives is like sinking sand. It cannot hold. In light of eternity, it cannot hold. But God being good gives identity, gives purpose, gives vocation and he gives meaning. And this meaning is nestled in who he is. The one who is the beginning and the end. The one who is the first and the last. The one who is the uncreated God. The one who just is. When your meaning sits there, no one can take that away from you. Identity, purpose, vocation, meaning. These are all formational words. These are all life shaping words. These are the kind of words that will only come alive in the life that will shema. These are the kind of words that will only be embodied in someone who is willing to rarely listen to the voice of God and the word of God. Israel responds to this covenantal proposal in verse 8, it says, all the people answered together. And they said, all the Lord has commanded, we will do. All the Lord has commanded we will do. And in response to that, God says to Moses, good, go now and prepare the people to meet with me. Because on the third day, I will come down Mount Sinai to meet with them. I hope every time you hear the third day, it reminds you of another one. This time coming from beneath to come and meet with his people, with resurrection life in his hands. Moses shema and three days later in verse 16, we read in the morning, there was thunder and lightning and a dense cloud on the mountain and the sound of a very loud horn, all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their place at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. And its smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace and the whole mountain shook violently. When the sound of the horn grew louder and louder, Moses was speaking and God was answering him with a voice. Moses is called up the mountain by God, where he always says to him, go back down and ensure that the people do not force their way past the boundaries that have been set up because part of the preparation that God had given them was consecration but also the setting up of boundaries. God was very particular about how he wanted them to come and meet him. Moses pushes back and he says to God, Lord, I gave them the instructions. The people are not able to come up because you want us not to. So no one will come through the boundaries and all the mothers of the toddlers said, I'm not sure if it works that way. God responds and says go back and make sure that people don't force their way through the boundary. List I break out against them. I don't blame them because sometimes I receive the instruction of the Lord and then by the third day I've actually forgotten what he said. By the third day, I want to do my marsh thing. Do you know what I mean? Though God has called them to come and meet with him, he is so particular about how they come and it seems like the writers trying to let us know that there is something in their thinking that some of them perhaps may have heard God through Moses, but not all of them may have Shemaad. Moses goes down to the people and speaks to them again. When Moses is down there with the people, the thundering, the lightning, the fire, the cloud, all of it happening with God presencing himself on the mountain. God having come to me to these people begins to speak to them. He begins to speak to them and the words that he speaks here are what we call the Ten Commandments, but the Hebrews call the Ten Words. These Ten Words are the Covenant stipulations. The proposal has been made, but their stipulations as to how this covenant will be lived out. So God begins to give his stipulations. These words are how they will shape their lives in order to fulfill the covenant. Living out these words has common eyes, an Old Testament professor with a particular focus on the book of Exodus says in her book, "Baring God's Name." These will be how Israel will carry the name of God as authorised representatives in the world. How beautiful is that? So when they bear the name of God well, they will accurately reflect God to the world. They will reflect his intent. They will reflect his character. They will reflect his love. They will reflect his blessing, his abounding love. He's forget all that he is. When they carry his name well, they will reflect him well, but the converse is also true. When they deliberately disobey, when they choose to live their lives outside of the song that God is singing, not bearing God's name in a way that is reflective of him, they will desecrate the name that they bear, misrepresenting Yahweh and bringing disdain to his name. This is not a strange phenomena. I'm sure we've all come across whether it's social media or friends that say, "Oh, those Christians, that church, my goodness, those pastors." Dissecrating his name. I want the weight of these words to settle in you. I want you to know that when you as a child of God obey, when you as a child of God Shema, you reflect God well to the world, but when you as a child of God deliberately disobey him, you desecrate his name. Let those words settle in, but as they settle in, may they settle in to a particular context? May they settle in to the context of him saving you from slavery to sin and certain death? May they settle in with the way knowing, remembering the way that he dealt with the enemy of your soul? May they settle in with the knowledge of him carrying you through the way that he dealt with himself. The weight of bearing God's name in your life is significantly held up by your testimony of him. Who have you known him to be? How can you bear the name of one who you don't know? How can you show up in the world representing him? If you don't know who he is, okay, good, it's all good and well, you know him, but do you remember him and do you remember him daily? Is he on your mind all the time? Is he with you when you go into the world, when you go into your family, when you go into your workplaces, when you go into your friendships? Are you mindful of your God and what he has done for you? Remembering his critical to being able to bear his name, well, so if all God has saved you from is a hard life, then all you will need is a soft life to break covenant. If all God has saved you for is for you to be free, free to be you, free to do whatever you want, then all you will need is the right set of opportunities to break covenant. If all God has saved you into is for him to simply bring you to himself, then give you a couple of rules and regulations. It's only a matter of time before those rules and regulations are a burden on you and you turn to another God who has less burdens, less requirements on your life, who will give you principles, who will give you laws that won't feel like a way for you thus breaking covenant. We must not forget that God has saved us from slavery to sin, slavery to darkness, and he has secured eternal life for us. This remembering piece is so important for this reason, but it is also important because it affirms a truth that seems so obvious. But for those of us who have been with the Lord, who have journeyed with the Lord for a while, there's something about forgetting that when we come to the Ten Commandments, when we come to the Word of God, when we come to the stipulations of covenant, we begin to believe that us fulfilling us obeying is the thing that has secured eternal life for us. It is not. They are delivered already. They are saved already. He has brought them to himself already. There is nothing that they can do to earn the salvation that he has already given them as a gift. They need to remember. And if they remember well, they will then shema well. You are already saved. It is not your obedience that has secured salvation for you. If I were the enemy, I would work over time telling you, it is not enough. You need to do more. Are you sure you're saved? You need to review those situations, those teasing seas. And I know it's an uncomfortable word because having that sense of if I am doing, if I am living in a particular way, then it gives me a sense of being grounded. Knowing that I have done what I need in order to secure this said salvation. God would say, no, no. But before you even looked in my direction, I already made the decision that this one, mine, your his, it settled. Now that you have been saved, the covenant stipulations are given to you to help you shape your life in such a way that you will fulfill covenant. Now that you are saved, the covenant stipulations are given to you so that you might be able to walk out your identity. Walk out your purpose and walk out a life of. In other words, the commands of God are good for you. If you hear them rightly, if you understand them correctly, if you rarely listen, you will come to see that the commands of God are good for you. After God speaks the Ten Commandments to Israel, how do you think the people respond? It's a rhetorical question, so it's all good. I receive the silence. This question matters for all of us, but in this moment, I just want to speak to a particular group for whom this question matters in a particular way. Some of you will one day enter a relationship. And in said relationship, you will receive a covenant proposal. Will you marry me so that our lives may be bound together? Some of you will enter into the relationship and have the courage to then say to someone I want our lives to be bound together. Will you marry me in the excitement of being chosen or being the chooser? You will say yes without fully understanding what covenant entails. And when the covenant stipulations begin to bear weight on your life, you may find yourself afraid. Because the weight with which they come is not merely rules. It's not merely him saying to you, this is how we shall live. And you saying to him, this is how I would like to be loved. It's not merely that the weight of this covenant that you are saying yes to comes with the very weight of the God who stands behind them. Dare I say, if there's no fear, then the God behind those stipulations is not shall we? The God who allows you to do whatever you want before marriage. The God who allows you to do whatever you want within marriage is not the God of the universe. Those gods are likely a God of your own making. And those are tough gods to obey. When covenant stipulations arrive with the full gravity of the one who gives them, you begin to realize that marriage, both prior to the ceremony and within the marriage covenant, is not only about loving and being loved. This is important, this is necessary. Love must be within the covenant. But it is also an instrument in God's hands carving you out out of the marble of a self-centered life. God would bid you in marriage come and die. God would bid you in covenant come and die and die well. In this way, marriage resembles Michael Angelo's description of how he made that sculpture, and that sculpture is called the David. And the way that Michael Angelo describes how the sculpture came to be is that it was like freeing the figure from the stone. He was given a bandend marble that other sculptures had tried to do something with, and they failed. They gave up. They left that marble, but it was given to Michael Angelo and he applied himself in such a way that he was able to see what was in the marble and carved out. Covenant is that tool in your life. Christ, he finds us as flawed blocks of marble, often abandoned by other sculptures and patiently shapes us into a masterpiece. Into what we were always meant to be and what he himself is. If art is to be true, it must come from the person who is creating that art. Anyone can make something anyone can create, but to create a masterpiece demands something from the artist. You, my friends, are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared and advanced for you to walk in. You're not just any old creation. You are God carving you out of the marble of your life, sculpting you through covenant and saying, "Come forth." And not only does he sculpt you out and when you come out, you are everything that you are meant to be and everything that is reflective of Jesus. He breathes his life in you and he says, "Now live." What kind of a God is this? What kind of an artist is this? That would make that sort of masterpiece from dust. In Exodus 2018 to 21, we see the people's response. It tells us that the people see the thunder and the lightning, smoke and fire and they tremble. They keep their distance and say to Moses, "You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us. Lest we die." Can you imagine? God makes an appointment with you and he comes in all his glory and you say, "Hold up, wait a minute." Not like this, Jesus. Not like this, Lord. In these verses, we see their response, but not only do we see their response, we see Moses' response. And out of these two responses, we can see that there are two kinds of fears that come to us when we encounter God. The one kind causes people to tremble and then keep their distance. The other produces reverence, a fear that keeps the weight of who God is always before you so that you do not sin. The kind that keeps that the weight of God always before you so you would stay in harmony with the song that he's singing. Verse 21 says, "Thus 21 makes the contrast unmistakable. The people remain at a distance, but Moses draws near into the thick darkness where God is." I really believe that it is in this moment that Israel fails. It's in this moment. A couple of chapters later, they make a golden calf, right? But I really think it's in this moment of testing the heart when God shows up and they choose the way that you're showing up is pressing into my life in a kind of way that I need to find a way to create some distance so that your words don't come into me and change me and shape me and make me. Choosing distant preserving fear over reverence, choosing self-preserving fear over fear that desires nearness. If you are going to be shaped, you must come near. Intimacy, the kind of intimacy that changes who you are does not happen from a distance. You must come. Don't let God speak to us, list, we die, they say. But God is speaking to them and they're not dying. But because the weight of God's words feels like it might take life from them, rather than give it, they remove themselves and stand far off. What am I saying? I'm saying, if you only hear, and all you hear is a litany of commandments, all you hear is a couple of words telling you how you shall live. If you only hear, you will be afraid. You will feel a burden. But if you shema, if you truly listen, you will discern the heart of God in the words of God. No matter how he shows up and no matter how he shows up because you have discerned his heart, you will receive him. We all know what it feels like to bring the full weight of who we are into a conversation in a relationship and sense that this weight that we're bringing is creating a distance. I'm not talking about reckless behavior or emotional outbursts and you're like, this is who I am and you just need to take me as I am. That's how I'm talking about. I'm talking about moments when you share your heart, when you share your values, when you share your needs, what it would mean to truly love you and you can feel the other person looking for a weight heart. Sometimes the way out or the way that they're looking for is just out of this conversation because like, why are we being so deep, man? Why is this so way? Like, why are we doing this, right? They just want a way out, but sometimes the way out that they're trying to find is a way out of having to bear the weight of your heart. They are trying to find a way to be in relationship with you without feeling the gravity of your values. Of your needs. So they prefer a relationship, a friendship, a marriage where there is enough space between your heart and their conscience that they never have to feel the full weight of your person pressing in on them. That is the kind of distance Israel chose at Sinai. And it is the distance covenant always confronts us with. When covenant comes, you have to make a decision, will you come near? I mentioned earlier that I believe that this is where they failed the test in their hearts, but they did more than that because in principle, Proverbs 23, 7 teaches us, as a man thinketh in their heart. So is he? So what was in their heart had to manifest? In chapter 24, a day after the spectacular meeting with God, the covenant is confirmed and sealed through an intricate ceremony. God, not God, Moses reads out the covenant stipulations and Israel says, yes, twice over everything that God has commanded, we will do. Moses seals the covenant with blood, sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice over them. And then God calls Moses up the mountain for 40 days and 49. Moses is gone for those 40 days and somewhere toward the end of those days, what was in their heart comes out. Exodus 32, one reads as follows, when the people saw that Moses delayed how much delayed you need for you to break covenant, delayed and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, get up, make us gods that will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Was it Moses who brought them out of this land of Egypt? How quickly we forget? To quote John Calvin, et Theologian and pastor from the 1500s, the human heart is a perpetual idol factory. In other words, the heart is always busy, always working, forging constantly fabricating idols. And the heart that is distant from God can't even tell when it has made an idol. Look at verse 4, after the collecting of the gold and the fabricating of the golden calf, they said, these are your gods, oh Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. I mean, there is something in the human heart that wants to tame God into something controllable. There is something that says, I cannot embrace an unseen God who shows up enlightening and thunder and fire and dark clouds and then disappears for 40 days and 40 nights. I need a God that I can approach when I want, how I want, in my own terms and conditions, I need a God that I can fashion, that I can shape. Communism puts it this way, there's something intrinsic to idolatry that is trying to domesticate God. Because we are created to worship the one true God, idolatry always diminishes who God is, always tries to control him, to frame him, to keep him right here. But at the same time, it diminishes us. If we are God's image barriers, he's concrete representatives in the world. When we worship idols, we abdicate our God-given role and misalign ourselves from what we are created to do. Ims puts it this way, idolatry is the inverse of our creation purpose, because instead of subduing creation, we submit to it. The golden calf is a vivid example of this reversal. It is an image of a created thing, specifically a beast of burden. Something humans were meant to rule over, not worship. And in bowing to it, Israel undermines both God's glory and human dignity. Scripture tells us that we become like what we worship. So when we worship beasts of burden, we inevitably become unrestrained like beasts and find ourselves loaded with burdens. In his book, here are your gods, Christopher Wright, captures the irony of idolatry so powerfully, he says, since idolatry, diminishes the glory of God, and since humans are made in the image of God, it follows that idolatry is also detrimental to the very essence of your humanity. Idolatry is radical self-harm. It is also terribly ironic that in trying to be as God, as Adam and Eve tried to, in the original temptation and in the rebellion, and even when we rebel now, we have ended up becoming less human. If you worship that which is not God, you reduce the image of God in yourself. If you worship that which is not even human, you reduce your humanity still for them. This self- undermining often goes unnoticed. We may not have golden calves in our homes, but we can still have golden calves on the altars of our hearts. Things we believe give us identity, things that we believe give us purpose and meaning and worth. We have a saying that we use liberally in our staff team. I'm sure you've heard it before, but we are adamant that there will be no holy cows. If it even begins to look like a holy cow. There are no holy cows because we're not here to make golden calves out of even the good things that we do that are generated from our hearts or even your hearts. We are here to be a people faithful to the covenant and to call you to do the same. This principle applies in your friendships. This principle applies in your homes. This principle applies in any relationship that you are in. There are no holy cows because you are made in the image of God for covenant. And so is that other person. You do them no favors by running around the golden calf with them. You do them no favors. That's what it means to speak truth in love. Friend, this looks like a holy cow. Sis, this doesn't seem right. It looks like it's flowing from a heart that is discontent. It looks like it's flowing from a heart that has grown weary from waiting on the Lord. It looks like something that you heard somewhere else that this could possibly work, but it is not God. Let's remove that from the altar of your heart. What's striking about this golden calf episode is where it is in the structure of Exodus. It comes between God's instructions for building the tabernacle and the actual construction of the tabernacle. So while Moses is on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, receiving the blueprint for God's dwelling place, the people rebel below. But God does not abandon his plan. God has made up his mind that he wants to dwell with them, that he wants to tabernacle with them, that he wants to presence himself in their midst. In other words, your disobedience does not change God's plan. Your disobedience is terrible, yes, but what it doesn't do is change God's plan. Now what you're not hearing me say is go ahead and disobey. Not after all that covenant work that I just did. That's not what I'm saying, but sometimes you stay condemned. You stayed weighed down when God said I knew. I knew. I know. But still my plan is to come near. Not only does God still determine to come and tabernacle, to come and presence himself amongst the people. This tabernacle is the very place where the sacrifices for atonement are going to be made. This is the very place where the blood that needs to be sacrificed in order for relationship to be restored. In order for when covenant is broken, there is a way for restoration. This is that very tabernacle. So in the middle of their rebellion, God is making a plan. He's making a plan to restore relationship. How much more when you make a mistake, you're not living in deliberate disobedience, but how much more when you fall, God has made a way for you to be reconciled with him. It really inconveniences me, actually, to be honest, because I'm like, not when they rebel, God, right? Not when it's really, really bad, but God has made up his mind and praise God that he has because he's a mature father. He's not insecure. He has determined what is good and he's going to live that good out. He's not a controlling father. He's not a father that's going to make you do right, but he is a God who will make a plan for you to do right, for you to be restored in relationship with him. Is this not love that he first loved us? God did not expect perfection. He anticipated the breaking of covenant and put a plan in place to address it. Atonement was not an afterthought. It was woven into the covenant from the beginning. So now when we think of Jesus, when we think of this who was sacrificed, when we think of this one who came down in the same way that the father came down to meet with them, came down not only to meet with us, but to meet with us in our troubles, to meet with us in our brokenness, to meet with us in our fallibility. Knowing that we could not carry the burden of our sin, he came and he said, I'll take that. He takes the burden of your sin, of your transgression. He takes the burden that you cannot reconcile yourself to God because of that sin and that transgression. And he says, not only will I give a sacrifice, I will be the sacrifice. I will aton. And not only will I aton for a moment I will aton for all of eternity. Do you understand that when we see Jesus and we see Him as He is, His hands will still be marked with the reality of the cross. For all eternity, Jesus will be known as the God who hung naked, taking on sin, transgression, fear, taking on darkness on Himself, for all of eternity. What kind of a love is this? What kind of a settled in oneself is this? What kind of a maturity is this? That determines even before they know me, even before they choose me, I will choose them. And I will choose them with the fullness of conviction and die a death that I do not deserve. And rise on the third day and say to them, come with me through the thick darkness to where God is. Come with Jesus, even if it be slow motion. But come nonetheless, do not allow distance to keep you from intimacy with God. Do not allow fear to keep you from coming near to God, let it be the fear of God that comes to you, that causes you to keep the reality of who He is always on your mind that you might not see. So with every eye closed and with every heart open, I want to give you some time to do some shamering as it were. And I want you to sit with the word that has resonated in you tonight. You don't have to remember everything that I said, but there is something that the Holy Spirit wants to highlight. Sit with that. Some of you may be here and you can feel God saying let this one come out of the slavery of this oppression that is Egypt that they may come and worship me. God is calling you to Himself. Decide now what you will say. Some of you have already walked out this salvation journey as it were, but you find yourself in a wilderness. It feels dry. It feels like the sustenance that God is giving is perhaps not enough. You feel wary because that's what the desert does. You feel tired because that's what the wilderness does. And maybe you have forgotten that God is with you in this wilderness and that He has brought you to Himself. And in this moment of renewing covenant as it were, what will you say? Will you receive again that you are His treasured position, that you are a kingdom of priests, that you are a holy nation, set apart for meaningful work on this earth? For some of you the weight of the Word is pressing in on you. God has come with all His gravitas. Do not be afraid. Say yes, do not withdraw. Come near. Trust that He remains the God who saves you without you having to do not even one thing. Trust that He remains the God who has brought you through the wilderness. Trust that you will be able to hold in you the gravity of who God is and you have the capacity to receive God as He is. For those of you who have the golden calf right now erected in the heart of your lives, even in this moment, God's grace is sufficient. Even in this moment to say you are mine, you are mine. How will you respond? Shaping requires intimacy. Being shaped by God's Word means that we need to be available, that He would come and meet with us and speak whatever He wills because whatever He speaks is good for us.