Called to the Cross (pt. 5)

If you were to make a time chart of your typical day, who/what would be at the center of your day?

 We find ourselves being pulled in so many directions, which might cause us to not feel God’s presence. 

Without God at the forefront, it wouldn’t be difficult for us to become subordinate to the things we think will save us.

Who/what is at the center of your day and life?

How might our actions mirror the Israelites?

How is God calling out to you?

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You're listening to the New Beginnings Church podcast from Delaware, Ohio. To learn more about New Beginnings Church, visit us online at Delaware NewBeginnings.com. Today's message is from Pastor David Horizon.

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Our theme has been called to the cross. In the season of Lent, we want to remember the cross as much as it is a reminder of the cost that it would take in order for us to be redeemed, in order for us to be made righteous. It's also a reminder that Jesus calls us into righteous living. It's not just about being made righteous, but now taking that new life and living it in our Wesleyan heritage. We call that holiness or holy living. Our faith in Jesus gifts us. It's a gift, a free gift through grace. It gives us salvation. And because of that salvation, in gratitude to Jesus, we learn to live the way that God intended for us to live when He created the world and then He created man in His image, which is to be in an intimate relationship with Him, not separated, no longer living a separate life. That's what sin does it causes us to live a separate life, but to be transformed into the image that God wants us to be. So this week, calling to the cross, we are reminded that sometimes we allow things to become more important in our life than the Lord. Become more, and I'm not just talking about coming to church on Sunday. I'm talking the other six days of the week where we allow life to get in the way and become more important than time spending with the Lord. And these things, these distractions, they they cause our life to get a little crazy sometimes. But these these are more than just distractions. They are more than just things that come between us and our relationship with God. In fact, we can look through scripture and see that a lot of the authors would call this that we are creating gods of our own. Because we are bringing them up to the status or higher than our love of God. If you were to make a timeline or a time chart of your typical day, what would be the center of your day? What would be the center of your day? What would it look like? Maybe it'll look like something like this. This is kind of my typical day. I guess it's a little smaller than I anticipated, but 6:45 is when my clock gets up. I take care of the dogs, I wake up, do things, but then there's a time for study and prayer, and then there's scheduled work, and scheduled work. When you look at my schedule, you see, oh, that's a lot of time for scheduled work. So how do we balance our life, our schedule, the things that the world needs, because the the culture we live in right now is at least 40 hours a week in order just to maintain a budget and to be able to buy groceries, if not more. Sometimes we've got to work two jobs. Sometimes we have to put in overtime. And here's what I want to show is because when you look at my schedule at first glance, you go, well, there's really only two times for study and prayer. How is that giving more time to the Lord? And I want us to think of this, not of quantity, but quality. Quality time with God. So if you have 15 minutes in the morning, that's better than no time in the morning. But what is the quality of your time with God? And same within the evening. And then part of that quality is taking from what you studied and your your time with God that morning and using it throughout the rest of your day so that your focus is always on God no matter what's happening. So when we look at this idea of how much more important life is, we've got to ask ourselves, where is God in the midst of that? Am I allowing God to take over my life, even though I still have to work, even though I still have to get my kids to sports, even though I have to, I have to, I have to. We have a list of things, don't we? So how does God become a part of that life and instead of that life becoming our God? Because it means more to us than taking time out for God. See, we find ourselves being pulled away, pulled in so many directions. The world wants our time, the world wants everything. And this could cause us to not feel God's presence in our lives. That we're hearing all the noises and we're going, God, I don't hear you, because we're not setting ourselves time enough in order to hear God, to worship God. And so without God at the forefront, it wouldn't be difficult for us to become subordinate to the things we think will save us, to the things that will we think will love us more, to the things that will give us more prosperity, to the things that would give us more joy in life. It's easy for them to become higher on our list than just worshiping God. Here's the thing is this isn't just an individual thing. It's not just an individual happening. This can happen to a community. This, dare I say, could happen to a local church where if all of our focus is on this, that we forget who we're doing it for and why we're doing it, and the reason we're doing it. Oh, we think this shows that we're we're we're we're being great to the church when God's going, well, you you may be doing good here, but in the idea of worship, you need some work at. I'm not saying that's what we need, but this is this is how it can bleed into our worship life as well. And we're gonna see this in our text this morning with the children of Israel. We're gonna go to the Old Testament. In our scripture, Israel had just been freed from Egypt, from Pharaoh. Remember that story? Moses frees him, helps free through the strength of God. God frees them from Egypt and they they leave, and immediately in their freedom, what happens? The Egyptians run back after them. And so, even in their freedom, they had to depend on God. And so we had the Red Sea, and then once they got through the Red Sea and they were on their own and away from the Egyptians, the Egyptians were no longer a threat. Now came the physical threat. They were hungry and complained to God, God, we have nothing to eat. Why are we even here? We should have stayed in Israel. Why are we here? So God gives them manna from heaven, and then they become thirsty. Oh, we should have, we we were slaves, but at least we got to eat and drink. We should have stayed in Egypt. God told Moses, go and smack that rock, and water came out, and their thirst was quenched. And then they were attacked by the Amalekites. Now, granted, a lot of these people, they it's not like their whole life was as soldiers, and so it took God's power, the holding of Moses' hands up, for them to defeat the Amalekites. And then, even in the midst of this, this is all happening within two months of their freedom. Moses is getting is is over being overburdened. He's trying to do everything as a leader, and it takes his father-in-law to come up and say, Moses, you can't do it by yourself. You need to delegate leaders. This is all in two months of being free. And so on the first day of the third month, here's the children of Israel 300 miles away from Egypt, and they're sitting at the bottom of Mount Sinai. Who knows what happened at Mount Sinai? Anybody remember that from Sunday school? Ten Commandments. This is this is where we got the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods, you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The first three is all about loving God. The next ones are about loving your neighbors. Remember the Sabbath, or I'm sorry, the first four. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. And then five through ten, honor your father and mother, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not covet. All that's all about loving your neighbor. And and here's the thing is we think that we think of uh Charlton Heston, right? I didn't put him on the screen this morning. I just popped in my head. Coming down with the stone tablets for the children of Israel to see. But the thing is, is sometimes we forget that before the stone tablets, God spoke it in thunder and lightning and this deep voice. And the children of Israel are scared. They went to Moses and said, Don't let him talk to us again. We're afraid we're gonna die. We'll only listen if you talk. So God calls Moses up, and for 40 days, for 40 days, God begins to detail these laws, these guidelines, these guardrails, the ways in order to stay connected to God, in order to worship God. And then finally, uh in um Exodus 31, verse 8, here's what he says. He gave them the two tablets. So after going through all these different laws and ways and priestly ways, and this description of the tabernacle, the ten of means, all these things, it comes back to the very beginning. He gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone, inscribed by the finger of God. So now here's where the tablets are given. I I love that. Inscribed by the finger of God. You know the old saying, it's written in stone. Imagine God writing something in stone. You think what your dad said, meaning it is written in stone, think of God. This is what I mean. This is important, this cannot be undone. This is how you stay faithful to me, is what God's saying. This is how we stay faithful to the Lord. And so for 40 days, it seems like it's a long time, but Moses has been up on this mountain getting all these instructions for 40 days. And I don't know about you, but I don't like being away from my family more than a day. Usually after a couple hours, I need Tracy there to take care of me. Um, but can you imagine your leader who just took you out, helped take you out, all of a sudden you haven't heard from him. He's on this mountain with these dark clouds and thunder and lightning. And well, let's hear what happened with children of Israel here. This is Exodus chapter 32. We're gonna do the first 10 verses here. 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. People are frustrated. All of a sudden, this leader who is with them, who helped lead them out of Egypt, he went up on this mountain, they're gone. And so soon after their deliverance. I mean, 40 days seems like a lot, but after generations of being enslaved, you think 40 days isn't that much. But here we have God's chosen people frustrated so soon after their deliverance. And I wonder because if Moses isn't there, if they feel that, you know, God's speaking through Moses, all of a sudden they don't have their mouthpiece, their centerpiece. Maybe they thought that God was absent and two. Here's what happened next, verse two. So Aaron said, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me. All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. And when the people saw it, they exclaimed, Oh Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 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. Let's let's pause there a second. They were frustrated, they wanted a new leader. They were like, Where's this Moses? And what do they want? They want a new God. And so Aaron says, Bring me all your gold, and they create their this calf. So they turned what they valued most. They turned to the thing that could purchase them freedom and joy, because that's how we see money, that's how we see currency. If I only had, if I only had. And they took from what they thought would bring them this freedom and they made their own God of it. A calf. Now, Aaron's interesting here because Aaron's pretty high up on the pecking chart with God, faith with God. And it seems like Aaron's trying to play the fence here a little bit. Because he's trying to appease the people. But he realized that all of a sudden it's going too far with making this calf. So he says, let's put an altar in front and we're going to what? We're going to do sacrifices to the Lord, to Jehovah. So he's like, okay, I'm going to take this mistake and make it into, try to make it into something good, and we're going to worship the Lord through the calf, so that we can still say that we're worshiping God. And what we're going to see is that doesn't go on too well because he says, you know, tomorrow we're going to have this festival for the Lord. Let's go to verse 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. So all that Jehovah had done for them, they are now giving credit to this calf, born just the night before, if you will, and then falling into immorality, or as Paul would say in the New Testament, debauchery. It's a fun word to say. But they fall into these pagan ways that aren't pleasing to God. This immoral way of living and immoral ways of celebrating and having a festival, if you will. And so the people literally not only made this God, this golden calf, but actually brought themselves back up to God like status, if you will, doing whatever they wanted to do, pleasing themselves however they wanted themselves to have what we call false joy. They found themselves pulled in so many directions it caused them to not feel God's presence. And they became subordinate to something they pretended had saved them and thought would continue to save them, continue to give them joy, continue to bless them and give them prosperity. So how did God respond? The Lord told Moses, quick, go down to the mountain. Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves, how quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live. They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Then the Lord said, I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone, so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them, and I will make you, Moses, into a great nation. How did God respond? He was angry. Might be a light way of saying it. So some people go, well, see, this is the God we're talking about. God is mean. But we got to understand the idea of covenant here. When people make a covenant in the Old Testament, when they made a covenant with God, there was a blood sacrifice that put that covenant into place. And what that blood sacrifice meant was that anybody who breaks this covenant, may they be like this blood sacrifice. That they would basically be destroyed. That's what it meant to have a covenant. And so God was in his right, because we talk about is God right in doing this? God was in one, because he's righteous and he's God. Two, because the people broke their covenant. And the breaking of a covenant have consequences. And so God was going to bring onto the people a consequence, but he was going to allow Moses to survive to continue with the freeing of Israel in the future to come. Exodus 20, verse 5. We go back to the beginning of Exodus. When he was given the commandments, he said this you shall not bow down to them or worship them, these idols, for I, the Lord your God, am what? A jealous God. We got to get rid of our human jealousy thing here. Because our jealousy is different. This wasn't about revenge. This wasn't about vengeance. This is about keeping a promise. And God expects us to keep our covenant. And that's why when we talk about a relationship with Jesus, that it's a marriage. Because it's a covenant, and it's a covenant not to be broken. So even before they go up the mountain, even before the golden calf, God horns them. I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. In the New Testament, let's revisit our brother James that we had uh, you know, almost a year ago when we went through the book of James. I want to remind you what he says in chapter 4, verse 4 to 5. He says, You adulterers, don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? When we break our covenant with God, right? I say it again. If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate, that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. Like in a marriage. You make a covenant, you stay faithful to that person, you stay faithful to that covenant. And even Jesus speaks to this in Matthew chapter 6. He was talking about money, but then he kind of flips it into everything here. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can't have your foot in both camps. In fact, you can argue what Jesus is saying here is that when we sin and separate ourselves from God, when we choose to worship other things over God, we are not loving God, but despising Him through our actions. That's hard to hear. But that's how much God loves you, and that's how much God wants you to stay in a committed relationship with him only, that we would have no other idols, that we would have no other gods, nothing else that would take his place in any part of our life. And so, yeah, God was righteous in his anger. God was righteous in his jealousy, and he was ready to start over, not like the flood start over, because he promised never to do that again. But he wants to start over with Moses, and he says, Leave me alone. Not like leave me alone, but just leave me alone and let me go on with the plan that I have. And what did Moses do? We're gonna talk about that here. Moses, this is the same guy who made excuses to go in front of the Pharaoh, who made excuses to do whatever he needed to do when God went, I can't do this, I can't do this. What does Moses do? Moses refuses to stand quietly before the God of the universe. He refuses to stand quietly and let things come. What does he become? He becomes the intercessor for the children of Israel. He becomes the mediator for the children of Israel. This is why people in the New Testament, when they say, Oh, look, Jesus is trying to be like Moses. It's because of this right here. Because now Moses is intercessing for the people of God. Exodus 32, verses 11 to 14. But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. It's important. His God. No other God. So he tried to pacify the Lord his God. Oh Lord, he said, Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? Why let the Egyptians say, their God rescued them with evil intentions of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth? In other words, Moses is saying, Why are you giving them ammunition to speak bad about you? Because that's not what you promised. You promised them freedom. Don't let the Egyptians say, Oh, what a waste. He destroyed them, anyways. He says, Moses then continues, he says, Turn away from your fierce anger. Imagine this prayer. This isn't a long prayer. This isn't a quantity prayer. This is a quality prayer. Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever. He's saying, Remember, yes, we have broken our side of the covenant. That doesn't mean that. You have to punish us for that. That doesn't mean you have to break it. You can still fulfill it because you are merciful, you are gracious, you are just, you are loving. Remember what you have promised. Verse 14: So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. Even God's chosen people made mistakes. Even God's chosen people continued to make false idols even after this. But God continued to love them. God continued to give them second chances even with the gods that they built. And so Moses pleads to God. Remember. Remember your mercy. Remember Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Remember everything we've gone through. Remember your love. Remember your covenants. Turn from righteous anger to grace. And the Lord did. Sometimes we find ourselves being pulled in so many directions. And those directions will cause us to not feel God's presence. I think most of us can say there has been a time in our life we didn't feel God was with us. Without God at the forefront, it wouldn't be difficult for us to become subordinate. It wouldn't be difficult for us to raise them up in our life to be things that we think will really save us. Or the things or to think that these things or people would love us more or make us more prosperous than the Lord does. I think it's important that we confess that we have made gods in our life. I know of writing this, looking back, going, yep, yep, yep. I see all the times I did. We have relied on people, we have relied on things, we have relied on money, we have relied on so many different things to love and to save us. And sometimes we do that without even knowing it because it's just the way of the world. And so when we sin, we break that covenant with God. And we need a mediator. And Jesus is our mediator. Jesus is the only one that can save us from our idolatry and all the sin in our life. There is no sacrifice that can redeem us from the gods that we make. Hear these words from Hebrews chapter 9, verse 13 to 15. Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people's bodies from ceremonial impurity. This was the laws that God put into place back in the Old Testament, under the old covenant. Just think how much more the blood of Christ, imperfect animals versus perfect perfection. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under the first covenant. When we stray, we will find ourselves worshiping other things other than the Lord. When we look deep down into our hearts, we will see that we have made gods out of things we never intended to. And all we have to do is look to Jesus. All we have to do is confess. All we have to do is listen for the voice of the good shepherds calling us back. So we repent and we return and we're made new. Who or what is at the center of your day or at the center of your life? I have used the excuse and I hear the excuse that I don't have time, and I heard this this week and I wrote it down. I don't remember where I heard it, but this is what I heard. You always have time for what you choose to have time for. You always have time for what you choose to have time for. So maybe with that in mind, we ask ourselves, how might our actions mirror the Israelites? Before, during, and after? And how is God calling you? How is God calling you, drawing you in through repentance, through worship, through love, through grace, through mercy, through forgiveness, through each other to be in a more intimate relationship with Him. We are being called to the cross, not because the cross saves us, but He who was on the cross makes us righteous. Next Sunday, we're going to tell the passion story. We're going to experience once again through word and worship the story of our Savior, our King, our mediator, Jesus, from his peaceful ride into Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna to the time of his crowning of thorns and the shouting of crucify him. I think we're going to experience his humility and his servitude through his love and his sacrifice. For us to remember that our mediator, our savior, came to save us. Jesus is our Lord. Jesus is God. Jesus is the one we serve. Jesus is the one we love. Jesus is our friend. Jesus is the only way that love wins.

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