Jarek Berga - Fear of Man

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey, there. [00:00:06] Speaker B: If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church, and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Good morning, everybody. My name is Harek. Like Mike said, I'm one of the elders here of Restored Temecula, and I want to welcome you to our Sunday morning gathering. And if you are new, we have been going through the Gospel of Matthew, one of the biographies of Jesus life, and we've been doing that for a while now. And today I'm actually going to pause on that series. I've been chewing on some scripture for a little while, and. And there's a kind of a message that's been forming, I think, in my heart for some time now that I want to share with you this morning. It actually comes out of Exodus, chapter 32. Exodus, chapter 32. And it is. It's a good one. It's the story of the Golden Calf. Yep. Ready for somebody? Yep. We're going to talk about idolatry today. False worship and the destruction of everything you hold dear and how it happens. Cheers. All right. Would you pray with me? Pray for me. Pray for us. That God would meet us in this place. One of the things that's really stood out to me as I'm prepping for this message is just how little my words matter. Here's what I mean by that. Not that they don't matter, like what I say does matter, but that they don't carry any power. Inherently. No amount of insight that I share with you is going to change your life. Believe it or not, what we each need is an encounter with the living God. What we need is Him. So would you. And I don't know where you're at today. You see, I'm delaying the prayer classic. I don't know where you're at today, but just know that what I'm going to share today may or may not entertain you. It may or may not interest you. You may find me dull and boring. I don't know, you may think I'm wonderful. But the point isn't that it's not to entertain. We have an opportunity to encounter God through His Word. And so I'm going to ask you to pray, really to position yourself to receive something. So you join me. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. Thank you that you care deeply about mankind, humanity. And thank you that at the same time you care deeply about your holiness. Truth, justice, righteousness, God And I thank you that you want to meet us in the middle. And this story is powerful, it's potent, and I pray that you would bring it to bear into our lives for each person in this room, people hearing it later, that you would meet with us, reveal what's going on, not just in this word, but in our hearts, and bring us to a position of wanting to honor and obey and trust you above all else, no matter what it costs us. Thank you, Father. We love you. It's your name, we pray. Amen. Many of you know that my favorite movie is Back to the Future. And it's just going to be just a second, just a snippet. If you've ever watched the movie or the movies, there's something interesting that happens in them. It's a space. If you've never watched it, it's a space trilogy. It's not a space. It's a time travel trilogy. And they play with the space time continuum and they keep ending up in the year 1955 over and over and over again in the first one, in the second one, and in the third one. And it's like 1955 has like this special significance in the story in the space time continuum, like something happened in that year. And you can watch the movies if you want to, to find out why. Do I mention that? Because I've been thinking about my life a lot and I think part of it is just hitting middle age, being at like this kind of turning point in life. And I've been thinking a lot about my life and reflecting on it. What I try to do when I preach is to give you some insight. I try not to just learn what other people have said about the text. As important as that is, I wanna learn what the text says to me and to my life. And oftentimes what I find is that the scriptures actually help me make better sense of my life than anything I could come up with or say. And so just like in Back to the future, the year 1955 seems to be this crazy, potent, packed year for me. The year 2003 is. And I think the last few times I've preached, I've gone back to this year. Different facets of it. It was just this really Key moment in my life. And what was going on in 2003 for me? Well, that was the year that I graduated from high school. And in this particular week, as I was preping for this message, I thought of a moment that was that I'd forgotten about. It's 2003. I think it's probably June or probably July 2003. Summertime. I'm living in Orange county and I find myself, as people in Orange county do, at the Newport Yacht Club, naturally. Why was I there? You're not into nautical things? No, I'm not. You're right. If you know me, I was there because it was the summer send off for the University of San Diego USD. Any toreros in the house? Olay. So it was a summer send off for USD and I just happened to live. I lived in Laguna Niguel, which is in Orange County. It's south Orange County. And they had this kind of meeting where, where they had all the people, all the kids that were going to go to USD and become freshmen there in the fall meet at the Yacht Club. And as you can imagine, imagine you're, I don't know, 18 years old and you're at the Yacht Club in Newport beach in 2003. So it's like the OC is blowing up. Some of you millennials know what I'm talking about. The Real Housewives of Orange County. Orange County's on the map at this point. And here I am at the Newport Yacht Club. And as I was thinking about it and reflecting on it, we're sitting there, I'm in a chair, I'm listening to them talk about USD, show pictures of the camp. If you've ever been down to San Diego and seen USD, it's this Spanish fortress on Linda Vista that overlooks Mission Bay. It's beautiful. You can see it down from, from SeaWorld. And it really does look like a land flowing with milk and honey, if you know what I mean. It looks like a little slice of heaven, the promised land. And on paper, this is looking really good. And as I'm sitting there, though, my stomach is tightening. I'm being gripped by some questions at the Yacht Club. How will I live up to this? Can I do this? What if I don't impress? What if I disappoint everyone, not just my parents, the people who are here, the people that I'm going to be going to school with, the Yacht Club. And here's what. As I was reflecting on it, I kind of had this moment of realization where my whole world at that point I was 18, and my whole world at that point was kind of going flat. It was horizontal. I'm not saying that the world is flat, just to be clear. I'm saying it was going horizontal in my own perspective. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that all I saw was the people around me. Their faces, their opinions, their expectations of me. My performance, my image, my future. Everything was horizontal. Everything. Do you know what happens if everything is horizontal and you can't see the vertical? You lose sight of what's true. You start living in illusion. What do I mean by the vertical? My relationship with God. I lost sight of him, and the people in front of me started to feel like giants. Because we live in a fallen world. Here's what I realized. We often let people define us. We let a human voice carry more weight than God's. I think we have a slide for that. If you guys want to throw that up. If you're a note taker. I haven't even gotten into my points or anything like that. Write that down. Because we live in a fallen world, we often let people define us. We let a human voice, someone else's or mine, carry more weight than God's. If we could just leave that up there for a minute. Thank you, Kevin. There's a couple different ditches here. The first one is pleasing. It's like, be impressive, Be safe. Don't disappoint anyone. Don't rock the boat, right? And there's this kind of ditch that we can fall into when that voice feels huge. Other people's voices. And there could also be this kind of inner critic attached to it that is scanning for disapproval in the room. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Does this resonate with anyone? Okay, but there's another ditch, too. It's not just that. Some of you hear that and you're like, pfft, weakness. Smell it from a mile away. Right? I get it. I get it. For you, though. Just hear me out. You're just as afraid as we are. Your fear, though, isn't letting people down. Your fear is letting someone control you. Don't let them win. It's defiance instead of it's a clenched fist. There's two ditches that we can fall into. The pleasing ditch, where someone else's voice gets really big. And then there's the defiance ditch. My own voice is loudest. But those two ditches have the same exact root. It's any human voice that carries more weight than God's voice. And Temecula this is us. Think about the last time you were down at a field for a game or in school. The pressure to perform, to be the right kind of family, to manage what you say, who hears it, how you appear. How about in church? The pressure to seem steady and polished and together, to not let anyone see my weakness. I will do anything but confess and ask for help. What is that rooted in if it's not a fear of what people will think? How about this one? Bigger, better, bigger house, bigger upgraded car. These things aren't bad. It's what's motivating that what's moving us. Is it scrambling to keep up on the one side? But again, some of you are like, pfft, stupid. But you might be on the other side of I don't care. But either way, you might be defining yourself against what other people think, either appeasing or resisting. When we lose sight of the vertical, the horizontal becomes everything and people become giants. It's the same problem either way, just different packaging. So I want to open with a question. You're like, is this guy going to get to scripture? We will, but there's a question that's going to frame this time, and here's a question that I want you to chew on. If you're a note taker, write this down. Whose voice has the most weight in your life right now? Whose voice has the most weight in your life right now? Is it someone else's voice? Is it your own voice? Or is it God's voice? We're going to look at a story today in Exodus, chapter 32. If you've got your Bible, you can turn over there to Exodus chapter 32. We'll start in verse one. If you don't have a Bible, we'll have it up on the screen. And just for the sake of context here, since we haven't been in Exodus, the story is a really interesting one. So God has Yahweh, the Lord has appeared to this people, Israel, in the grand scheme of human history, a very small nation that didn't necessarily carry a lot of importance, but they became the apple of God's eye. And the people of Israel were in Egypt under slavery under Pharaoh. And God heard their groaning and their cries, and he raised up Moses, who then took them and led them out of Egypt. And so they're actually heading somewhere good to a land flowing with milk and honey. Yes, San Diego. Right. Going out of Egypt into this land of promise. So they're in this interesting. In between time, they're not slaves anymore, but they're not home yet, so they're on their way. And so then Moses, their leader, goes up to the mountain to meet with God and he's gone for a while. So not like a day or two or three. He's gone for 40 days. He's just gone for a long time. And so what ends up happening is the people down at the bottom, the vertical, which was so potent, so strong at the start of the story, it starts to get blurry and the people around one another, everything, everyone starts to feel like a giant to each other. And the camp the people are in becomes an echo chamber of anxiety, which could be a book that describes our age. It doesn't matter what side you're on. Echo chamber of anxiety. Does this resonate with anyone? We live in this social media news, whatever it is. So what happens in echo chambers of anxiety? People start looking for relief and strategizing. And so when the vertical, it starts to feel really unclear. It's not just a drift. There's a replacement that takes place. We forget about God and we start looking for God that we can see, touch, handle, manage, and so out comes a golden calf. But what it is, it's ultimately, it's fear looking for control. Let's get into the text. Exodus 32, verse one. I'm going to read out of the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. And they'll be up on the screen when the people again. It's the people of Israel. Saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain. They gathered around Aaron. Aaron is Moses brother, and said to him, come make gods for us who will go before us. Because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don't even know what happened to this guy. Okay, so what's happening here? Moses went up the mountain. He's gone for a long time. Aaron's been left in charge. The people start to get frazzled, anxious, worried, and they come up with a plan. But what's really interesting is when you read this text, who do they credit for bringing them out of the land of Egypt? Moses. Okay, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt? Truly, it was Yahweh. It wasn't Moses. Moses couldn't turn the Nile to blood. He couldn't make any of the plagues, if you know the story, any of the ways in which God opposed the gods of Egypt. Moses didn't have any power over them at all. It was God. So what are the people of Israel doing? They're swapping and replacing God with people. Oops That's a problem. That's a problem. Moses is getting very, very big, and the people are starting to feel like God is very, very small. And then they come up with an idea to resolve their tension. Verse 2. Aaron replied to them, take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf. This is the famous golden calf. Then they said, israel, these are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt. So won't get too much into the details of this, but it's possible that in the original language, that these are your gods really is just him saying Elohim is the word. Could be singular or plural, but it's just like, here's God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Verse 5. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it and made an announcement. There will be a festival to the Lord tomorrow. Early the next morning, they arose, offered burnt offerings. You guys know what this is? These are the things that the people of Israel did with Yahweh as the recipient. And now they turned this calf into the object of their worship, and they presented fellowship offerings. They sat down to eat and drink, and they got up to party. We're going to go through the rest of the chapter in a few minutes, but I wanted to start with this because I think there's an important first point that I want you guys to write down. If you're taking notes, that comes out of these specific six verses. And it's this. Fear elevates people above God. Fear elevates people above God. Okay, so Moses, brother Aaron was left in charge, and he felt the pressure of the people. There was an anxious, kind of impatient crowd that was demanding something now. And they wanted a God that they could see and they could worship on their own terms. And so Aaron collects the gold, he shapes a calf, and he builds an altar, and he keeps it religious. We're going to have a festival tomorrow. So here's the interesting part about this. This idolatry was very hard to detect on the one hand because it kept the same language as the real thing, a festival to the Lord. So what was happening? He was editing the worship to fit the crowd. What had God told them? You shall have no other gods beside me. Like, he'd actually been pretty clear. Don't make any idols, don't have any gods besides me. So it was clear that there was a breaking of the covenant with God, this relationship, this special relationship with the people. But it was still construed and pictured as worship. Do you guys see how this could be. Incredibly subtle? Because it brought about peace temporarily. It actually worked in a very limited way. It brought peace by disobedience. It unified the people in the wrong direction. And as I was thinking about this passage, as I was thinking about Moses, brother, and I was thinking about the people, it got me thinking of a different leader in the history of Israel, which was Saul. If you don't know who Saul is, Saul was a king amongst God's people. In 1st Samuel 15:24, we get some of the most famous words of most famous examples of the fear of man and how it shows up. First Samuel, chapter 15, verse 24. This is from Samuel. Sorry. From Saul, who did something very similar essentially to Aaron. There was a moment of worship, but it was disobedient worship. And he got called out by Samuel. And this is what Saul says. He said, I have sinned. That's an understatement. I have sinned. I have transgressed the Lord's command and your words. But here's the key. Why? Because I was afraid of the people. I obeyed them. I obeyed them. Do you guys know what happens to Saul? You can read a story. It doesn't end well for him. It goes really, really poorly. God gave Saul a clear command. Saul disobeyed because he wanted people pleased. And then he tried to cover it with what spiritual language in the story. He says, like, we saved some of the. Some of what God had told them not to keep. We saved it for the Lord. And so he tries to present it in this way, or it's worship. But here's the core. Obedience is actually worship. It's not good intentions. It's not religious cover. It's actual obedience. And when what people want becomes what we obey, it becomes what we worship. It becomes what we worship. And this is what happens over and over again. Fear elevates people above God. My plan for fear in 2003 was be likable. Say yes. Be easy to be around. Be nice. Don't be intense. That was a hard one. Because my personality type, I'm wired for that. But I was able to turn it off. I could kind of chameleon my way through college. I tried to lean as much as possible into my strengths to get in with people, especially when I felt myself anxious and that anxiety was spiking and it worked. And it actually worked when I started kind of hanging out in the church around church people because I had some Christians on my floor. I've talked about this before, but I had some Christians on my floor who were on my floor specifically that introduced people to Jesus and they had a Bible study that I joined and was a part of and they actually started doing Bible studies on campus and I started going to those. And man, it worked for a while until God called me to obedience. That would be costly and obedience for me at that time what it looked like was very simple. As an 18 year old, I take you back to being at the Newport Yacht Club. People felt like giants to me. I did not want to disappoint anyone. And what God was calling me to do was to embrace disappointing people. And to me that felt like dying. I don't know if like, what is it for you that makes you feel like dying? Not that I wanted to die, but that in doing so it felt like a death, a kind of death or a loss. Again, there's the intensity. Just something that hurts when you do it. For me it was saying and doing things that displeased people. That was to me, that was for me that was the equivalent of like getting crucified. I had to crucify my desire for people's love and acceptance when Jesus called me to follow him. Because I don't know if you know this, but if you're in the land flowing with milk and honeysuck, one thing you don't want to do is follow Jesus. It's true. That's what you don't want to do, is follow Jesus. USD was voted the most beautiful campus in America. And it was like, well, in what way? Every way. Every way. And it was 60% female. You know what that means? The bar low, which gives guys like me a chance. And so it was very, very difficult for me to crucify that desire. Because one of the quickest and fastest ways to fill up a love deficit in your life, in my life is to seek it in other people. And at that age and stage of life, it was through romance. That's not the only way. And that's not going to resonate with most people in this room. It will for some, but that's a quick way to do it through people and in different ways. If you feel like I'm not worth much and somebody gives you their attention, that helps, doesn't it? But it only helps temporarily. It only helps for so long until you can no longer keep their approval and walk in obedience to God's words and ways. When those two things come in tension, you have a crisis. Now, for me, it's happened more in relationships. For you, it might be something totally different. For you, it might not be a relational thing. It might be a success thing, it might be a status thing, it might be a career thing, it may be a family thing. I don't know what it is for you, like, you know. But the point is, at some point what we want and what God's. What God wants will come into conflict with each other. It's guaranteed. Because we live in a world that's actually not yet what it will be. And so in those moments, we look to a guy like Aaron, Moses, brother, and we have much to learn from his story, don't we? Could you imagine what that pressure must have been like for him? To have a nation of people pressing down on you, saying, we want this. And you're just like, what do I do? There's actually. I was looking into the history of rabbinic interpretation, the Jewish rabbis, how they treat this text. And this is one of those texts that has been looked at over and over and over again. And you get so much different, so much more insight reading all the different people that have talked on it. But one of the things that stood out to me was that there's a stream within the rabbinic interpretation that says that it was Aaron and another guy that were left in charge, and we don't hear about the other guy. So therefore they probably killed that guy. Is that true? We don't know. It's an interesting kind of possibility. So if you could imagine for a moment people's displeasure. And I don't think it's that far fetched because there's points in the story where they wanted to kill Moses and Aaron too. Do you remember that? I think we might have talked about it a couple weeks ago. They're like stone, those guys. Tom talked about it. And so is it that hard to believe that Aaron's life may have been on the line? And so it's sort of like I can have some compassion for the guy to be like, okay, he may have had to die for what? For God's word. And for us here, this is a tough one, okay? Because we live in America and the odds of us dying for God's word are not that high yet. I don't know what the future holds. We just don't know. But right now I as a pastor can say, I'm a pastor. Does it make things weird when I meet people? Yeah. Do they start self editing all the time? Were they, like, dropping F bombs three seconds ago and now they're like, yes. Is it cringey every time? Because I'm a human. I'm a human. There was a point to this. This is what go off script and then I lose my way. It'll come back to me. Dying. Yeah, I'm not likely to die. Thank you. I'm not likely to die in this place for what I believe or for what I'm bringing to the world as a pastor, as a Christian, just as a disciple. But do you know that we have brothers and sisters all over the world who do risk their lives to follow Jesus here? What we risk is our reputation, our comfort, our sense of safety, and people's approval. Maybe above all else. Not just that. Some of you. Again, this doesn't resonate at all. So I'm going to say it this way. What you risk in following Jesus is losing your independence, your freedom from authority. Okay? And you might be like, what are you talking about? Where do you see that in the Bible? Easy, Korah. We don't know that story. Give you the quick version. Try to save myself from going on a tangent and taking too long. It was a group. There was a group led by Korah, who resisted Moses leadership. Do you guys remember this? And they were like, hey, Moses. Like, we're all holy. Like, why do you. Why do you. And Aaron. Like, why do you guys get this special seat of privilege? We're all holy. True. We all have this vocation to represent God. Absolutely. So everybody should get to do this. Ah, hold on. God spoke clearly on this one. And so what ended up happening with that crew that led that rebellion is that they revealed that there's another kind of fear. It's not a fear of losing people's approval. It's a fear of losing our independence. It's. You can't tell me what to do. That sound familiar at all? Don't tell me what to do. If that doesn't describe in some ways the spirit of the age in this place, I don't know what does. And by the way, I'm here as a. I'm here to intercede for this place, but I don't want to become. I don't want to adopt the spirit of this age in this place. So hopefully by now, everyone's at least fear of losing approval, fear of losing independence, which is you. Maybe for you, it's caving under pressure, like Aaron or staying silent. Or maybe for you, it's having such a strong resistance to godly authority that you can't receive the Word. Either sell the word or resist the word. You'll sell the word for peace and for comfort so that people feel safe and they feel good. Or you resist the Word so that you can keep people out of your business, even if God has sent them to get into your face. Either way, I think, has the same root. It elevates people. Fear elevates people above God. So where are you currently saying yes or staying silent because you're afraid of what people will think? Even though you know God is calling you to obey something, whose voice is loudest in your life, whose voice has the most weight? Maybe it might help you to think about a situation right now where you're feeling pressure, where you're feeling the weight of following Jesus. If you're a follower of Jesus. Or maybe you're thinking through whether I am a follower of Jesus or not. Maybe you grew up and you're just kind of like, I have this Christian upbringing, or I was a part of a Christian household, or I consider myself a Christian. And as I'm working that out, I'm realizing that maybe some of the values that I assume aren't the same as the kingdom values, the values of the kingdom. And there's a tension point in that. And you're grappling and you're working through it. So I just want to ask you the question, what are you likeliest to compromise on? What's hardest for you? What part of obeying God is hardest for you right now? I know what it was for me. It was crucifying people's approval. It was saying, lord, I feel like I can't live without this, but clearly I don't think I can have you with it. And embracing the cost again, I don't think we're gonna in this life. Maybe our grandchildren, I don't know. I don't think we're going to be killed here for our faith, but I think it will cost you your reputation. So love places people above God, and it costs us our obedience. God's word. Point number two. And I got to move quickly. Let's read the rest of Exodus 32, verses 7 to 14, and then we'll see the other side of this story. Exodus 32, 7, 14. So this is after the golden calf incident has taken place. Right now the people are down at the bottom of the mountain partying. It literally says party, which I think was kind of fun. It says, they got up to play and to party. And so verse seven, the Lord spoke to Moses. So again, Moses is up here in the mountain with God, but God knows what's happening down here. And it says, go down at once for your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. Did you just notice what God said? Your people that you brought up out of the land of Egypt? Does this sound familiar to anyone? Do you know what your son did? We got a little bit of that going on right now. God's ready to disown this people. That's how serious. This, again, you might be like, why does it matter? It's just a calf. It's just a. Yahweh's still involved, but what's the big deal? We're still, you know, doing a festival. We're doing the thing. We're sacrificing. The problem is God commanded the people to do something different. And so one of the things that's happened to me as I've gotten older is my appreciation for my parents has grown. I don't know if anybody else has had this experience. Yep. I'm kind of like, oh, my gosh. The things they put up with, the things that they. This just happened recently. I was. I was in. We got Knott's Berry Farm passes for Christmas, and we got there at whatever. It was early in the morning, and the kids were like, ghost Rider. I was like, what? No, we're gonna go on Ghost Rider. We want you to go, too. I was like, is that the one that shakes? It's like, wooden. The tight turns and stuff? Yeah, that one. It was just like, this experience of, like, oh, my gosh, why am I here? Like, what am I doing? And at first, it was fun for, like, 30 seconds. And it was like, all right, go. We're going up, and then we're going up and down. I was like, okay, I can get behind this. The up and the down. And then when, like, the tight turns started, I was like, oh, this is just for them. And I thought of my folks, I thought of my parents, and I was like, oh, this was only and ever just for us. Like, when we came to Naz and we went to Disney, all this stuff. Disney's a little whatever. Six Flags for sure. That was only for us. And it's just like this new appreciation has formed for my parents as I've gotten to re. Experience the same things again as an adult. And why do I mention this? This wasn't. This probably isn't the moment to really. If you're looking for a polished sermon. Tom will be back next week. But what we're going to see here, I think, is God doing something for Israel that's extraordinary. He's going to. Here's what he's going to do. He's going to put Moses into a position where he says, like Moses, I'm going to start over with you. These people are nuts, okay? I'm going to wipe the slate clean. God can do that. He's the creator. He's the divine Lord. We are derivative of Him. We are dependent on Him. He can. The fact that I'm breathing is a gift. I should be dead multiple times over. I'm alive. This is a gift. At any point, God can be like, tomorrow, tomorrow's your day. He's not going to tell me, I don't think. But I think what God is doing is he's saying, moses, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start over. I think this is the test for Moses. Let's see how he responds. It says, they have quickly turned from the way I commanded them. True. They have made for themselves an image of a calf. True. They have bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, israel, these are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt. True. The Lord also said to Moses, I have seen this people and they are a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. And then I will make you into a great nation. Okay, Pause. The Lord of the universe says he's going to do something, even if it's pretty gnarly. How do you think he would respond? Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. You know, like, by the way, the truth is, that's not how. It just feels that way, right? But I think he's doing something for Moses. He's giving Moses a chance to do something extraordinary. And Moses rises to the moment. Check this out. But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. Lord, why does your anger burn against your people? You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? Anger burning. Who's got a bit of an anger problem in this story? Moses. If you've read the story, you know Moses has an anger problem and it's going to show up time and time again. In fact, it's so bad that Moses doesn't even get to enter the promised land because he allows his anger to take control of him and he disqualifies himself. It's tragedy, in a sense. In the history of God's people. Moses doesn't go in to the promised land. Does that mean that Moses wasn't saved? I'm not saying that this is a temporal thing. Entrance into the covenant, into the land. It's a different covenant that we're under now. We'll get to that. He's telling someone with an anger problem that I'm going to explode in anger on these people. And Moses says, stop. Why should the Egyptians say he brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and eliminate them from the face of the earth? Turn your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. You swore to them by yourself and declared, I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. And I will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever. Verse 14. So the Lord relented concerning the disaster he said he would bring on his people. Okay, what's happening here? I think this is. I've heard this before, and this makes a lot of sense to me. Moses was a guy who was prone to anger and explosions. In fact, Moses killed a guy, if you remember that part of the story. He was prone to letting anger take hold of him. People would get him really frustrated and really angry, and he would lose control. And so God presents him with this moment. And Moses learns that love is compassion. Not just, but it includes compassion. It includes patience for people that are going astray. It includes pardon and forgiveness and relenting. Moses would need that same lesson later in his life because he would explode in anger at people. And so here's a part of why. I think that if you go over To Exodus chapter 34, I didn't give this to you guys. But if you go over To Exodus chapter 34, I believe it's verse 6. Moses has this moment where he gets to explain who God is and what he's like, oh, I just forgot to write it down. Where he says, the Lord. The Lord is compassionate. The Lord is compassionate. The Lord is merciful. I can't find it right now. Yeah. Thank you. 34, 6. It says, the Lord. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God. What does he say about anger? Slow. Where do you think he learned that? In this intercession, this pleading with God? Because truly, God could have started over with him. By the way, doesn't that sound kind of nice? I want you to imagine the people that annoy you the most in your life, okay? If you're like a politically wired person, this is really easy for you. Just take all of them, whatever side it's on, and be like, if God's like, hey, we're gonna get rid of all of them, and I'm gonna appoint you the leader of the people. How many people would be like, wait, hold on. This isn't in line with your character. You know what I'm saying? And so this is what happened to Moses. He got it. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. Remarkable, I think. So here's what I think is happening in this story. And if you're taking notes, I think there's a powerful and profound revelation that's really simple. I think we're seeing that love. This is what Moses does. Love goes to God for people. Moses shows us that love goes to God for people. Even people that really annoy you, frustrate you, make you angry, disappoint you. Even people that are sinning. What Aaron seems to do is under pressure. He edits God's word to make it more palatable for people. And what Moses does is he goes to God on behalf of people and says, remember what you've said. You see the difference, Editing, changing. Make it more palatable so people feel comfortable and there's a sense of unity, but it's very shallow, and it fractures eventually. Whereas Moses goes to God for people and says, remember what you've said and don't forget about your honor. The nations will know when you fulfill your promises. And so he doesn't edit God's word. He honors it, and he brings it back to him. He doesn't manage the crowd. He goes to God for the crowd. Moses appeals to who God is and what he has promised, and the Lord shows mercy. It's remarkable. This is one of those moments in the Bible, if you read it, it's good to slow down and just be like, oh, my goodness, this guy. There's so many bad examples. That's part of what I think gives the Bible credibility, is that if you read it, it's just littered with bad examples. Yes. Yeah. If you're going to the. If you're reading the Bible looking for heroes, you're going to be sorely disappointed because what you get are primarily. And I love them. They're part of my spiritual family. You get losers, really. That's what you get most of the time. And I identify with them because. Here's a loser for you. When God called me and I knew it was time to either crucify that desire to be loved or follow him in order to follow him or to forsake him. I forsook him in the most extraordinary way that I can't tell you right now. So I'm running out of time. So I'm no hero. Neither is Moses, by the way. Moses had his moments, but he had his misses. He was like a power hitter, swung for the fences. When he got ahold of one, oh my goodness, out of the stadium. But when he swung and missed, he fell over like an old, like me. Imagine a 40 something year old hasn't stretched in a decade getting up to the plate and taking a big old hack. It's ugly. Moses fell over like that. He's not the hero of the story, but he's a preview of what we all needed, which was this. We don't just need Moses. We need somebody to go to God for us. On our behalf and plead our case. Because we're a lot more like Aaron than we think or like Korah. The spirit of independence or the spirit of fear. Jesus. This is all about Jesus. I want to read to you. Oh man, I wish I had time. This is a series. This is what happens. I get up here, I start preaching, I'm like, this is three messages. It's 11:35. Jesus. If you read the letter to the Hebrews, the sermon that we have, which is really cool, if you ever want to know how they preached back then, read Hebrews. That was a sermon that was written down. And the writer of the Hebrews talks about priesthood. Aaron was ultimately a priest. He was somebody that was supposed to go to God for the people. But in that story, it was an inversion. He, like, he listened to the people instead of God and it led to disaster. But Jesus actually comes from a different line. He's a priest, but he's not. He doesn't come from the order of Levi like Aaron. He comes from the. He comes from the tribe of Judah. He's not a Levitical priest. You're like, what does that mean? Can't get into it right now, but just know this. The Levitical priesthood, they made sacrifices, it was important. But all that they could ever do was just remind us that we needed something better. We needed a better priesthood, a final one. And Jesus, when he came, he offered himself for the people, for all those who have been unwilling to crucify their flesh, for all those who have been weak and timid, for all those who have had a spirit of rebellion and independence. He came for everyone. Everyone. And he was successful. Where Aaron and Moses failed. Hebrews 7:25 gives us the application of this because he was a successful high priest who offered his life for us. Here's what it says. He, Jesus, is able to save. What does that word say? Completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them. You know what's funny about the story of the golden calf? I think there was this desire to bring comfort to people and like, we gotta keep the peace here. And what kind of peace do you have if you believe this? You're not holding your life together by your personality, your likability, your freedom. Jesus is holding your life together through his prayers for you. Because it says there, he always lives to intercede for them. My hope isn't in me. My hope, it stems and it flows from this reality that again, as I've reflected on my life, thought a lot about the year 2003, it's like I can picture Jesus at the Newport Yacht Club with me praying. Or in my bedroom at my parents house by the door praying. Or when I turned away from him there, praying. Father, forgive them. Forgive him. He's a little slow on the uptake. We'll get there. When I fail to have a hard conversation that I should have had because I was afraid, Father, strengthen him. When I've been scared of disappointing people as a leader, Father, give him courage. When I've had to make hard decisions, Father, remind him of who's in control. Jesus, this is our hope. He lives to intercede for us, for you and for me. Your Savior is already up on the mountain speaking your name before the Father, like Moses was. But he has a better priesthood, an eternal 1. Romans, chapter 8, verse 34. If Hebrews 7:25 is comfort for the weak and the afraid, Romans 8:34 is power for those who feel condemned or accused. Listen to this. Who is the one who condemns Christ? Jesus is the one who died, but even more has been raised. He is at the right hand of the Father and he intercedes for us. When you blow it, when you feel condemned or accused, Jesus is right there at the right hand of the Father, pleading your case. First John 2:1, when you failed or you need forgiveness. Listen to these words. My little children. I love that we were talking about kids, how we ride roller coasters for them. It's kind of like. I think it's just this reminder that Jesus did this for us. Jesus does this for us. We have an advocate. If anyone sins with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, this is for the Aaron in us. For the Saul in us, for the Korah in us. For that moment when you look back and you think, I edited obedience. I caved, I stayed silent. I made it worse. John here is not minimizing sin at all. But he's also not calling you to despair. You have an advocate, Jesus. I'm going to invite you to stand. I'm going to call the band up to the front. And I just want to remind you that Moses pointed forward to this reality that right now Jesus is going to God for you. If you've put your faith in him, he's your advocate. What if his voice was the loudest? I started by telling you guys how at the yacht club. Not just there, but for some reason, it just happens there. It. The picture is locked in my head. People were like giants to me. But we have an actual giant. Not literal giant, but we have a giant, spiritually speaking, who's pleading our case. If any of you have ever needed legal representation, you know what a difference a good lawyer can make. But if I was to tell you that you have the most incredible legal representation, the universe going to the Father for you. So when you blow it and you sin, he reminds the Father, I've laid down my life for this to cover this. When you're weak and waffling with your obedience, it's like, give him God. Give us your spirit. Jesus pours out his spirit on us to empower us. Whatever you're going through, the answer is Jesus. It's not appeasing, it's not declaring independence. It's submission to the One who went to the cross for you. And what that does is it turns people from giants. It makes them human sized again. I went like this. I realized it's not that they're little, it's not that they don't matter. It's that it brings them back into like the right proportion in our mind and heart. These aren't people to impress anymore or people to win over their affection or their approval by what we do. People are there for us to love and learn to pray for. You're actually called to love as Moses loved, as Jesus loves to actually begin to live a life of prayer for people where you're interceding for them. People are people and God is God. And Jesus helps us to keep those things separate and in their right place. So I'm gonna pray for us. I'm gonna invite the prayer team up to the front. We'll have a few minutes here on the back end. And I just want you to think about Whose voice is carrying the most weight for you right now in your life? Is it your peers? Is it someone in your family? Is it a boss? Is it someone else? Maybe it's someone you don't know personally and you may never meet personally. Maybe it's a politician or a group of people. Whose voice carries the most weight for you right now. And how is that weighing you down? I just want you to know I think God wants to free you today from that weight so that his voice will be the loudest one. So that even if the crowd turns on you, you know that you have the approval of the crown and that one day he'll give you a crown even if the crowd gives you a cross. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that you have spoken to your people and that you invite us to trust you and obey you. And that, you know, it's really hard for us to do that. In fact, you know, it is impossible for us to do that in our own strength. And you'd sent your son to live that perfect life in our place and to offer himself as our ransom, our cover, so that now we can approach you through him. And we know that he lives to make intercession for us, that his love brings him to you on our behalf. And I pray that today I don't know what people are going through in the room, but that the things that they feel weighed down by, that they'd be able to offer them to you and trust you with them so that they can get on, as it were, and press in to the things that you've called them to do. Maybe there's ministry callings, maybe there's next steps of obedience in the room that you're calling people to. Maybe it's difficult conversations that you've called them to have that maybe they've hesitated on. Maybe it's just taking a step to say like, I've run away from you, Will you take me back? I've been in church, around church, I've done churchy things, church like things, but I've actually never surrendered to you. I live in fear of what people will do or say or think, or I live in fear of being controlled and told what to do. Would you free me? God, whatever it is for men and women, whatever it is that you're putting and young people, whatever it is that you're putting on their hearts, would you free them to receive from you? Thank you, Jimmy. Pray. Amen. So I'm going to invite you to come up and receive prayer if there's like, something that's stirring in you. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a problem that you're facing right now. And come and receive prayer. Otherwise, if you're just grateful to Jesus for what he's done, praising him is a good plan. We'll be up in a few minutes to close. Enjoy him.