Idolatry // What do you Worship?

Exodus 32:1-7.

"When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. 

Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they had handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are yor gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in font of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord." 

So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry."

During this part of Exodus Moses is leading some people called the Isralites from Egypt (where they were slaves) to land that God had promised for them. Moses had left the Isralites for quite a long time - the verses even open with "When the people saw that Moses was so long  in coming down from the mountain." Moses was talking to God up on the mountain while the Isralites had this conversation that we read of in these verses.

They decided that Moses was taking too long so they build for themselves a statue of a calf to worship. The Isralited 18 chapters earlier crossed the Red Sea with Moses. These people literally saw miracles, they experianced the awesome power of God. And here they are, worshiping a statue they made instead of God who made them. 

Don't you think the Isralites were a little stupid to make this calf their God and worship it - Would you worship a statue of a calf? 

I hope your answer was no.

It's easy to look back at the Isralites worshiping a calf and laugh but we do the same in 2014.

It just looks a bit different.

Everyone has a god weather or not it's the God of the gospel.

God is defined as whatever we make supreme. 

This dosen't mean that if we dont worship God then he's not God. God is God weather we worship him or not, however we can make things in our lives supreme - these are our 'gods', or what we worship. 

If you don't know what your idol is in your life, if you don't know what you worship in your life then it's probably the first thing you think of when you read the next sentance;

An idol is when you look at something and say 'if I have that, my life will have meaning'.

What did you think of? 

A huge TV?

A bigger house? 

A relationship with someone?

An iPhone?

Better grades in school?

A better job? 

To have something that isn't God as your idol is a very dangerous thing because if you worship something and you can't give it up then you don't own it, it owns you. 

If we skip forwards a few chapters in the Bible to Exodus chapter 20:3 we see God giving Moses the 10 commandments. Verse 3 starts with the first commandment, they are in no particular order but the very first commandment God gives to Moses is; 

"You shall have no other gods before (or besides) me."

And then we read on and the seccond commandment God gives Moses in verse 4 is; 

"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in Heaven or on Earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them."

The very first two commandments are God basically saying 'Don't make idols. No seriously.'

Puting this in the context of our modern lives, we put our idols in place of God. Whatever it is that we can't live without we try to make them fit a God shaped hole in our lives.

What idol took nails to it's wrists and died a long and painful death on the cross so that every single thing you do wrong dosen't matter anymore? 

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