What Do I Think About Sin?

Introduction

Good morning. In the auditorium class for the past about two and a half months, we have been studying through the book of Exodus and Leviticus. And while I know many uh wish to be studying the nitty, gritty details of Leviticus, not everyone has. And I have refrained until this point from preaching out of the book of Exodus or Leviticus. But today is not that day. This morning I want to talk, though, about sin and what do we think about sin. And that’s what led me more to Exodus chapter 32 was not just to preach Exodus chapter 32, but to see the different attitudes of sin, because when we think about sin, we have a variety of different opinions. There are some who just don’t care. Some say sin is a development of the church, it’s a creation by religion, and religion is a scourge of the earth.

If you look at all the wars and such that have been the name of religion, it must be phony, it must be fake, sin is not real.

You might just say that it’s something that we do that’s bad. It might be something that’s just not good. I hope that we see that sin is a scourge, that Christians should be nowhere near. In fact, this morning, it’s January 8th of 2017. I don’t know that we had a day this cold last year, although my memory isn’t quite strong. Some of you with weather apps may be uh more correct on that than I. But when I got into my truck this morning, my windshield was kind of foggy. In fact, being from Florida, I don’t even know what the exact term for that is. But I’ll call it foggy because that works for me. But when I looked out the windshield, I could see well enough, it was fine.

I could drive, I could see everything. But when I looked out my driver’s side window, everything was perfectly clear. For those of you who have ever tried on glasses, it’s kind of like that, is this one better or is this one better type of process you go through. But it was a ma it was amazing to me to look out the side and see how crystal clear everything was, because it wasn’t affected by the fog that I was speaking of before. I think sometimes with sin, though, we think it’s okay as long as we can keep going. I think this morning, perhaps there are many of us here this morning that are Christians, are dedicated to God, that know that sin is wrong and bad and has no place in the Christian’s life.

But, you know, as long as we can see through it, like that windshield, as long as we can get where we’re going, it’s okay. I think what we’ll see from the book of Exodus in chapter 32, with the story of the golden calf, is that there were a variety of individuals involved, ranging from God to the people of Israel to Moses and Aaron in between as the leaders who should have and did know better. And what we’ll see is the interesting responses to sin and understanding of it, and I want to know where do I stack up? Am I more like Moses and God? Or like Aaron and the people? And it may surprise us to see what side that our actions show that we belong in.

If you open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 32, and read with me beginning in verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a golden calf.

And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. I think we all understand that this was clearly a violation of law. In fact, if you think about what the people should have known, it was not only God, and you may be thinking, they just saw all the plagues, they just saw the Red Sea part. They should know better. And we may talk about that a little bit this morning.

But look at Exodus chapter 20 to see sufficiently that the people understood what God’s expectation was of them regarding this matter. As obvious as it is, I think it’s important to see that it was in the Ten Commandments that God spoke in the hearing of all those who were there at Mount Sinai. And you see, beginning in verse two, one of the arguably three commandments they broke in just this one short section. Beginning in verse two of Exodus chapter 20, you shall have no other gods. Excuse me, verse 3, you shall have no other gods before me. Before you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is heaven above, or that is in the water and the earth beneath.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Certainly we can see that the first two definitively were clear, that the people should not have another God, and they should not make an idol God, and we failed both of those tests in chapter thirty in chapter thirty two with the golden calf. But everyone in this room, I’m willing to believe, knows that the golden calf was wrong.

Well, let’s think about this story in a little bit more detail. Moses had been gone. We see in verse 1 for a long while. Did you see how they described Moses being missing? In chapter 32 and verse 1, when they came to Aaron, it was because they saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain. It was at this delay that the people had such a weird, sinful request. It’s interesting that we know from Exodus chapter 24 and verse 18, Moses had been gone for about 40 days, and being gone for most of six weeks is a long time to be gone. And yet you would think with all the people had been through throughout the book of Exodus, when it comes to being in Egyptian bondage and slavery, when it comes to the ten plagues that God sent upon the people who lived in the land of Egypt, and then when they crossed the Red Sea that God had allowed Moses to part, and then it collapsed again on the Egyptians who followed in after, that they would have not only a strong understanding of who God was, but that Moses was their leader who was strong.

Now you could say, on the other hand, while they should have known that, that perhaps this is exactly what worried them. But we’ll see that as we move forward.

Isn’t that exactly what God had done? When you think about as they were leaving the land of Egypt after they had crossed the Red Sea as though it were on dry ground, as Hebrews chapter 11 makes mention, that they did by faith. They were led by what? Well, the very presence of God, a pillar of fire by day, or excuse me, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. So God’s presence was with them. They wanted someone to be physically there with them, leading them every step of the way, and that’s reasonable. But the problem was when they left letting God be God. They wanted to have a substitute. They wanted to make a God. In fact, it’s the very God that Aaron describes, or excuse me, that the people describe in verse 4 as these are the gods who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.

You can see they missed the boat. We see finally that they not only made the gods, they not only proclaimed them to be the one that led them out of Egypt, but they worshiped it. Aaron constructed the altar and they offered burnt offerings to it. They offered peace offerings to this idle God. And to most of our modern sensibilities, the idea of bowing before or even just giving our gold to make an idle God is extreme foolishness. And make no mistake, biblically speaking, this is foolishness to worship an idol instead of the true God. And by the way, the verse we didn’t read in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 1, as God is about to proclaim the Ten Commandments, he said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

1. God Hates Sin

They had missed that very key component, not only of the law, but who the God who spoke the law was and continues to be. I hope we’re not like that, but I want to see how the sin was viewed. Because we know that Aaron and the people wanted the idol, but I want to see the next answer, because we see the next group here, and how does God view the sin? We have a good hunch of how this would go, but in verse 7, let’s see it for ourselves. In Exodus chapter 32 and verse 7. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.

They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you. Needless to say, God was not pleased. But I want us to see that God was not only not pleased. They didn’t just do a bad thing. They didn’t accidentally spill some milk on the counter. Nope, God’s reaction in verse 9, he calls them what? A stiff-necked people. This is after dealing with evil Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened and would not let the people go.

But now it’s the Israelites who are stiff-necked, stubborn, obstinate in their sinful ways. And in verse 10, perhaps more clearly, let me alone that my wrath may burn against the sinful Israelites, that I may consume them. Sin is not a game. Sin is not something to be coexisted with. Sin is something to be stamped out, avoided, fled from. You name it, it should be apart from us, whether we stamp it out or we flee from it, in the words of 2 Timothy chapter 2. We need to be away from the lust of the flesh. And the people not only were around it, they requested it. Aaron gave in to their request. And they worshipped their sin. And God’s wrath was kindled against them. Can we say that this would be a frightening place to be?

Having done things that God not only said not to, but imagine if it was said of me, or it was said of you, I have seen him. He is a stiff-necked person. Let me alone that my wrath may burn against him and I may consume him. Certainly the application of verse 10 goes beyond just God’s wrath with the Israelites. It was so much so that he was going to start over and make the Abrahamic descent flip come down through the line of Moses. But in verse 10, I want to see for this morning when we think about sin and how we dabble in it, or how we avoid it, or how we flee from it, or how we abhor it. I want us to see that God is clear.

2. Moses’ Reaction to the Sin Was Like God’s

God hates sin. I wonder what we as his people should feel like about sin. We’ll see that as we move forward. But I want to see how about this man of God. What about Moses, who had been gone, who had to the people seemed delayed? He had been up at the mountain, receiving the commandments of God, and by the way, Moses was there not only because he was Moses, and God had appointed him as leader of the people, but because they couldn’t stand the voice of God. They were terrified by it, as the end of chapter 20 shows us. But see in verse 11, beginning how Moses implores the Lord. He says, Oh Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent, did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember, I Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. Moses was truly being a mediator for the people. But make no mistake. Moses’ reaction to the sin was like God’s, not the Israelites.

We see that in verse 15. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand. Tablets that were written on both sides in the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. But he said, It is not the sound of shouting for victory or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear. And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot.

And he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. I ask you, whose reaction did Moses’ most mirror? Did the reaction to the sin mirror that of Aaron, who when they approached him saying, Make us gods, make us this golden calf, and he did it. And he not only did it, but when he heard that they loved and approved of it, that he built an altar for it. Or was he more like God? I think that’s clear. God had said in verses 9 and 10 that Israel was a stiff-necked people, and his wrath was burning hot against them.

And we say that Moses’ anger was kindled. He was abhorred by the evil. Moses knew what the people were doing was wrong. He knew it was an abhorrent in the sight of God. It was something to be strongly loathed, something so beyond what the holy consecrated people of Israel should be doing with the God who set them apart, that he couldn’t take it. That he in fact broke the tablets, as it says in verse 19. And not only did he break the tablets, or we might say the tablets of the covenant, which, by the way, the people had broken the covenant by transgressing God’s law in such a clear and obstinate manner. But in verse 20, imagine this for imagery for real punishment. He took the calf that they had made, and he burned it with fire, and he ground it into powder, scattered it on the water, and made the people drink it.

Moses was not approving of the sin. And while in verses eleven through fourteen he petitioned God to be patient and relent of them the disaster that God’s anger and wrath could have poured out upon them. Moses clearly was abhorred by the evil. As any child of God would be.

Not only did we see that, but Moses broke the tablets, and he obeyed God even to a very powerful strange point. Look in look in verse 25 with me. In verse 25, after he had gone down, he had made the people of Israel drink the powdered calf, and after Aaron’s excuses that we will come back to in a moment, when Moses saw that the people of verse 25 had broken loose, for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies. Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, put your sword on each side of you and go in to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.

3. Aaron Made Excuses, but the Levites Came

Who did this command come from? In verse 27, thus says the Lord God of Israel. Moses broke the tablets in his anger, frustration, disappointment, you name it in the people. But he also stuck with God. He relayed the message of God that included the slaying of his brothers and sisters of Israel. I wonder if we respond to sin in others that way. Aaron, on the other hand, though, in verses 21 through 24 was not like God and did not respond like Moses. And frankly, he didn’t respond like many New Testament and Old Testament heroes did when confronted with sin. We say, here’s what Aaron had to say when Moses comes to him in verse 21 and says, What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?

Aaron should have known what he was doing. In verse 22, and Aaron said, Let not the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know of the people that they are set on evil. For they said to me, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what is become of him. So I said to them, Let any who have gold take it off. So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf. Now I have to comment on verse 24, because no matter how many times I study or read through this section, verse 24 is of a glaring humorous note.

In verse 4, you know, when Aaron received the gold, what did he do with it? In verse 4 of chapter 32. He took the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with a graving tool to make the golden calf. Yet in verse 24, his version of the events as he’s being approached by Moses is a little bit different. He took in the gold, they gave it to me, I threw it in the fire, and whoop, out popped this calf. Needless to say, Aaron was not taking responsibility very well. In fact, he kind of had doubled down on it at that point in verse 22. What did he say about the people? He not only didn’t take blame, he shifted blame, shades of Adam and Eve and many other characters and humans throughout history.

You know the people. They are set on evil. They are inclined to have a sinful nature, various translations may render this idea. Aaron made excuses about sin. It’s one thing to give in to sin. It’s another when we think about how are we going to recover from sin. Because if we recognize what sin is and that Moses and Aaron rightfully in their holiness and righteousness, they burn against sin, we will not only avoid it, but when we do fall prey to temptations, when we do give in to the pressure that Aaron succumbed to, how do we react then? Aaron failed yet another test. Not only did he not stop the people, not only did he get the people right on the right track, telling them, wait for Moses, trust in God.

You know who the real God is. Don’t violate the commandments that we were so clearly given. But when Moses approached him about his grave error and how he brought sin among the people, he made excuses and he deflected. But there was one good example of a group of those perhaps who were involved in the sin. And it’s about those Levites. We saw them mentioned in the section we read from verses 25 through 27. But let’s read again, beginning with thus says the Lord in verse 27, as Moses is giving this command. He says, Put your sword on each side of you and go to and from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his neighbor and his companion and his neighbor. And then sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and that day about three thousand men of the people fell.

And Moses said, Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day. I think it’s interesting that not only did Moses relay this message from God, but note verse 26. What was the call that the Levites answered? Yes, they went through with what seems like a horrific punishment. But in verse 26, who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me. When Moses issues the call, who is on the Lord’s side, there was a group of people who came. There were those among the Israelites who did come. And while it’s unclear if the Levites particularly or those who particularly joined Moses were involved in the sin, it’s likely that on behalf of the nation of Israel that they were involved.

But suffice to say, the important messages here, unlike Aaron who made excuses, unlike all the other tribes who are not said to have come back, when Moses said, Who is on the Lord’s side, come to me, the Levites came. And when they were given the tough commandment of God, they fulfilled it. That’s what Christians do. That’s what children of God do throughout ages, throughout time. But in this dispensation, answering to Jesus the Christ, when God says to do something, we do it. No matter what we have done, because we know God is faithful and just to forgive us, or no matter how difficult it may seem, because we know God will not give us anything we cannot handle. What a powerful show of a difference. You have God who’s threatening to consume the people because of their sin.

That’s how God thinks about sin. It is abhorrent. Moses broke the tablets and relayed the message to have some of the Israelites killed. In fact, we know from the text that about 3,000 men fell at that command. And yet, on the other hand, Aaron made excuses. Eleven of the twelve tribes are not noted to have come to Moses’ call that said, Who is on the Lord’s side? But the Levites did. And again, the question begs asking who am I more like? The Levites? Or the other Israelites in Aaron? Do I think of sin like God or like Moses? It’s interesting that in this section, it’s kind of complex for us to take to say, yes, what they did with the golden calf was abhorrent. Yes, it was a clear violation of one, two, maybe even three, at least, of the Ten Commandments.

But did people really deserve to die? That question is certainly worth a more in-depth study. But I wonder, if we thought of sin like God did, like God does, maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to ask those questions. And when we’d be much faster to ask the question, how could they? I wonder if for a moment or for a day or for months, and then this year, I don’t focus on what I think God is doing that’s unfair or unjust, but how I am violating God’s law. How my holy God, who knows, didn’t take me out of Egyptian bondage, but took me out of something far worse from the domain of darkness, captured in sin. And Colossians 1, verses 13 and 14 say, We have been transferred from that into the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Maybe I should focus more on what God has done for me and how God thinks about sin rather than how I can get around leaving sin in my life, or how unfair it is that I’m reaping the consequences of my transgression of God’s law. The people of Israel were guilty of the crime of not only breaking the Ten Commandments, but of turning their backs on God. Maybe if we’re more focused on sin instead of God’s unjust nature, or so we think, that we would be more holy. We would be more like Moses, more right in the sight of God. It was Moses who in verses 11 through 14 did reason with God, you might say, or petitioned God, perhaps more accurately stated, to relent of the disaster coming upon the people.

But what we know is from how this concluded in verse 35, that the Lord knew who were his.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Alas, this people have sinned a great sin, they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go. Lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. Powerful plea by Moses. Forgive the people, if not write me out of the book. Reminiscent of Paul in Romans chapter 9 and verse 1 through 3, that if he could just give himself up so that all his Israelite brothers and sisters could be saved, that he would be happy.

4. Do I Work at Staying Close to God?

But God doesn’t deal that way. Because God is just, because God is righteousness, is righteous, because God is holy. In verse 34, excuse me, verse 33, the response is clear. Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. I wonder where we stand. I have some questions from Exodus as we conclude the lesson this morning, some application questions. Do I work at staying close to God? Before we move on and finish the application of sin, I do want to think about how sin happened, how it came into the picture. And it takes us all the way back to verse 1. As we work through this entire chapter this morning, we focused on the sin and the repercussions of the sin and the response to sin.

But when it goes all the way back to verse 1, what was the thing that made the sin come into play? In verse 1, the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain. The people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Yes, in verse 1, Aaron should have stepped up. Aaron shouldn’t have said, Bring me your gold, I’ll make this golden calf. Aaron should have stopped it. He should have said, Don’t do this to your God, the God who took you out of the land of Egypt. Remember what he has done.

Remember how he fed you and gave you water. Remember all the miracles and the signs and the wonders that he has done. Remember that we are following his lead. But the people felt distance from God. And the people didn’t know what had become of Moses. And while this is perhaps an unavoidable feeling of absence in this particular case, I do wonder for me and for those of you like me this morning. Who have to have struggle with this feeling that says, Where is God in my life? Why do I not feel God close to me? If you think about the people, what would you answer them? Would you say, Well, Moses is gone for 40 days, so this is a sufficient request. This makes sense. Not at all.

We might reason with them that in Exodus chapter 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, you saw the plagues that God sent upon the people of Egypt. You saw how even as they moved through the plagues, that God differentiated those that fell on everyone and those who fell on just Egypt, including Pharaoh and his household. You should know that your God is the true God, that he will keep his promise to deliver you. Or he might say, Well, as you were coming out of Egypt, as you came to the Red Sea, that you by faith crossed as though we were on dry land, and you turned around and you saw the Red Sea collapse upon the Egyptian soldiers who came in after you. And when you turn around, you saw the bodies dead.

Because of the miracle of God. You might tell them, as you continue to walk to get to Mount Sinai, as you continued following Moses and Aaron, you cried for food and God delivered. You cried for water and God provided. You know what I’d say, remember who God is and what he has done for you.

And that same message has to come to me. This morning I wonder how much do I work at remembering God. When I think about the Bereans in Acts chapter 17 and verse 11, and how they search the scriptures daily. When I think about passages like 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 17, pray without ceasing. Am I of a mind to constantly search the scriptures to mind them to see what God’s will is and to remind myself of all that God has done and will do? Am I of a mindset to pray without ceasing? Am I constantly giving thanks, glory, and honor to the only one who deserves it, that is God, Jehovah, our Lord. I wonder if I perhaps am the one who placed distance between me and God.

Hope you open with in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 16, an obscure little passage that has great application. In Genesis chapter 16, as we think about the story of Abraham, as we’ve been studying Abraham’s people, before there were a people of Abraham, there certainly was Abraham, but there was Isaac. But Isaac didn’t come exactly in the way that Abraham thought. In fact, Isaac hadn’t come yet, as of Genesis chapter 16, because there was a problem. In Genesis chapter 16, beginning in verse 1. Now Sarah, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female, she had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said to Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, so it may be that I shall obtain children by her.

Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarah, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband as a wife. And he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarah said to Abraham, May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me. Abram said to Sarah, Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

How unfair. How cruel that Hagar would do exactly what Sarah said, that they would give the son, of course, that Abraham and Sarah were trying to do instead of waiting on the Lord. But note verse 13. Note something about our God. Was she dealt harshly with? Yes. Was it unjust? Yes. But in verse 13, so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing. For she said, Truly here I’ve seen him who looks after me. In the midst of this cruel, unjust treatment, here is Hagar who recognizes that God sees her. We know from passages like this, from all the Psalms, from all of history, from looking around at seeing the world’s creation, our God is not the problem.

So if we don’t feel God’s presence, that means it’s on me. Am I striving to be close with God or am I feeling a gap? Because we can commit sin when we are allowing weakness to reign in our bodies, rather than reacting to an absence of God, or so we think in our lives, rather than trying to close the gap, come to church, be with Christians, study the Bible more. We lament that things aren’t going our way. We perhaps isolate ourselves saying that this church is the problem, or that our God is unfair. We know God’s not the problem. We know that God is just and holy. How will I work to close the gap to keep sin from reigning in my life? I have a second question.

5. Do I View Sin Like God and Moses?

Do I view sin like God in Moses or Aaron and the Israelites? When I think about sin, am I one that says, well, there’s not enough of sin to bother me there? Or when I think about this movie or this part of town or this store, or even in how I deal with my family, my wife, my children. Do I say, I can do this because it’s my right? Or am I so abhorrent and abhorred by the evil of sin that I stay as far away from it as possible? God hates sin. That is an understatement to the highest order. We need to realize if we’re going to be like God, if we’re going to strive to be holy as He is holy, perfect, complete in our calling, we need to not only avoid sin, we need to hate sin.

Romans 12, 9 says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. We treat sin as if it’s a bad pet, it’s a bad friend. We keep it at the door, and sometimes we feed it because we like it being around. Sin is to be stamped out. Sin has no place in a Christian’s life, whether in front of our face or in the peripherals. Brothers and sisters, we need to be better than that. Aaron allowed the sin to not only happen, he didn’t squash it, but he made it worse. And verses 5 and 6, he built an altar to it, so the people brought these burnt and peace offerings to it. And whether that’s part of the whole sin or not, Aaron didn’t do his job.

6. How Do I Respond to Sin?

We need to do the job that God has called us to. Serve Him. Abhor evil. Don’t laugh. Hate the evil. Don’t enjoy it. Recognize it as the separator from God that sin is and always will be as long as this life is here. We have to have that mindset. We have to be like God and Moses. We cannot be like Aaron and the Israelites. And when I laugh at sin, and when I let it cling to me so closely, or I keep it to where I’m okay, but I could be better. I’m not like God. I’m not even like Moses. I’m like Aaron and the Israelites. Consider with me one final point as we conclude this morning. How do I respond to sin? Am I like Aaron or the Levites?

When confronted with the sin in verses 21 through 24, Aaron not only ditched the blame, but he put it on the people who had a sinful nature. He said, You know how they have a sinful nature. You know the people I’m dealing with, Moses. What else was I supposed to do? And in verse 24, he wouldn’t even take blame for the part that he so clearly played. When verse 4 identifies him as the one who fashioned the golden calf with a fashioning instrument, with a graving tool. He says, I put it in the fire and outpop this calf. Aaron did not respond to sin like God or Moses or David did. The Levites had the right response. We say repentance a lot. We say repent. Repent.

Sometimes I think we view repentance as a simple confession. There’s more to repentance than confession. In fact, the very nature of the word is a turning from. That’s what the Levites did. Do you notice in Exodus chapter 32, it never does say the Levites said, Well, we’re really sorry that we did this and we did that and we did this. Yes, it is important and critical and God given for us to confess our sins. But most importantly, we need to repent of them. We need to turn from sin. No longer let it cling to us. Run the race of faith, getting rid of the shackles of sin. We can see what sin does to us in Hebrews chapter 12 in that picture of how sin weighs us down.

It clings to us so closely. We need to be better. We need to be holy and righteous like Jesus was. We need to view sin as God did. If we are guilty, if we have stained our garments with sin, we need to confess and we need to turn from them. Repenting of our unrighteousness. We serve a great God this morning, and while almost all of us, many of us would recognize clearly in Exodus chapter 32, the people of Israel and Aaron sinned grievously. They violated perhaps the most basic understanding of the Ten Commandments of any law given by God, that God is the only true God. But the truth is we’re a lot like Aaron when we make excuses when we sin. We’re like the people who, when we have a problem, we just commit sin because God’s not right in front of our face because we’re not allowing him to be there.

Conclusion

We need to hate sin as Christians. This year I need a vow, I will put no unclean thing before my eyes. I will not be anywhere near sin. I’m going to be like Joseph, like Moses. And if I do sin, I’m going to be like David, repenting of my sin, making things right with God the way he has outlined. This morning we have an opportunity to serve God. We have worshiped him in song. We’ve remembered the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ. But know that before we leave, we need to be right with God and we can know how. If you’ve committed a sin and you need the prayers of brothers and sisters in Christ to help you to be that holy picture that we are to be, to be like Jesus, to be like God, you can come forward.

We can pray for you and pray with you. But if you’ve never been a Christian, understand that God will forgive you of all of your sins. If you repent, turn from your life of open rebellion against Him and be baptized, having your sins washed away. Be right with God. Be like God. Trust in Him. If we can help you in any way, come forward as we stand and sing the invitation song.