The Golden Calf in Your Pocket: When a Valid Critique is Poisoned by a False Gospel

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:00] I am alive unto God through Christ I have eternal life through Christ I am joint heirs with Jesus Christ I am sanctified in Christ my body is a member of Christ I have victory through Christ my family has victory through Christ my
[00:00:28] church has victory through Christ our nation has victory through Christ we are triumphant in Christ I am a new creation in Christ in Jesus name I declare that I am blessed I am favored I am
[00:00:50] walking in new mercies and the goodness of god follows me my family and my church all the days of our lives we declare that we are blessed and favored in jesus name we pray amen amen amen

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:01:06] everybody is just getting to know each other but let's bring our minds in continually on jesus christ so father we thank you right now we thank you for just your love and kindness we thank
[00:12:06] you for your mercy we thank you for your peace oh god lord we thank you for oh god just the fellowship that we have with you we thank you for planting us in a body oh god even as we fellowship
[00:12:18] even as we hug each other even as we father god is so very thankful to be among our brothers and sisters in christ father we just thank you right now that we have fellowship with you we thank you
[00:12:30] oh god because of your precious blood oh god that we have a family around this world around this below, some of which we have never even met, oh God, one day, one, we'll be together, Father,
[00:12:47] we'll all be together, Lord, we reverence you, that we're here, you are the reason that we have thank you for Sunday, it's a common Lord, sometimes it can't get here quick enough, God,

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:31:59] I have to renew, I get through the week, and I go through things at work, and I feel these things, and I just want to cuss people, and jump up and down, and I pray for Sunday, and Thursday gets
[00:32:08] here, and it's getting closer, we have rehearsal, and we come in, and I get renewed with your word, right here on this stage, God.
[00:32:15] And I can't thank you, Lord, for enough.
[00:32:17] Knowing where I've been with me and my family and putting us right here in this place with these people.
[00:32:23] God love all of them.
[00:32:24] Please bless this place.
[00:32:26] Lay your hand on this house.
[00:32:28] Cure its wires.
[00:32:29] Cure its screens.
[00:32:30] Cure its microphones, God.
[00:32:32] Cure this church.
[00:32:34] Just come in here, Lord, and lay your hand right here because we know you are the one that can give us victory.
[00:32:44] It's all about you.
[00:32:46] Bless our pastors.
[00:32:47] God, we just love you.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:32:50] love that song we could just stay right there amen it is a good day to be in the house of the Lord church I don't know about you but I was driving here and I had this revelation that I
[00:33:12] woke up again and what a blessing come on come on somebody you woke up again today and life is a precious gift from God and I think sometimes we can just just oh we're up again no what a blessing
[00:33:28] to have breath in our lungs that only comes from the creator of the universe so i want to welcome you story life church thank you praise team i'm excited because we woke up again and my prayer
[00:33:42] and my desire is god whatever you're doing just don't do it without me not god what can you do for me and what i want but god whatever you're doing i want to partner with god today i want to
[00:33:54] say yes to Jesus his will and his way for your life destiny family for everything that God has for you so we want to welcome you to Story Life Church look at your neighbor and say you look 10
[00:34:05] pounds lighter say look just prophesy over them you're looking 10 pounds lighter look at your other neighbor and say you're too blessed to be stressed you're too blessed to be stressed we want to welcome our online viewing audience we love our online church welcome to Story Life thank you for
[00:34:22] joining us this morning we know you wish you could be here today we just pray over you and your family you may be seated in the presence of our God we are excited what an awesome God we
[00:34:33] serve this week how many y'all ready for unleashed are y'all ready for unleashed it's gonna be amazing we are excited I got people coming and landing tonight my house is gonna be full we're ready to serve we're ready to give we're ready to see God move it's gonna be incredible so everyone
[00:34:52] after service pastor tamron and pastor scotter in the house love you hi friends we love you they're here and we are going to have an unleashed meeting right after church so please stay and and
[00:35:04] be a part of that of course reminder wednesday 7 p.m pastor jensen franklin's kicking it off y'all don't want to miss it get the word out it's going to be incredible mom and john will be home
[00:35:16] we can't wait to have them home so i'm just stirred up i mean i woke up this morning and i was driving here and I thought to myself I woke up again and what a thought that this life is a gift
[00:35:30] from our God and when you have that understanding then then you and I can be more grateful and when you're more grateful I believe then you're more productive for God and his kingdom I believe
[00:35:42] you'll be more productive in life Pastor Brad had this revelation about being grateful and we were talking about it just a few days ago I'm so grateful for my valentine look at him he took
[00:35:52] me out yesterday I spent some time with my valentine look at you so handsome he had this revelation about life didn't he Brian about being grateful and God basically was like be grateful for the life I've given you and maybe you can share that if you feel led later but for me
[00:36:11] I just woke up this morning and driving here I have these moments it's like and me and Asher Nick, we were talking because there's a new movie coming out, Only Imagine 2. And it's going to be
[00:36:22] amazing. And dear friends of mine from Lakewood, they were all talking about it. And Asher and Nick were asking me questions. And then it just brought us to the point about waking up today. And so that
[00:36:32] was literally the conversation I just had with our kids about how we woke up and how we're grateful for life. And so I'm grateful to be in church this morning. I'm grateful that we're not underground
[00:36:41] this morning. I'm grateful that there aren't police out here trying to shut us down. I mean, I just have, I'm just grateful to be here with you. So I love you church family. We have an
[00:36:53] incredible video right now. It is an important month of Black History Month. And so we want to say happy Black History Month and let's look at this video. Christianity and slavery were long

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:37:13] intertwined. While masters believed that their religion could be used to pacify their slaves, African Americans transformed Christianity and created a new culture that would serve as the foundation of their freedom struggle.

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:37:30] The oldest independent African American denomination is the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in Philadelphia in 1794 by Richard Allen, the formerly enslaved black man who purchased his own freedom.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:37:45] Black religious leaders such as Reverend Allen took a strong abolitionist stance, even helping slaves escape through the Underground Railroad.
[00:37:56] During the Civil War, some served as army chaplains.
[00:38:00] And once the war ended, many mobilized black political participation.
[00:38:05] Some even held public office.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:38:07] The black church provided leadership opportunities for men and women who, by and large, were in subservient positions in the workforce.
[00:38:14] And so all of these preachers doing work in the black church have been critical to giving black people a space to envision that a different world is possible.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:38:26] The late 1800s saw a dramatic proliferation of black churches, and the church remained central to black life through the 20th century, particularly at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:38:39] In the 1960s, the church is playing a much more overtly militant and political role in terms of trying to organize people to defeat Jim Crow and racism, and also to promote economic equality.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:38:50] The tradition of black religious leaders shepherding the freedom struggle reached its pinnacle, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
[00:39:01] Dr. King fused religion, nonviolent resistance, and the prophetic tradition to challenge Jim Crow, while invoking the musical legacy of the spirituals that enslaved African Americans had created.
[00:39:14] Today the black church remains a fundamentally important institution in

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:39:22] the black community. The black church has had to be everything to black people because American society was unwilling to do so. Today we don't need the church to do the same things for us but do I think the church is still a relevant
[00:39:36] institution? Absolutely. It is the place that you can come and rebuild your spirit after you deal with the spiritual assault on black life that many African American's experience because of enduring histories of racism and discrimination.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:39:59] Good morning, Story Life. Y'all doing good? Did everybody have a good Valentine's?
[00:40:10] Everybody did their duty? Minister Gregg, yeah, you did your duty? All right. I did well. I'm happy about how I did on Valentine's. Everybody sleepy? Everybody awake? How are we doing this morning? Yeah, y'all are awake? All right, give me some of that energy. You ready to rock and roll?
[00:40:30] Oh, good to go.
[00:40:33] All right.
[00:40:34] I think today I'm just going to get straight into the Word.
[00:40:38] But before I do, why don't you do me a favor and just make sure that you, I know Rachel already asked you to do it, but we're a community here.
[00:40:46] So just take a few seconds and say hi to the person next to you.
[00:40:51] Yeah?
[00:40:52] Make sure you're there.
[00:40:53] I like seeing this.
[00:40:54] This is the happiest part.
[00:40:55] You know, the other week when I was speaking, this was my favorite memory from the service.
[00:41:01] Yeah, there we go.
[00:41:02] Thank you.
[00:41:02] that this is the that is what church is about that is what no matter what dr john says trying to avoid it that is what church is i love picking on him all right uh valentine's day is is was
[00:41:19] great and it made me think of relationships and uh relationships make me think of culture and culture makes me think of church and church makes me think and so on and so what it means to
[00:41:31] because that's just how I think.
[00:41:34] One thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, and so I thought what better thing than around Valentine's Day to talk about a sermon that has nothing to do with relationships but fundamentally impacts relationships.
[00:41:48] And so today, we are talking about what is it replacing?
[00:41:52] That's the title of the message, what is it replacing?
[00:41:55] I'm not sure that the title actually fits exactly what I wanted to say, but it's the best that I could do for now.
[00:42:04] And I thought to myself, what is it in our life that we use to replace presence?
[00:42:11] What is it in our life that we use to replace the uncomfortable elements that come with this gift that Rachel described of being alive?
[00:42:23] Because being alive is a tremendous gift, but it's also difficult.
[00:42:30] It's challenging.
[00:42:33] It sometimes feels unbearable.
[00:42:39] We were talking about that at our Valentine's Day lunch about life, and Rachel said it can be agonizing.
[00:42:48] And I said it's a gift, and that was quite the role reversal because usually I'm the one that would say it's agonizing, and she's the one that says it's a gift.
[00:42:58] And both are true, but everybody feels those things at different times.
[00:43:03] And unfortunately, we live in a world where people are willing to exploit agony, to exploit the difficulties of life for their own benefit.
[00:43:14] And in doing so, they take away the value of living, which is presence.
[00:43:22] Life is its own reward.
[00:43:26] Think about what you get when you accept Jesus.
[00:43:29] The reward that you get as a person, the true reward is relationship with God.
[00:43:35] That's the real reward, but the initial reward is eternal life so life is The reward that you get if life is the reward It's not simply that you get a life without suffering, but you get more life
[00:43:55] So life is the reward and if life is the reward What does that say about how should we should treat the reward that we have we have life?
[00:44:04] We're living you're alive. It might be hard. It might be painful I'll guarantee you there's days that you wish you weren't But you are alive and that is the greatest gift that God can give you is this gift of life
[00:44:18] And in order to enjoy it fully you have to be present in it. You can't be constantly trying to escape it But the pressures of this world are such that they will design Ways for you to try to seek to escape it and and I thought about something
[00:44:37] something, when I was at my follow-up surgery, I don't know if you can hear it, I had surgery on my nose, I know they showed you a video, not like, not like trying to be pretty, it
[00:44:46] was a septoplasty and a turbinoplasty, elder, don't look at me like that, I'm not trying to get like a Barbie nose, I couldn't breathe, it was so bad, the doctor said it was like one of the worst cases he's ever seen, so that like, he said it looked like a bomb went
[00:45:02] off on my nose, because I've been, here's the reality, I've been punched in the face so many times, Pastor Todd, that my nose had, my septums were like at like septal spurs at like 90 degree angles with my bones. And I thought I was breathing well comparatively. And now I'm
[00:45:18] realizing with a swollen nose full of silt, I'm realizing, oh my gosh, I can breathe so much better now than I could before the surgery. So anyway, that's why, yeah, thank you. I'm excited about it too i can finally sleep and breathe and talk about a gift being able to breathe through
[00:45:37] your nose is a gift and uh but i was i was waiting at the follow-up and my instinct was to pull out my phone and start to look at youtube videos while i was waiting in the doctor's office and i thought
[00:45:54] this is an interesting thing that i'm doing i have this moment and i'm having to fill it with something and I thought what would I do if and how would I feel if every day I put on my pants
[00:46:09] and there were two pills in it and I could take those pills and boredom would go away pain would go away anxiety would go away I had them endlessly every morning two pills in my pocket this is a
[00:46:30] form of technology that could ease my circumstances. It sounds amazing. It sounds like it'd be useful in an emergency situation. It sounds like it's something that we would all want and desire.
[00:46:44] But I think the tendency would be for us to start taking them at inappropriate times.
[00:46:51] I think the temptation would be that when something feels uncomfortable, we take it for the first time.
[00:46:58] It feels available, we take it, and then all of a sudden we get used to taking something.
[00:47:04] And if you think about it, that's exactly what happened with opioids We took opioids because they eliminated pain and when people realize is they were so good at eliminating pain It didn't eliminate just physical pain. It also eliminated emotional pain the part of the brain that feels physical pain
[00:47:22] Also processes emotional pain. So these things these miracle drugs this technology was capable of blocking pain So you have pain in your leg pain in your back pain in your bones then all of a sudden you have this miracle technology that deals with not
[00:47:40] only that pain but the pain of your marriage the pain of your life not only that it creates changes in your brain and in your body to such an extent that there becomes a interactive dependency and the reality is all of us know what a
[00:47:58] crisis that has been all of us know how dangerous that has been because unlike other technologies that do similar things the technology of pain medication created an immediate effect and an immediate crisis, because when you take too much, you
[00:48:13] die.
[00:48:15] Because people's lives were ruined.
[00:48:17] There's likely not anybody in here who hasn't been touched by that opioid crisis.
[00:48:23] And so all of us would look at something like that if they, those widely accessible and one of the criticisms of the medication industry was that they made it too accessible to everyone.
[00:48:38] They said, how could you push this on everybody, and think that there would be no consequence?
[00:48:44] And people responded fiercely.
[00:48:46] People reacted strongly.
[00:48:48] Not strong enough, but strong enough for there to be action taken.
[00:48:52] Strong enough for there to be the seeds of change, and we're beginning to see the seeds of that change take root and produce fruit.
[00:49:00] There are less people dying now than there were two years ago.
[00:49:03] That's a wonderful thing.
[00:49:05] It's dropping by double-digit percentages.
[00:49:07] all of us could look at that crisis and say we want that solved and we want the effects of that technology to be taken care of but the reason that we responded to something like those technology
[00:49:22] and those pills and opioids is because the crisis that it produced was immediate it wasn't a slow erosion that we all adopted the reality is every time that i look at my phone in the doctor's
[00:49:39] office every time I'm altering how I interact with technology and that technology is altering my brain it's altering how I deal with time it's altering how I deal with presence I looked around and saw my kid on an iPad
[00:49:59] and I knew the phone I had in my pocket I saw what Rachel's phone she does instagram i do youtube my kids do youtube all of us have this access and i realize look at how
[00:50:16] normalized this technology is that has replaced presence in everyday life that has replaced boredom in everyday life look how easy it is to adopt something that starts out as an exception and ends up as a rule what's interesting is what ends up happening and i experienced this as a
[00:50:47] parent is that you begin am i bleeding don't do that i'm paranoid don't okay elder if you go like this at all i'm gonna think there's just blood dripping from my nose so just just that's been
[00:50:57] happening so forgive me please i don't want to gross you out as a parent what i've noticed is that something that starts as an occasional thing ends up the thing that you have to make rules
[00:51:08] around. Notice that what ends up happening with most parents and most people is we go, we don't go, here's your allotted time for this, but we say, you can't have this at the table.
[00:51:21] You can't have this. In other words, this can't intrude with this time that we now have to protect. We have to make rules around this sacred time because this technology has effectively taken such a place in your life that it now can invade everything if we're not conscious of it and the
[00:51:47] reality is that none of us really fully embrace it as a crisis even if we know it's bad none of us look at it and say this is something that needs to be dealt with immediately it's something that
[00:51:57] encroaches and starts slowly and it seems helpful and it seems like something that can benefit us in it and it's one of those miraculous things it's it's like having those two pills in your pocket
[00:52:08] when you're at a restaurant and your child is screaming and you know that if you just put on that episode of something at youtube on youtube or just give them that tablet that they will stop
[00:52:17] making everyone look at you in the restaurant and you know you can't slap them you know you can't shake you know you can't just grab them he's like you gotta shut up right now i'm gonna rip
[00:52:26] your head off because everybody's looking at you what's this parent gonna do you know they're judging you even as they smile they're judging you how are you gonna do and you're sweating You have that bead of sweat, and you're like, all of this is going on.
[00:52:39] You're just, well, five minutes of tablet time, honey.
[00:52:42] But when we get out of here, I'll tell you what right now, what I'm going to do.
[00:52:47] It's a solution.
[00:52:49] It's a solution to human problems.
[00:52:53] And that's wonderful to have solutions to human problems.
[00:52:56] But what appears to be a solution becomes the problem that alters the human.
[00:53:03] Now we're in a different place.
[00:53:05] The reality is that we adopt certain things.
[00:53:16] And if we look back, we notice that we have no longer have the ability to tolerate waiting.
[00:53:24] We notice that all of a sudden we no longer have the ability to tolerate silence.
[00:53:28] We notice that our interactions with people are shorter.
[00:53:33] That sermons have to get more condensed in church.
[00:53:35] That our attention spans are altered.
[00:53:38] That we don't quite make eye contact the way...
[00:53:40] I don't know about you, but when I talk to people, the younger they are, the less likely they are to make eye contact with me the less likely they are to interact with me in a meaningful way i don't know how it is because i'm married and i started dating in my 20s thank
[00:53:58] god but i've heard it's a nightmare in the relationship field that you could look somebody in their face be in front of them but you are judged by a profile that sounds horrific one of
[00:54:13] the things that we're trying to do here at story life is is recreate the field of personal relationships embodied relationships we want to have singles come here and connect i want people to see each other face to face my hope is that they don't come here and just measure people
[00:54:30] through the screens right but what do we do we connect through a digital versions of ourselves and what are those digital versions of ourselves they're altered versions of ourselves they're not even the full story about ourselves they're the highlighted portions of ourselves that we want
[00:54:45] to present so what are we teaching the world as we do these things and further entrench ourselves in these ways we are teaching the world and that is ourselves that to be human is to create a
[00:54:57] highlight reel for other people to judge it's not to to live a full experience it's to create a moderated one that hopefully can be adopted for some of your goals and relationships.
[00:55:18] We end up adopting technologies in ways that make us stop noticing what we've stopped building.
[00:55:25] When you can supplement building with technology, when you can supplement building with reduced anxiety, when you can supplement wrestling with God with resting with technology, the tendency is to take the path of least resistance it's difficult to be
[00:55:53] inspired it's difficult to hear God it's difficult to build what he wants you to build it's difficult because it requires an anxious silence and and I don't mean that in a way that you need to be anxious to hear God but I mean that you
[00:56:09] will have your garden of Gethsemane you will have your top of the mountain moment you will have these moments where it requires nothing but you and presence and silence and an awareness of what God is trying to do in you and
[00:56:21] through you and where he's trying to take you and if you have taught yourself to avoid that at all circumstances and at all cost then you will not hear your own destiny in God's voice and this isn't anything new there is this human
[00:56:38] tendency to try to replace the still parts the anxious parts the the the difficult parts, the absent parts of the human experience with technology.
[00:56:49] And the consequences are always the same.
[00:56:55] We see it in Exodus 32.
[00:57:02] And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves unto Aaron and said unto him, Make us gods, which shall go up before us.
[00:57:15] I'm going to say that again.
[00:57:19] And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, Moses, the leader, is absent, which means for the people that God is absent.
[00:57:34] They interpret the absence of Moses as the absence of God.
[00:57:39] That's an interesting interpretation, because I don't see God as absent in anything, though I understand why they felt his absence.
[00:57:52] Either God is the God of everything, or he's the God of some things.
[00:57:56] And if he's only the God of some things, then he's not God, he's just a God.
[00:58:01] And I don't serve a God, I serve the God.
[00:58:06] And my God is not a God of some things, my God is a God of all things.
[00:58:13] That's what makes him my God.
[00:58:17] He's the God of all things.
[00:58:19] And so, even when I feel his absence, I know he's not absent.
[00:58:24] There were moments in my immature Christian days that I thought the absence of a Moses, the absence of a word, the absence of a command, the absence of a feeling, the absence of something was the absence of God.
[00:58:38] And now I realize in my rest that there is no absence of God.
[00:58:43] That just because Moses is at the top of the mountain does not mean that God is not in my life.
[00:58:50] And God will create these moments of perceived absence to let you see who you are and where your anxieties take you.
[00:58:58] He will let you see what you're willing to feel that space with and it's interesting Because what they filled the space it with is technology Now you're saying come on Brad. That's a stretch. They filled the space with an idol. Well, let's look at the nature of that idol
[00:59:24] Let's look at the nature of that idol. First of all, what do they say to Aaron make us Make something produce something create something invent something That will do for us What God did when he was present?
[00:59:51] make us gods a People who were rescued by a God now want gods because what they all what they see God is the holy true living one true God as is a technology make us gods in the plural because god is a technology to get us what we want
[01:00:13] and if god becomes a technology to get you what you want the moment he's not giving you what you want you'll try to replace him with another technology i don't care if it's a denomination
[01:00:28] i don't care if it's a religion you'll try to replace him with whatever's working and at that point you're not operating in faith you're operating in witchcraft as this is moses the man that they brought us up out of the land of egypt we want not what has become of him don't
[01:00:56] outsource your relationship with god do not outsource your relationship with god because if you think it's in me or you think it's in somebody else or you think it's in the prophet or you think it's in your parent or if you think it's in what will end up happening is in the
[01:01:10] absence of that person because that person is not god you will look for supplementation you will look for another, we want not as become of him. And Aaron said unto them, break off the golden
[01:01:26] earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters and bring them unto me. And all the people break off the golden earrings, which were in their ears and brought
[01:01:38] them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool after he had made it a molten calf, a molten calf. And they said, these be thy gods, O Israel,
[01:01:55] which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And where an Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation. I can't even read this. And said, this is just wild. And
[01:02:16] said tomorrow is a feast to the lord they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play
[01:02:29] and the lord said unto moses go get thee down for thy people which thou brought us out of the land of egypt have corrupted themselves they have turned aside quickly out of the way which i
[01:02:42] commanded them they have made a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed thereunto and said these be thy gods did you imagine just for a second if you're Moses and you're up there doing the work of your people and listening to God you're
[01:02:56] just you know you're like are taking notes and you're into it and all of a sudden God's like a pause by the way need you to go back down there because your people have just made golden calf that they're now worshiping and they're
[01:03:09] declaring feast days and sacrifices to this golden calf that they say good What would you, I've been gone for 10 days, 15, like, it's just, they're all ready?
[01:03:24] That'd be like, come back from the DRC, and y'all have statues in the back.
[01:03:29] What in the world happened?
[01:03:31] Rachel, where were you?
[01:03:37] And the Lord said unto Moses, get thee down.
[01:03:39] They have turned aside quickly of the way which I have commanded them, and made them a molten calf, and they've worshipped it.
[01:03:43] And I've sacrificed thereunto, and said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.
[01:03:50] And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen these people, and behold, is it a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I might consume them. And I will make of thee a great nation. I just want to pause and just say what I love about
[01:04:05] God is he's a tough guy. He's a tough guy when he has to be, but he always leaks his heart.
[01:04:14] I'm going to go down there and spank some people because I love them so much. I want to make them great that is the heart of your father the heart of him is i want to make thee a great nation and
[01:04:28] too many people think the heart of him is the wrath moses besought the lord his god and said lord why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people which thou has brought forth out of the land of
[01:04:38] egypt with great power and with a mighty hand wherefore should the egyptians speak and say for mischief did bring them out to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people remember abraham
[01:04:53] I am Isaac and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven.
[01:05:00] And all of this land that I have spoken, I will give unto your seed and they shall inherit it forever.
[01:05:05] And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto this people.
[01:05:10] I love it.
[01:05:11] The Lord repented of the evil.
[01:05:14] And Moses turned and went down from the mount.
[01:05:17] And the two tables of the testimony were in his hand.
[01:05:19] And the tables were written on both their sides.
[01:05:21] And on one side and the other they were written.
[01:05:23] the tables were the work of god and the writing was writing of god graven him on the tables when joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted he said unto moses there is a noise of war
[01:05:32] in the camp and he said it is not the voice of them that shout for mastery neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome but the noise of them that sing do i hear
[01:05:44] the noise of them that sing do i hear and it came to pass as soon as the camp came nigh unto the camp he saw the calf and the dancing and moses anger waxed hot what happened moses what
[01:05:57] what happened to your call to repentance huh and he cast the tables out of his hand and break them beneath the mount and he took the calf which they had made and burnt it in the fire and ground it to
[01:06:07] powder and strawed it upon water and made the children of israel drink of it you want to consume i'm going to show you what happens when you consume i'm going to make you consume in a way
[01:06:22] that you don't want to consume and you're going to see that what you think you consume consumes you and moses said unto aaron what did thou people do unto thee that thou has bring such a great sin
[01:06:34] upon them and aaron said let not the anger of my lord wax hot thou knowest the people they are set on mischief for they said unto me make us gods which shall go before us for as this moses the
[01:06:44] man that brought us out of the land of egypt we want not what has become of him and i said unto him whoever hath any gold let him break it off and they gave it to me and i cast it in the fire
[01:06:53] and there came out of his calf and it just came out and when moses saw that the people were naked for aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies moses stood in the gate of
[01:07:06] the camp and said who was on the lord's side let him come to me and all the sons of levi gathered themselves together unto him and he said unto them thus saith the lord god of israel
[01:07:17] put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbor and the children of
[01:07:28] levi did according to the word of moses and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men moses says consecrate yourself to the day of the lord even every man upon his son and upon his
[01:07:39] brother that may be so his blessing this day moses instructs them i love that god says all right i'm out moses goes down and says yeah thank you you're going to spare this people that's wonderful and
[01:07:53] then Moses instructs him to kill him. And the reality is, is that Moses was protecting what remained of his people through an act of crisis. I think what he saw that disturbed him so greatly
[01:08:14] was the glee, the joy that people had in finding a replacement for God. That glee was not simply about deliverance from Egypt because we know that the idols they worship did not deliver them from
[01:08:30] egypt that glee was deeper it was a rebellion against the full experience of life itself it was a rebellions against the waiting it was a rebellion against the wilderness it was a rebellion against the silence it was a rebellion against the pause and this is what
[01:08:54] happened when you rebel against the waiting when you rebel against the wilderness when you rebel against the silence, when you rebel against the pause, when you rebel against the perceived absence of God, what you end up rebelling against is life itself. What you end up rebelling against
[01:09:09] is God itself. What you end up rebelling against is the experience that he crafted to shape you and make you and give you remembrance of him and take you to your future. And if you rebel against
[01:09:20] that and take glee in it, then you'll end up contaminating those who were shaped and prepared and ready to take the full experience of what God is giving them. You cannot take glee and stopping
[01:09:45] the experience that God has given you and expect it not to contaminate the Levites. They have to be dealt with. They have to be separated. They have to move on because they cannot afford over a period
[01:10:03] of time for this to be a recurring pattern. They cannot afford over a period of time for their capacity to resist the anxiety of life and the experience of the wilderness to be eroded to the
[01:10:21] point where they begin to worship the calf as well. This is what crisis serves. This is the point of crisis. It's a corrective mechanism by which it realigns us, us who are the children of
[01:10:35] god with his will and his purpose what i think is most interesting about exodus 32 there's a lot of interesting things but what you see is that they make not just an idol but a calf and a calf even
[01:10:55] to the israelites was consumable they could eat cow they make it of gold they take and mix fashion and aesthetics their gold the gold of their earrings the jewelry that they wore they put it
[01:11:12] into a fire and out comes this consumable God. I find it endlessly fascinating that the God they made was something they also consumed. There's something inside of us that wants to take what we consume and make a God out of it. And the connection is that what we consume relieves
[01:11:41] the things we don't like, the pressures we don't want to fill. That's why we consume them. It relieves something it reduces something it takes care of something but it is easy for that consumption to become a god and there is a link between thinking
[01:11:58] that God is a god of ease and thinking that that which produces ease is a god and if you confuse those two things you'll end up doing exactly what they do do in the wilderness. And we've done that even to this day. We have begun to substitute God's
[01:12:26] plan for life with man's technology for reducing its problems. We've treated the consumption of things as a God, and it becomes a consumable object. And what's interesting about what Aaron does is he creates an altar. He creates an altar, which means that he is prepared to be prostrate
[01:12:50] before this thing. He is prepared to submit his very humanity to this technology. And there are eerie parallels. We might not be making golden calves today, but how often do we submit and prostrate our humanity to things that were meant to serve us and not us serve them? If it's not a
[01:13:16] phone it's an economic system a political system money it might not be a technology that i can think of but a technology nonetheless that you end up prostrating yourself before and all of us have this tendency because all of us want life to be easier and all of us consume in order to make
[01:13:41] life easier but if presence is his presence is replaced by consumption what we end up with is an idol. If waiting is constantly replaced by relief, then we don't learn how to wait upon the
[01:13:58] right things. We're not learning the experience and the design that God gave us for this life, and this is the problem that happened in Egypt, and this is the problem that we have now.
[01:14:09] We are conditioning a crisis. We are creating a crisis for people. We are allowing that to permeate and fill our homes in such a way that our relationships are eroding. They're degrading and it breaks my heart. People are literally losing the cognitive capacity to carry on
[01:14:28] relationships in a healthy manner. And that is just not an attack on relationships. That is an attack on God. Anything that is anti-human is anti-God. I want you to get this rule.
[01:14:43] I want you to get this rule. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I know how to read y'all's faces.
[01:14:50] I'm getting there.
[01:14:52] Anything that is anti-human is anti-God.
[01:14:54] Get this rule in your mind.
[01:14:56] If it's anti-human, it's anti-God.
[01:14:58] This is why we're so incarnational.
[01:15:00] This is why the God-man matters.
[01:15:02] It's not just about who God is, it's about who we are.
[01:15:05] Anything that is anti-human is anti-Christ.
[01:15:08] Let me prove this to you.
[01:15:12] The one time we get a clear definition of what the anti-Christ is, it says those who deny that Christ came in the flesh.
[01:15:21] antichrist those who deny the humanity of god those who deny his humanity antichrist antichrist is fundamentally anti-human and if you want to know end time secret all you have to do is look at the patterns antichrist will be technologically driven and it will be anti-human
[01:15:47] whatever that pattern is whatever that archetype is i'm not one of these people that obsess over eschatology but i can read the patterns and it's obvious it's a calf it's a phone it's transhumanism it's some kind of technology that seems to help but that humans end up prostrate before
[01:16:11] if it reduces your humanity then it reduces god if it reduces the experience that god designed for you if it mocks it if it minimizes it it tries to erase it if it tries to replace it
[01:16:31] it's antichrist to be anti-human is to be anti-god sorry this little thing tells me if i'm drinking enough water and so if relationships are eroding if something is is even over time making it harder
[01:16:53] for us to date for us to have families for us to engage in conversation for us to be present for us to sustain attention towards people for us to care empathetically about people anything that
[01:17:04] is doing that is anti-god because god says love the lord with all your heart and love others as yourself he always connects god and people and he himself is the connection between god and people
[01:17:23] and this is why anything that wants to erase humanity will first have to erase jesus this is why i said pause on everything else we're going to land and stop and talk about jesus i see
[01:17:40] the urgency of it i see the necessity of it i there's no point in anything else i want to talk about the god man everything has to land with the god man let's deal with that and everything else
[01:17:51] will fall into place let's stay there and i know it's necessary i was with a friend of mine just another night and he was talking about how islam and christianity are just similar with different
[01:18:05] a couple different beliefs they have a few disagreements but fundamentally they're a and I didn't argue with him what's the point but I said in my heart there's an urgency to clarify where we stand out there is no other faith that says that
[01:18:23] God is man there is no other faith that says we are in his image there is no other faith that elevates us to the apple of the Creator's eye this is the only one and if you can replace us and you have to replace us by replacing
[01:18:45] jesus you have to knock that domino down and if somebody can say oh he's just like muhammad he's just like buddha he's just like krishna he's just another idea he's just another religion it's just
[01:18:56] another story they're not attacking him they're attacking you because if jesus is not god then i am erasable i am just a footnote in history humanity can come and it can go and the rocks
[01:19:13] can cry out, but the rocks won't cry out because my God has wounds in his hands and pain in his side. And he is forever bound to my form. And if you want to see God, he's going to look like this
[01:19:32] with hands and a nose and eyes and a body that you cannot replace with anything else with technology, with calves, with gold, with computer. He walks with flesh and blood. You are not replaceable, not because I say it, but because God says it. And if you believe in God and you believe in Jesus,
[01:19:54] then you must believe in your value. Then you must believe when he says, I know you before I put you in your mother's womb. You must believe when he says you are the apple of my eye. You must believe
[01:20:04] he says, I have a plan for you of good things. Trust me. Follow me through this wilderness.
[01:20:10] follow me through this moment I'm never absent I'm never gone I'm never departed there's an urgency to it I'm not simply fighting we're not fighting story life does not exist just to tell stories and do church we exist to hold the line and
[01:20:33] say you can't cross this Jesus thing without erasing us and we're gonna be the bulwark we're gonna say no this is it this is our stand this is where we're at you can talk about every other thing do every other thing in church but for
[01:20:46] us for us we're going to hold the line when it comes to the god man we live or die on the god man it's how i determined i was going to stay in ministry i said i could see myself not pastoring
[01:21:08] i could see myself even not preaching i can't see myself not telling the story about jesus because if i stop telling the story about jesus i stop telling the story about brad i am with you into the end of days i'm with you into the end of days and there's times that i
[01:21:32] want to replace him with something that makes those days easier and he says no brad present relationship fullness of the experience live live and as you live you live in me you live in me and we see the exact opposite of exodus 32 and mark 5 and i'll be fast
[01:22:01] in mark 5 we see how god does things we see how god functions we see who he is we see the opposite of absence we see presence and they came over onto the other side of the sea
[01:22:27] and into the garden the country of the gadarenes and when he was come out of the ship immediately y'all put my clock on please i just want to make sure i'm doing good and when he came out of the
[01:22:36] ship immediately there came out of the tombs man with the unclean spirit who has a dwelling among the tombs, bound with chains, plucked asunder, devils besought him, unclean spirit, swine was told, clothes departed, Decapolis passed over,
[01:22:59] ship, other side, comes to rule the synagogue, barely sang, daughter, little point, pray thee, Jeff, suffered many things, physicians, what happens when you don't write the starting verse?
[01:23:08] Alright, suffered many things, Jesus went with him, and much people followed him and thronged him, and a certain woman, this is the key, which had an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things of many
[01:23:21] positions had spent all that she had and was nothing better but the rather grew worse and when she had heard of Jesus came in the press behind and touched his garment but she said if I may touch but his clothes I shall be whole shall be
[01:23:35] whole and straight away the fountain of her blood was dried up she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague and Jesus immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him turned him about the press and said who touched
[01:23:49] my clothes and his disciples said unto him now see us the multitude thronging thee and sayest who touched me he looked around about to see her that had done this thing but the woman fearing and trembling knowing what was done in here
[01:24:05] came and fell down before him and told him all the truth he said unto her daughter, thy faith hath made me whole. Go in peace and be whole of thy plague. Go in peace and be whole of thy plague. That is the opposite of what happens in Exodus 32. And it's an
[01:24:34] interesting contrast because the stories parallel each other and they function as opposing witnesses to how we handle the problems that we face in life.
[01:24:49] The Israelites, in the perceived absence of God, created a technology that allowed God to be replaced by something consumable.
[01:24:59] A woman, in the perceived absence of God, understood that God was still the only technology that could make her whole.
[01:25:14] She did not create an idol.
[01:25:16] She did not aim for replacement.
[01:25:18] she aimed for pursuit and she pursued through throngs of people when it was unpopular when it was unconventional when it did not make sense when it did not follow the rules when it was condemnable because it was inappropriate she was alone but she pursued and in that pursuit of the
[01:25:46] only technology that could make her whole she found a person waiting for her she found god waiting for her. And her wholeness came through the touch, through the proximity of his garment. And what does he say? He says, daughter, because God's end goal is always a
[01:26:12] relationship. The parallel here is that if you replace God with technology, any form, I use technology in the broad sense, that's anything that makes life better and is meant to serve you anything then you'll end up with destruction but if you abide by presence presence
[01:26:43] and relationship you'll end up whole you'll end up whole god is not always interested in making your life easier he's not always interested in making your life easier but he has made your life meaningful and he's made himself available and what he wants more than anything is the simple
[01:27:16] difficulty of relational presence it's simple but it's difficult he wants presence with him he wants presence with people and if it reduces that then it's an enemy to god and his purpose in your life and his creation practically what does this mean i'm not saying you're making
[01:27:42] golden calves out of gold. I am saying that all of us have places that we've prostrated ourselves before something that was meant to serve us. My to-do from this sermon, my big accomplishment this week, I deleted YouTube from my phone. Your pastor. And I want you to walk away from a message
[01:28:13] not just going, that was too long, or that was the greatest thing I've ever heard because he's the greatest preacher that's ever touched a microphone i know y'all say that's too long more likely that's the one uh i'm just kidding i'm not joking all shucks um i want y'all to walk
[01:28:31] away and do something your pastor's telling you to do something i don't know what it is for you i can tell you this i know social media has infected people and i would i know cell phones
[01:28:42] are everywhere i know a technology that was supposed to be hey call somebody i couldn't think of a single reason i have a cell phone not one outside of the demand of society i try to
[01:28:55] think of it right if i'm in an emergency i need to make a phone call that's it other than that i had a rotary phone at home right i tell people i'm going to meet them i see them face to face
[01:29:07] and now there's a little box and it's not just a box that makes calls it's a tv and computer in my pocket and i carry it around and now if i keep mine on silent most of the time and people are
[01:29:18] like i couldn't reach you through your magic box and i'm like yeah that's because i'm like i'm like looking people face to face so that's why my texts are always late like i wake till like two in the
[01:29:29] morning and you'll just see a flood of text from pastor brad come in because that's when i designate my time i mean it's what it is and it's i'm the weird one i'm considered the weird one
[01:29:43] i'm considered the outsider for trying to be human you have this thing on your pocket that goes at any moment you can be relieved of the boredom of this doctor's office the anxiety of this conversation I will comfort you I will create identity for
[01:30:02] you I will transport you to magical lands with magical people just give yourself to me I just want you to resist that a little bit more this week whatever that means to you I want you to resist it a little bit more this week
[01:30:19] God give us the power to serve you and you alone because God you have served us well with your son jesus let us be more human and in being more human we will be more like you
[01:30:35] not human in the ways that hurt but human in the image-bearing sense created by you to look like you created by you for relationship with you and others let us make it a high priority god
[01:30:54] to have fulfilling, meaningful relationships in our life that are not eroded by anything but are enhanced by your presence, by the wisdom of your word, by our prayer life, God, and by service to one another.
[01:31:10] Make story life a place, God, that the story of Jesus can be told.
[01:31:18] And as a pastor, that sounds weird to say because it seems like there are millions of churches this day doing that very thing, but God, I know somehow it's not the case that people know the story of our God.
[01:31:29] not in the way that you want them to, not in the way that you mean.
[01:31:32] And, Lord, let us be a vehicle that that story is made clear, that it saturates the culture of the world, that it creates the true revival, which is a revival of the heart and a people for you to have relationship with.
[01:31:52] In Jesus' mighty name, amen.
[01:31:54] What time is it?
[01:31:57] 1121?
[01:31:59] That's not bad.
[01:32:01] Huh?
[01:32:02] That's not bad.

[01:32:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:32:03] I'm going to do this.
[01:32:06] Just a minute ago, I had to step out.
[01:32:08] our son was hungry, so I did a little Uber Eats, and the guy pulled up, and he's probably in his 60s, and I just felt compelled to go back. I was in kind of a hurry, right? Got to get back in here.
[01:32:20] I just felt like the Holy Spirit's like, go talk to this man. So I started talking to him for a minute outside on the parking lot, and his name was John, and he gave me a list of reasons why he
[01:32:29] can't come to church. I literally handed him a brochure. I said, hey, this week we got all this stuff coming i said wow i like your shirt he goes yeah i listen to acdc he goes i'm a rocker but you
[01:32:41] know i don't go to church because i smoke weed i said oh well you can come to our church we don't care that you smoke weed come on i said you come in you know i can smell the weed you're welcome
[01:32:51] to come to church and he's like yeah but i'm a rocker and i'm like are you kidding we got rockers on the stage right now i'm like they know i said my husband knows acdc he goes does he know metallica
[01:33:01] I said, my husband knows Metallica. I said, we got a rock and roll Hall of Famer leading us in worship. I said, you found the right church, dude. And he just looked at me and he goes,
[01:33:11] I haven't been in church in years, but I'm a pastor's kid. He said, my dad had a church and it was called Trinity. And I said, interesting. And, and, and I literally, I, I, I stopped right
[01:33:25] there. I ground his shoulder. He was a little bit, you know, people don't know when you touch people and he did more you know but I just felt led to just put my hand put my hand right here
[01:33:35] and I just said God you brought John you hand-picked him to bring me this uber eats order right here right now touch his life heal his heart every seed that his father deposited in the kingdom
[01:33:48] and we start I started I said you know there's seeds that your dad placed in the earth that God himself is letting know he cares about you he loves you and you pulled up at this church he
[01:33:57] just looked at me he was kind of in shock i said we don't care that you smoke weed i mean in essence yeah because it really does damage to the brain but come on come on with your weed and god will

[01:34:07] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[01:34:07] do the rest yeah whatever hey that smoking section next week is pastor rachel's idea

[01:34:14] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:34:14] just don't blame me hey but he literally tried to tell me all the reasons why he couldn't come have community but but why why would and he looked at me like i wouldn't understand and i'm like
[01:34:31] and then i started saying you got to meet my husband you got you know journey and then that was great he loves journey journey rock and roll hall of fame don't stop believing of course yeah
[01:34:40] i said come come so father right now we just pray over john we ask that you would help him today we thank you that that you are doing a work in his life and lord that just as this message
[01:34:52] what a word that came forth from pastor brad that we're not going to just sit around we're going to be actively pursuing relationship with you and with others and that you're going to help us be
[01:35:03] bold and get out of our comfort zone and invite someone to church this week we thank you god that this is for your glory and for your will in the earth in jesus name amen amen and i was a
[01:35:15] little bit in a hurry i almost didn't go back because i'm in the middle of it but just that pool i mean sometimes we just gotta lean into that a little bit more because you never know
[01:35:23] here he was a pastor's kid and he says he hasn't been to church in years so i just believe that that seed he'll find his way to the conference this week amen it's time to give i've got a
[01:35:35] scripture for you sunny it's good to see you so good to see so many people matthew 6 21 where your treasure is your heart also will be that's our giving scripture today you know giving
[01:35:48] isn't about dollars it's about devotion and we don't give to god because of something we give because we we have this relationship it's out of relationship right we don't have to give to earn it we're giving because we already have his love and and another thing is i love this because god
[01:36:06] is so we're talking about gratitude we don't give out of pressure but we give out of gratitude right like today that i'm giving because i'm so grateful for everything god's done in my life and everything
[01:36:17] i have already belongs to him anyway right nothing i have belongs to me so it's just honoring god and saying thank you with our giving with our tithe with our offering so that is your encouragement
[01:36:29] this morning we could get up here and talk forever about how god comes through not just in finances but in every area of life and you can never out give god so i don't care if you got one dollar to
[01:36:39] give today whatever you can give i want to encourage you i've been in that season where where I literally had no money to give.
[01:36:46] You know how many times I pulled off a ring and I brought it to the altar?
[01:36:49] I mean, I have done some radical things.
[01:36:51] I've given shoes.
[01:36:53] I mean, I've done all kinds of stuff.
[01:36:54] When God wants you to give, be obedient to giving.
[01:36:58] And I'm a testament of the goodness of God.
[01:37:00] There's things that just don't math up in my life, where my bank account was negative, negative, negative, and I needed supernatural provision for something specific, and bam, every time, God comes through.
[01:37:12] It's beyond money, everyone.
[01:37:14] It's beyond money.
[01:37:15] It goes into the spiritual well-being and relational aspects of our life.
[01:37:19] Amen, amen.
[01:37:20] So write that verse down when you give, Matthew 6, 21.
[01:37:24] I want you to mark that down.
[01:37:25] That verse says where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
[01:37:29] Thank you to our online giving.
[01:37:30] Online, you can give.
[01:37:33] You can give at storylifechurch.com.
[01:37:35] You can do the church app at the center.
[01:37:38] You can do PayPal, Cash App.
[01:37:40] There's plenty of ways to give.
[01:37:41] y'all ready to give today let's stand to our feet and bring it to the altar this morning another reminder as we are giving and just a minute pastor tamron's coming and we need you if you're saying as a volunteer we have shirts for you we have instruction for you we have a meeting
[01:37:59] so please if you're saying just stay right where you are because she will be up here so father we thank you lord matthew 6 21 lord that our treasure is where our heart is and
[01:38:10] god we get to give we get to give out of devotion we get to give out of gratitude not out of pressure not out of because we need but because of who you are and we know that lord you are a
[01:38:22] multiplier that whatever we have in our hand and we release that you come in and you step in and you do only what you can do whether it's physically whether it's relationally maybe there's someone
[01:38:33] here that their relationships with their children are broken maybe there's brokenness and families god that only you can heal and restore god whatever the the issue or situation may be but we bring these to you today and as they come to the altar physically we thank you there's a
[01:38:48] great exchange god that we're laying down heaviness we're laying down burdens we're laying down weights god we know that what we place in your hand god that we can trust our covenant keeping god our covenant of health a covenant of wealth a covenant of a life of
[01:39:02] blessing because when we follow your will and your ways and your principles it leads us to a life of promise and may we never forget it and days where we're struggling and days where it looks like the
[01:39:15] enemy's trying to make you a mockery God in days where we feel pressure may we never forget God be who you are and what you do through us and in us so we thank you for this moment in time that we
[01:39:25] get to release our tithe and our offering every person online I speak blessing increased favor goodness and mercy surely goodness and mercy will follow us not disappointment not brokenness not hopelessness not disillusionment no surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life
[01:39:44] and we declare this and we decree it and the church says in Jesus mighty name amen amen y'all ready to close out Jeremiah 29 11 for y'all ready for I know the story I have for you a life of a
[01:40:01] hope and a future. I love you guys. Let's go. Unleash time. Let's go. We'll see you so soon.
[01:40:12] Hey, we need the men, all the men. Ladies, if you got a man, look at your man. Say, we need you. We need your strong muscles to help us move chairs. Pastor Todd, come see him right here. We are
[01:40:23] moving the sanctuary. If you're in the house and you can move the chairs, please stay. Thank y'all.
[01:40:29] I believe right here pastor tamron right here I believe right here that's normally where we meet