SMASH TO PIECES
I love football. My favorite thing to watch is football. When I play video games, I love football games. It does not matter the level, I love the game.
As much as I love football, I love Jesus more. Jesus loved me enough to lay down His life for me, the least I can do is yield my life to Him. I love watching Jesus work in our midst, seeing what happens when you and I yield to His Holy Spirit. Seeing all of you worship Jesus is the greatest encouragement to me.
The first commandment of the Ten Commandments is about loving God and worshipping Him, and nothing else. We cannot truly love God if we worship anyone or anything alongside Him. Our passage today is about the lengths we must go to to worship God.
Exodus 23:20-26(CSB)
“I am going to send an angel before you to protect you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to him. Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your acts of rebellion, for my name is in him. But if you will carefully obey him and do everything I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. For my angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, Hethites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow in worship to their gods, and do not serve them. Do not imitate their practices. Instead, demolish them and smash their sacred pillars to pieces. Serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will remove illnesses from you. No woman will miscarry or be childless in your land. I will give you the full number of your days.”
This is the Word of God.
For the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
It is important here at the beginning that I mention this word is specifically for the children of Israel. God has freed them from Egypt, and now they are headed to the Promised Land. The promises in this chapter apply directly to them. But this does not mean there is not an application here for us, because God has a word for us amid this specific promise.
In verse 20, God says, “I will send my angel before you.” This angel is being sent to protect and lead the Israelites. And if you read ahead, He will as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. However, there is something peculiar about this angel. Verses 21 and 22 highlight an unusual amount of authority given to this angel. God also states, “My name is in him.” It is worded as if this angel is God Himself.
Many scholars believe this is the pre-incarnate Christ. In Acts, Jesus appears to Paul on the road to Damascus, it is amid a bright light, like this angel in Exodus will do leading the Israelites. When Jesus is on the mountain of Transfiguration, it says Jesus is enveloped in a bright cloud of light. In Matthew 17:5, a voice is heard from the cloud saying, “This is my Son whom I love dearly. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him.” That last sentence echoes what God says in Exodus 23:21 to the Israelites about the angel, “Listen to him.”
What God is saying to the Israelites is the key to victory is listening to and obeying pre-incarnate Jesus. Their obedience to Jesus would lead them to success against all odds and obstacles they will face. In verse 21, God says to them, “Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your acts of rebellion.” Disobedience on their behalf would be because in their hearts they do not love God. If you do not love God it is impossible to worship Him. And they cannot be forgiven if they do not worship God.
Their journey to the Promised Land would lead them to nations and cultures that did not love God. These nations would be worshipping different gods and using their unique practices to do so. God would not lead the Israelites away from those practices but through the people practicing them. In verse 24, God says, “Do not worship their gods. Do not adopt their practices.” God wanted the Israelites to worship Him the way He commanded them to do so. And that begins with the Israelites worshipping God alone, evidenced by their obedience.
Now, it was not enough for them to go in and ignore the false worship that surrounded them. The Israelites were to overthrow these gods and demolish the practices. This was a preventative measure for their worship of God, and God revealing His greatness through their obedience to the cultures of the world.
It is important to note God’s plan for His people has not changed. While God commanded a military conquest for the Israelites, for the Church He has called us to be subversive through love for God and people. The message of salvation through Jesus and the radical transformation that follows up ends the ways of the world. We no longer conform to their patterns. The times and methods are different, but no less effective. And the key to our victory with Jesus is based on our deep love for God.
Verses 25 and 26 show how God will be faithful to the Israelites if they listen and obey. God will provide for their needs, and God will protect them from enemies and elements they encounter. Again, these promises are specific to the Israelites as they journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. We all know godly people who struggle in our day. But we do have Jesus as our bread of life and living water with His promise of everlasting life.
While the Israelites were called to be obedient, these promises were conditional based on their performance. This does not mean God’s faithfulness is based on performance. God is good and does things out of love. Obedience is an outward evidence of trust in God, and trust is a foundational element in love. Performance matters not because it obligates God to move on our behalf, but because it reveals our heart for Him.
These words spoken by God were shared with the people of God, not the world. God’s word to the world was His people living out their love for Him. The application of this passage is not for the world but for us, the followers of Jesus. This is to be a group project of the Church universal, including us here at Ravenna Church of the Nazarene. The only way we can do this collectively is if you and I accept this truth personally and live it out.
You and I are called to worship God only. While the Israelites were called to trust in the pre-incarnate Christ, we have the revelation of God incarnate. Jesus is God in the flesh who died on the cross and rose again so everyone could be forgiven and set free from sin. We believe that Jesus is our everything. Because of what Jesus did to demonstrate God’s love to us, we love Jesus by listening to Him and living our lives in obedience to Him.
Just as Jesus is for us, we are for Jesus. We are not against anyone, but we no longer live subject to the patterns of this world. The things the world chases (or worships) we do not because Jesus is greater. To truly love Jesus and live in obedience to Him, we must do away with the world in us. If we do away with the world in us and live our lives for Jesus, our lives will go into the world and expose the idols the world holds dear.
The idols of our world today are not so much physical objects as they were in the Old Testament. Today’s idols are ideas the world believes will make them happy, demonstrated by their actions and desires. We are being sent out by Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit to topple these things. And to be clear, we are not against people or even their practices, we are for Jesus. The Church is so much for Jesus that we chose Him over these other things that others use to take His place.
Here are the idols we need to reject in our hearts and minds to demonstrate our faith in Jesus, which will challenge the world’s claims:
1) Pleasure. People seek activities that feel good physically and give their brains temporary feelings of happiness. The trouble is they come back to reality and must seek pleasure again. But we are for Jesus. He invites us to cast our anxieties on Him and to trust Him with our burdens. We do pleasurable things, but those things are bonuses to the joy already in our hearts.
2) Entertainment. Music and movies are used to escape life and to see a false definition of good triumphing over evil. This gives hope that evil can be overcome, but unfortunately, this hope only exists in a fantasy land or place far from where they are. But we are for Jesus and do not need distractions. He is God who is good and who has overcome evil. That is our daily and everlasting reality.
3) Money. They believe if they can have all the money all their problems are gone and they can have the means to fulfill all their desires. If all their desires are fulfilled, then they will be happy and so will their family. Unfortunately, more money equals more problems, with more to lose. But we are for Jesus. Money has a place, but Jesus is our desire and will provide all we need.
4) Success. It feels good to win and to reach the top. Accomplishments bring praise, promotions, and more. However, a bigger fish always comes along. But we are for Jesus. Success to us is glorifying God. It is not that others do not matter, but we do not seek validation from them. God loves us and is proud of us, and this propels us to keep going.
5) Security. They seek weapons, armies, conformity in thinking, and control. Evil always finds a way to take what is meant for protection and use it for cruelty. Human hearts are susceptible to taking up cruelty in the name of peace. But we are for Jesus. He is our peace. We are not against guns or armies, but we know Jesus wins.
6) Routine. They think routines are what will sustain happiness. Routines get disrupted by job changes, family changes, and a world constantly changing. But we are for Jesus, God who never changes.
7) Tradition or the past. If things could go back to the way they were, then the good times will return. The problem is time moves forward not backwards. But we are for Jesus, whose victory is now. His work is complete and is completing in us as we wait for His Kingdom to fully arrive.
If you are clinging to one of these idols, let go and follow Jesus. He is what you are truly seeking. If you are clinging to Jesus, worship Him in Spirit and live out truth. This will challenge the world’s idols and topple them in hearts through His transformational love. Amen.