Disobedient God: Faith in Seasons of Disappointment

Exodus 32

No one could sing the blues like Ethel Waters, and I guess it’s because no one lived the blues like Ethel Waters. She was born into deplorable circumstances. Never knew her father. She never experienced love as a little girl, not even from her own family. She was never hugged or doted on as a child. And yet here she was every single Sunday in church, hearing about a loving God, and watching the very ones who were cruel to her sing about this loving God. At the age of 12, these same church members forced her into an arranged marriage. One year later, at 13, she left both the marriage and the church, vowing never to return. The cause of her exit can be summed up in one word- disappointment. 

If there’s a word that sums up our text this morning, it’s the word, disappointment. Here is Israel, having just escaped the clutches of Egypt at the hand of an amazing God. They’ve walked through the Red Sea, the bible says, on dry ground. I mean their Air Jeremiah’s (as Pastor JD referenced last week) never got dirty. And here they are in the middle of the wilderness, this strange place, and for the past 40 days, God and their leader Moses,  is nowhere to be found. This is exactly what our text points to in verse one when it says, “when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain…”. This verse is dripping with disappointment. They are left wondering of Moses and God, where are you? Did you leave us here to die? They are disappointed.

Connecting to the Culture

What exactly is disappointment? What do we mean when we use this word? Simply put, disappointment happens when my expectations are not aligned with my real-time experiences. You know you are in a season of disappointment when what you are experiencing is out of alignment with what you were expecting. Now this leads us to dig a little deeper and ask what do we expect from God? When we search the Scriptures and human experience, at its core, we all have two fundamental expectations of God. We may not have said this out loud, but here’s what we are expecting from God: 1. I expect that God would be reasonable with me. God will not be unfair. What this means is we expect good things will happen to good people who make good choices, and we expect bad things will happen to bad people who make bad choices. We see this with Jonah who is completely thrown off and bitter with God, because he has done a great thing- saving the Ninevites- to a group of people who are oppressing the Jews. Jonah throws a fit, because God is not being reasonable in his mind. This is the story of Job, whose friends are thrown off because Job has gone through the ringer, and they keep saying to him, “Come on Job, you can tell us, what did you do?” Because in their mind it is completely unreasonable of God to take Job’s money, kids and health who is the picture of righteousness. That’s unreasonable.

And it’s unreasonable to a young woman I know who loves Jesus, serves God faithfully, has a great job, with great money, is generous, and yet she can’t seem to shake the clinical depression she has. She can’t figure out why she’s depressed and no longer cares about life or God. Why in the world is she struggling with this, when she feels she’s been nothing but faithful? And that’s some of you: Trying to do the right thing, but you have cancer. Put your yes on the table, lost your job. And you’re under a cloud called disappointment because God seems unreasonable.

There’s a second expectation we all have: 2. I expect that God will be available to me. I mean this is right in our passage. Israel is in the wilderness and God and Moses are not available. Don’t they know how vulnerable they are, some are probably thinking? The Sons of Korah put voice to this kind of feeling when they cried out to God, “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”- Psalm 44:23-24. See what they are saying? God you’re hidden, I’m in need and you are not available to me. Ever been there?

I know of a college student, we will call him Richard. Years ago he came to faith through InterVarsity, and immediately life went south for him. His parents got divorced, he lost his job and scholarship. Later he would meet and fall in love with a beautiful Christian woman, only to have her break his heart by breaking off the engagement. Along the way he pleaded with God to save his parents' marriage. He begged God to get him back in school. He implored God to make the engagement work. Only to be met with silence time and time again. Finally, he prayed one night for four hours and heard nothing from God. When he was finished, in a weird way he felt relieved. He grabbed his bible, and all his theology books, put them in the backyard bbq grill, doused them with lighter fluid, lit a match and watched them go up in flames. He walked away saying he felt converted- converted from God. Disappointment had gotten the best of him. He had expectations, and God was being disobedient. And all of us have encountered this disobedient God who does not obey our expectations.

While Disappointment is Unavoidable, Our Reaction is Not- Exodus 32:1

Like Israel’s predicament, this sermon is a delicate and dangerous one. I grew up in a church where we did a testimony service where every Sunday I watched people talk about how amazing God is. And I used to think a lot of times, I don’t know that God. There were many Sunday’s where I was experiencing a less than amazing God, a pretty disappointing God. I guess what I’m reaching to say is that what the Scriptures show us, and what our text pulls us into is the reality that disappointment is unavoidable. A God who never lets you down is pure fiction. Disappointment is inevitable, and in fact, I want to actually show you, it’s a part of the plan. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing we see here is that while disappointment is unavoidable, our reaction is not. Disappointment with God will trigger us in one of two directions. Look again with me at verse 1. See it? Here is Israel, not just any people, but God’s covenant people, and they are disappointed. God is not available to them, so they say to Moses’ brother Aaron, make us gods. So they make what our text calls a golden calf. It’s better translated as a young bull. In the ancient Near East, bulls were the picture of strength, leadership and fertility. This is important, because here they are in the middle of nowhere, wondering how they are going to survive? Where is their leader? It seems as if God and Moses have abandoned them. So let’s reach for something we can control since we can’t control them. Let’s make an idol. 

Nice story Bryan. I mean I’m a Durham Bulls fan, and have the paraphernalia around my house, but it ain’t this. I’m disappointed with God, but I’m not making little idols. Well, an idol is anything, even a good thing that becomes an ultimate thing. And one of the quickest ways to see our idols is in seasons of disappointment, because idols tend to be things we reach for to bring us comfort, even when we are not thinking about it. Just look at this text. All in the same verse is, “I’m disappointed because God is delayed, make me an idol”. Idols tend to be our reflex reactions when we are triggered by disappointment with God. And that’s where some of you are now. Are you kidding me, God? I’ve been a good boy, trying my best, and this is how you pay me. I might as well turn to porn, or hook up. Seriously, God, this is how you treat me? Let me turn to the bottle. Really, no promotion I was praying for? I might as well be like the other co-workers and cut corners to get to my idol of money or success. And what does God do? He sees what’s going on and tells Moses, we can’t move forward to the promised land until we first stop and deal with their idols. 

Ever had your house staged? It’s a really humbling experience, at least it was for me. When we were about to put our house on the market in California to move here the real estate agent did a walk through, sat us down and said, we are going to have to stage your house. I was like, what does that mean? In a very nice way she said, there’s stuff in your home that’s not appealing, that if we leave it here, we are concerned could actually be detrimental to the sale of your home for the desired price. I’m like, what are you talking about, this is California? Like our house could burn tonight and I’m pretty confident we’d get a cash offer. So we spent a good deal of money to get the undesirable stuff out, and get new stuff in, and it worked pretty well. In essence she said we can’t move forward without dealing with your stuff. And this is where disappointment can be a gift, because it surfaces our stuff/idols, and allows God to say we can’t move forward into the best of what I have for you, unless we stop and deal with the golden calves.

See Disappointment as an Opportunity to Exercise Faith: Exodus 32:8

When disappointed I can choose to worship my idols, or I can make another choice- faith, to actively trust God in the face of disappointment. Look at what God says in verse 8, “...they have turned aside”. See what God is saying? Israel is not walking by faith. God wants them to walk by faith even in seasons of disappointment. Did you know that the longest narratives in the bible center around two great themes- disappointment and faith? It’s Abraham and Sarah who were disappointed over their infertility journey, and even though they made some bad choices, they trusted God by faith, and received what was promised. It’s Joseph. Talk about being disappointed with God- betrayed by his brothers, lied on by Potiphar’s wife, forgotten about in jail, and yet he keeps leaning in by faith, saying to his brothers at the end while they meant it for evil, God meant it for good. It’s David, who spent 15 years running from Saul, fighting for his life, wondering where God was, and yet he kept walking by faith. It’s Job, who loses everything, and yet has the faith-filled audacity to say that though God should slay him, he will still trust him. And then there’s Israel. Like Abraham, Joseph, David and Job they faced disappointment, but unlike them they chose time and time again, idolatry over faith. What will you choose?

I told you last week I don’t like math. When I was in elementary school I wanted one of those big calculators on steroids, also known as Texas Instruments. If I had that, boy I’d ace everything, I’d get all the right answers. But my math teachers were annoying. They always demanded that we would show our work. Why wouldn’t they just be satisfied with me giving them the right answer? Because they knew what I secretly did, even as a kid: Growth happens in the process. Rushing to answers without stopping to go through the work, is not a recipe for growth.

So let me ask you something: If God was always reasonable with you? Do good things over here, get good results over here. Or do bad over here, and get bad over there? Where’s the faith? Or what if God is always available to you? Ask him for something and he gives it to you? Or ask him and he tells you no and here’s why? That’s not faith, that’s a vending machine. God is more committed to our growth than giving us the answers to our problems. Our problems are a part of our growth. God is more interested in growing our faith than fulfilling our expectations. This is what the writer of Hebrews was after when he said: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him”- Hebrews 11:1, 6. And how do we get to that faith? Albert Tate writes, “Strong faith comes from deep rejection, painful losses, doubt, discomfort and suffering”. 

I’m Not the Only One Who Gets Disappointed in this Relationship: Exodus 32:7-10

So, Israel chooses idols over faith and look at God’s response in verse ten. Everything is showing God’s disappointment. For example, God begins by saying to Moses, “your people''. This is funny to me because it’s like two parents looking at a child who does something crazy wrong, and the one spouse says to the other, “Now, that’s your child”. God goes on to call Israel stiff-necked. This is a farming metaphor where a horse or an ox refuses to respond to the pull of the rope, but only digs in, in resistance. We see Moses breaking the tablets. The tablets contained the guidelines for God’s relationship with Israel, so to break them is God saying, Israel has broken their relationship with me. All of this and more reveals a God who is disappointed with his people. And this is important for us, because we tend to think of disappointment only in terms of us, but God gets disappointed too, and for much better reasons- reasons rooted in his justice and goodness. 

I hope this is a safe place, but when Korie and I go to therapy, many times on the drive there I’ll think to myself, “Oh yeh, she’s going to hear it today. I’m going to tell the therapist that Korie did this, she didn’t do that, when she said that it was wrong.” Like I’m ready to unleash. Only to sit there and hear Korie’s disappointments, the things I’ve done and said that were hurtful and wrong. There’s just something about hearing another person’s disappointments about you, someone you love, that humbles and undoes you.

So let’s go back to those two expectations we have of God, but turn them on ourselves. We expect God to be reasonable. Have we always been reasonable with God? No we haven’t. We’ve broken his commands countless times. We’ve treated a holy God in profane ways. And we have not always been available to God. We don’t pray like we should. Worship like we should. Read our bibles like we should. We worship our idols. God gets disappointed with you and I.

Disappointment is All A Part of God’s Sovereign Plan: Exodus 32:7-14

So here is God ready to go off, and Moses intercedes on behalf of Israel. He calls God's attention to the fact that God had a bigger plan for israel. Moses reminds God that He saved Israel. And he reminds God of the covenant, the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. By the way, this is what I call a “you said” prayer. You said prayers are times when you remind God of his promises. Ever made a you said prayer? See what Moses is doing? He is showing God, even in the midst of disappointment, that all of this is part of God’s big sovereign plan. 

When we talk about God’s sovereignty we are talking about him being in control- that God uses everything, the good and bad, the mountains and valleys, to accomplish his purposes in our lives. We see this in the book of Exodus. Moses, at a time when babies are being slaughtered, is rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted into her family. God unleashes ten plagues over the idols of Egypt. God delivers Israel in the Red Sea. God feeds them with daily bread. This is all about the sovereignty of God. Think about it- if God uses disappointment to strengthen our faith, then disappointment is a part of his sovereign plan. It’s our willful submission to his sovereignty that is everything.

When my boys were little I took them to the barbershop, where I had one of the best barbers in the city. However, when my kids left the barbers chair you would have thought they had their hair cuts by two different barbers- one the best barber in the city, and the other Stevie Wonder. The one kids haircut looked pristine. Line perfect. The other- not so much. They both sat in the same chair but had two different results. The reason? My son Myles sat still and did everything the barber told him to do. Q, not so much. He twisted and turned and resisted. Their haircuts did not reflect so much the skill of the barber, but their submission or lack thereof. Likewise, the quality of our lives is not so much about God, but our willingness to submit to his sovereignty even in seasons of disappointment. 

Gospel Conclusion:

One of the remarkable things about this story is even though Israel has not responded well to disappointment, and has chosen idols over faith, Moses intercedes on their behalf. He offers to make what the text calls atonement. He says to God, forgive them, don’t give up on them, don’t blot their name out of the book. Sound familiar? Here’s the thing: Moses said, “I’ll be their atonement. Take me instead of them.” But God didn’t do that. This story leaves us wondering if there ever WOULD be an atonement who could actually deal with this problem. Centuries later came a true and better Moses, his name his Jesus Christ, whom the bible says intercedes on our behalf. On the cross, the writer of Hebrews says, he made atonement for us once and for all—he didn’t just offer to die for us, like Moses; he actually died in our place. Our names are engraved on his hands, never to be removed. Friends, don’t you see? In the gospel, God not only meets our two deepest expectations, but goes beyond. The gospel is so reasonable it feels unreasonable. God says I’ll take your sin for my holiness, your transgressions for my righteousness. And when you fail me I’ll cover you with grace. Talk about available? God says I will never leave you or forsake you. My presence will be in you, in the person of my Holy Spirit. You may not always feel me, but I’m always there.

Remember Ethel Waters? Forty-nine years after leaving the church, and having gained all the success one could, she walked into a NYC auditorium where a tall lanky preacher from North Carolina, named Billy Graham was preaching the gospel. When the altar call was made she walked the aisle and rededicated her life to Christ. For the next 20 years you could find Ethel Waters on stage at Billy Graham crusades singing and sharing her testimony about the goodness of God. I don’t know all the details of how she fought through her disappointment, but she did, and in the end she found a peace that she never knew. Call to those in seasons of disappointment.