Stiff-Necked People

Exodus 32:1-4
Israel Worships a Golden Calf

32 The people saw that Moses took a long time to come down from the mountain. So they gathered around Aaron. They said to him, “Come. Make us a god that will lead us. This fellow Moses brought us up out of Egypt. But we don’t know what has happened to him.”

² Aaron answered them, “Take the gold earrings off your wives, your sons and your daughters. Bring the earrings to me.” ³ So all the people took off their earrings. They brought them to Aaron. ⁴ He took what they gave him and made it into a metal statue of a god. It looked like a calf. Aaron shaped it with a tool. Then the people said, “Israel, here is your god who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Verses marked NIRV are from the New International Reader's Version (NIRV) Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by Biblica.

School cafeteria image:

• Waiting in cafeteria food serving line.

Message:

I wonder if you have ever had to wait for a long time for someone. Have you ever felt frustrated waiting for your next birthday or vacation to arrive? It seems like time is moving so slow, doesn’t it? The minutes, the days, the weeks seem to move so slowly. You may start to think that the person or day may never arrive.

Does that feeling of waiting seem to happen when you enter the school cafeteria? That line sometimes may seem way too long, especially when you only have twenty minutes to eat lunch. Have you ever felt that you would not be able to get through the line and have enough time to eat? (Allow children to answer.)

When waiting, whether it is for a special day during the year, a person, or the lunch line to go faster, you may become impatient. Losing patience might lead you to be cranky. Have you ever seen someone who is cranky? Cranky means that we become easily angered or irritated.

In today’s scripture passage, Moses has spent forty days and forty nights on a mountain. That is a long time! The Israelites grew very tired and impatient waiting for him. They became cranky. They let their impatience make them forget all the things that God had done for them. They said, “Moses brought us out of Egypt.” They had forgotten that God was really the one who made their freedom possible! Moses couldn’t have led them to freedom without God. Then they did something even more unbelievable. The Israelites, who had grown tired or waiting, made a golden statue of a calf and said that the statue was their god. They forgot all about the Lord – the one who had led them out of captivity. What an unbelievable thing to do! I guess losing patience and becoming cranky can make us all do some unbelievable things.

Waiting for God can be even harder than waiting for people to get through the cafeteria line or for that special day to arrive. God doesn’t always answer our prayers as quickly as we would like. Sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers as we would hope. But it would be very foolish to give up on God. It would be even more foolish to treat other things as if they were gods. That sounds strange, but I wonder if you have ever put more importance on something other than honoring God. (Allow children to respond.) We must always remember that God is to be the first place in our lives, and we should always count the blessings that God has blessed us with.

This week, to help you remember to count your blessings, when you are in line for lunch at the cafeteria, count the students in line in front of you. How many are in line? For each person in the cafeteria line, remember one way that God has blessed you and your life. Don’t think about how long the line is, but rather how many ways God has blessed you.

God blessed us with life and freedom. We can trust God always – even when we must wait.

To practice waiting, let’s silently wait ten seconds before we pray…

Prayer:

God, forgive us for the times when we grow impatient with you or forget all that you have done for us. Help us to trust that you alone are the one true living God. Amen.