The 19th century Irish writer Oscar Wilde once observed something haunting about art and life. He noticed that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. We don’t merely create things that mirror us. We’re transformed by what we behold. We conform to what captivates us. Wilde’s words, though meant for art, expose something Scripture has been saying for millennia, life doesn’t just imitate art; life imitates what it adores.
What we give ourselves to inevitably shapes us. What we treasure relentlessly remakes us. What we bow before transforms us from the inside out. We imagine we’re autonomous, choosing our values and commitments freely. But the reality is more unsettling: our worship is always at work, always reshaping us, always conforming us to the image of whatever we’ve made ultimate.
Consider the man who worships success. Over time, he doesn’t just pursue achievement. He becomes ruthlessly driven, chronically anxious, perpetually unsatisfied. His identity fuses with his performance. Every failure registers as existential collapse. He’s become like his god: demanding, relentless, incapable of rest. Or think of the woman who worships comfort. She doesn’t just seek ease. She becomes risk-averse, spiritually atrophied, unable to bear hardship. Her god promised peace but delivered fragility.
Tragically, Wilde himself illustrated this principle. He made beauty and pleasure his ultimate pursuits. And in the end, those very things destroyed him. He died alone, broke, exiled from the society he’d once charmed. The gods we fashion always fail us. They promise life but deliver death.
Scripture understood this long before Wilde. Psalm 115 confronts us with a startling truth about human nature: we become like what we worship. The psalmist says of idols, “Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.” This principle governs the human heart in every generation.
In one of the most tragic passages in all of Scripture we see this principle play out. The very people who heard God’s voice at Sinai, who saw His glory descend on the mountain, who trembled at His presence, these same people will craft a golden calf and call it their deliverer. And in doing so, they won’t just break the first two commandments. They’ll reveal something deeper about what happens to the human soul when it tries to reshape God according to its own preferences.
Exodus 32:1-6 NASB Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” 5 Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” 6 So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
We become what we worship, for better or worse. This morning we’re going to trace this terrible transformation through two movements in Exodus 32. We’ll see how Israel’s impatience leads them to manufacture a god they can manage. We’ll watch as they take God’s gifts and redirect them toward their own purposes. We’ll observe as they use God’s name while serving their own agenda. And through it all, we’ll discover that the moment we attempt to domesticate the Almighty, something catastrophic happens within us. Because…
When we try to control God, we lose who we are. (vs. 1-4)
The moment God doesn’t conform to their timetable, Israel demands that Aaron “make us a god who will go before us.” No one says “we should wait for our God,” but instead let’s “make us a god.”
Moses has been on the mountain for forty days. They can see the consuming fire at the summit, but Moses hasn’t returned. The mediator who brought them out of Egypt and God’s words to them is gone. And without their mediator, they panic. They grow anxious and feel abandoned. So rather than trust the God who proved Himself faithful through ten plagues and a divided sea, they demand a replacement deity they can see and control.
God created humans in His image. Genesis 1:26 establishes this foundational reality: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” We exist to reflect God’s character, to display His attributes, to represent His rule in creation. That’s the bedrock of human dignity and purpose. The Creator-creature distinction defines everything. God speaks; we respond. God commands; we obey.
But at the base of Mount Sinai Israel inverts this relationship entirely. Image-bearers now demand to make gods in their image. They want a customizable god who is responsive to their demands. One who is visible when they need reassurance and portable when they want to move. The creature attempts to become Creator. And in that moment of inversion, something breaks.
God made us to reflect Him, not replace Him.
When we try to craft our own gods, we don’t ascend to divinity. We descend into something less than human. We were designed to shine with the borrowed glory of the One who made us. When we turn from that calling, we don’t become autonomous. We become confused, fractured. The mirror cracks.
We turn to something else for the rescue, comfort, or meaning that only God can provide. We turn to entertainment hoping to alleviate our stress, boredom, loneliness. We reach for the screen before we reach for Scripture. We feed on content before we feed on Christ. Slowly, imperceptibly, our capacity for God begins to atrophy. Prayer starts to feel tedious and Scripture seems dry. Worship feels like duty rather than delight. We haven’t consciously rejected God, but simply replaced Him with something more immediately satisfying. We’ve found comfort in the moment but starved our soul over time. We think we’re in control of what we consume. But we’re being consumed by it. We’re becoming like it.
And when we replace God with substitutes, something else happens. We begin to rewrite our stories. We forget who actually saved us.
Look at the language in verse 1: “This Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt.” Listen to how dismissive that sounds. “This Moses,” not “our mediator” or “God’s servant.” They are claiming that Moses brought them up from Egypt, not the Lord. Not the God who sent the plagues, who parted the Red Sea, who led them with cloud and fire. Moses gets the credit.
This is spiritual amnesia. God’s mighty acts are being attributed to a man. Their entire salvation narrative is being rewritten by impatience. Forty days is all it takes for them to forget their Deliverer. The exodus happened months ago, but already the story is changing. Already they’re erasing God from their own history.
When you forget who saved you, you lose your identity. Israel’s identity was rooted in one foundational truth: YHWH redeemed us from slavery. Remove that, and they’re just wandering nomads with gold jewelry and fading memories. Rewrite your salvation story, and you rewrite yourself.
Exodus 32:2-3 NASB Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
Aaron tells them to bring their gold earrings. Exodus 12:35-36 tells us that the Egyptians gave the Israelites gold and silver as they departed. They fashioned this gold into earrings, not merely for ornamentation, but as portable wealth. In a world without banks or pockets, you wore your assets. These earrings represented security, provision, and future. And they willingly gave it all up. Think about that. They wanted an idol more than they wanted their personal wealth. They stripped the earrings from their wives and children without hesitation. This tells us something about the power of idolatry: we’ll sacrifice anything for a god we can control.
But the gold was God’s provision, intended for the construction of the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God among His people. In a perverse reversal they take what God gave them and redirect it toward false worship. They use the gold that should have adorned God’s sanctuary to fashion a counterfeit deity. Collecting the earrings, melting the gold, shaping it around a wooden form likely took more than a day. Which means they had time to reconsider, time to stop and ask “What are we doing?” But instead they pressed forward with deliberate, sustained rebellion.
Exodus 32:4 NASB He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
When we craft our own gods, we reshape ourselves in their image.
Notice what happens in verse 4. Aaron had the skill of working with his hands. He knew how to shape metal, how to craft with precision. And where did that skill come from? From God. Every creative capacity we possess, every talent, every ability to make something beautiful or useful is grace from the Creator.
Later in Exodus, we’ll meet Bezalel and Oholiab, men filled with God’s Spirit to craft the tabernacle with extraordinary skill. God gives us gifts and talents so that we can glorify Him. But here, Aaron takes his God-given creativity and fashions a god of his own making. The techniques meant for the tabernacle get deployed for idolatry. The hands meant to honor God now manufacture a replacement.
And the devastating consequence is that they become what they create. They fashion a calf, a symbol that looks strong but can be controlled, yoked, and directed. And what happens to Israel? They become passive, manageable, spiritually dead. They trade the living God who speaks from Sinai for a golden statue that can’t speak, can’t move, can’t save.
Psalms 115:7-8 NASB They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat. 8 Those who make them will become like them, Everyone who trusts in them.
The more we demand control, the more lifeless we become.
Think about what control does to the soul. When we insist on managing outcomes, we stop trusting. When we demand God move on our schedule, we stop waiting. When we craft a deity responsive to our preferences, we stop listening for His voice. Control feels like power, but it produces paralysis. It feels like autonomy, but it delivers emptiness.
The parent who can’t release their adult child becomes anxious, fearful, perpetually meddling. The believer who isolates from the church to avoid discomfort becomes spiritually stagnant, unteachable, cold. The Christian who fills every moment with entertainment to escape becomes numb, restless, incapable of silence before God. We think we’re taking charge of our lives. But we’re becoming like the idols we’ve made: hands that can’t feel, feet that can’t walk, throats that can’t cry out to God.
Then they say: “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” They’re standing there looking at a golden calf and they’re crediting it with the Exodus. But why a calf? A young bull represented everything they wanted in a deity: strength, vitality, power. Israel had spent 400 years in Egypt, where the Apis bull was worshiped as a god of fertility and might. The form was familiar, impressive, and comforting. A bull is powerful but also domesticable. It can be yoked, directed, controlled, and give you strength you can harness.
They’re worshiping visible, accessible divine power on their terms. The want strength without mystery, God’s presence without holiness, and God’s power without His sovereignty. They’ve reduced God to a manageable form they can see, touch, and carry. The calf becomes their deliverer because they’ve made a deliverer they can control. And in doing so, they’ve lost the God who actually saved them.
Notice what Aaron does. He doesn’t abandon God’s covenant name YHWH, but attaches it to the golden calf.
Exodus 32:5 NASB Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”
When we use God for our agenda, we corrupt true worship. (vs. 5-6)
He’s not rejecting Israel’s God, but rebranding Him. He’s saying, “We can worship the LORD and the calf. We can have both. We can blend what God commanded with what we prefer.” This is called “syncretism”, the mixing of true worship with false worship. It is the most dangerous form of idolatry because it uses biblical vocabulary while serving our own agenda. It invokes God’s name while violating God’s will. It maintains religious language while pursuing our own desires.
We do this because we intuitively know that outright rejection means forfeiting God’s blessing, protection, identity as “God’s people.” Syncretism lets us keep the religious benefits while maintaining control. Furthermore, an outright rejection of the LORD requires honest acknowledgment that I’m choosing rebellion. That’s psychologically difficult. Syncretism lets us lie to ourselves and sleep at night thinking we’re still God’s people. But we’re lying to ourselves, and God knows it. The further we go on like this the more distorted our lives become. We drape our agendas in God’s vocabulary, thinking that makes them holy. Look at…
Exodus 32:5 NASB Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”
Calling sin “worship” doesn’t make it holy.
Aaron knew better. He was Moses’s spokesman, had seen the plagues in Egypt, and witnessed God’s presence on Mount Sinai. He knew the second commandment forbade exactly what he was doing. But he looked at that golden calf, looked at the expectant crowd, and made his choice. He called the sin “worship” and attached God’s name to rebellion. And he probably told himself he was being wise, strategic, pastoral even, keeping the people from total apostasy. But calling sin “worship” didn’t make it holy. It just made Aaron complicit. And we are regularly tempted to do the same thing.
The church that designs worship services around consumer preference and calls it “being relevant to the culture.” The ministry that measures success by attendance numbers and budget growth and calls it “Kingdom impact.” The preacher who softens the hard edges of Scripture to avoid offense and calls it “winsome apologetics.” The congregation that treats the gospel as a product to be marketed and calls it “strategic outreach.” I’ve sat in meetings where faithful exposition was criticized as ‘too much Bible.’ Where calling sin ‘sin’ was deemed unloving. Where spending hours preparing to rightly divide the Word was called excessive. The vocabulary sounded strategic, but the message was clear: make God’s Word more palatable, more marketable, more manageable.
But syncretism doesn’t just corrupt corporate worship. It corrupts personal discipleship. And when it does, something shifts in the very nature of our spiritual lives. Look what happens next:
Exodus 32:6 NASB So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
True worship produces communion; false worship produces consumption.
Notice the trajectory. What begins as worship devolves into consumption. They’re going through religious motions, but it’s not feeding their souls, it’s feeding their appetites. And this is what always happens when we corrupt worship by attaching God’s name to our agenda. We think we’re being spiritual, but we’re really just sanctifying our cravings.
The Israelites consume the offerings, then consume each other in partying and degenerate entertainment. They are reflecting the cow they are worshipping. How do cows behave? They sit down, eat, drink, and rise up to play. That’s what they’ve been reduced to. Israel has become like a herd of cattle – sitting, eating, drinking, standing, playing. There is no reasoning, no worship, and no communion with God. Just animal appetites being satisfied in an endless cycle.
They worshiped a calf, and they’ve become like what they worshiped. They are reduced to creatures of appetite rather than image-bearers of God. The Hebrew word translated “play” here carries connotations of sexual revelry – they’re not just eating and drinking, they’re indulging every physical craving. True worship was supposed to elevate them, to draw them into communion with the Holy One. But false worship has degraded them and made them less than human.
This is the terrifying judgment on syncretism. When we attach God’s name to our agenda and call sin “worship,” we don’t just dishonor God – we dehumanize ourselves. We become creatures of appetite. We lose the capacity for true worship, true communion with God, and true transformation. We sit, we consume, we stand, we indulge, and repeat. Like animals at a trough.
And we see this devolution in our own lives. When we crave approval, we become like herd animals, following the crowd, afraid to stand apart. The more we crave acceptance, the less backbone we have for righteousness. When we consume entertainment that mocks purity and exalts rebellion, we’re like animals learning to feed on what once made us blush. We grow dull to glory and restless for stimulation. When we compromise our business convictions to maximize profit and call it “being a wise steward,” we act like predators that seize rather than shepherds who steward. Profit becomes our prey, and integrity becomes collateral damage. When we nurture bitterness and refuse to forgive, we begin to snarl at anyone who gets close. We defend our wounds like animals guarding territory. When we share destructive information about someone behind their back and call it “love and concern,” we become like spiritual vultures, feeding off someone else’s ruin.
In every case, we’re being reduced. Image-bearers becoming beasts. Worshipers becoming consumers. Sons and daughters of God becoming slaves to appetite. This is what happens when we corrupt worship. This is what happens when we call sin “holy.” We don’t transcend our humanity, we forfeit it. But this is not where the story ends. Not for Israel, and not for us.
Because Christ restores God’s image in us, we can reflect His glory again.
What Israel attempted and failed to do, to bridge the gap between God and humanity, God Himself has accomplished. The tragedy of Exodus 32 points forward to the triumph of the incarnation. Israel wanted a god they could see, a god who would go before them, a god they could manage. And what does God do? Centuries later, He doesn’t give them a golden calf. He gives them His Son.
John 1:14 NASB, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The true Image became like us so we could be remade like Him. Jesus Christ is the perfect image of the invisible God.
Colossians 1:15 NASB declares, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
He is what we were made to be: the perfect reflection of the Father’s glory. And through faith in Him, we who are broken mirrors can be restored. Have you imagined God in a way that makes Him easier to live with? Have you looked to created things to bring you joy more than your Creator? Have you become bestial, driven by your appetite, and dehumanized by your idolatry?
2 Corinthians 3:18 NASB, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
That’s the gospel promise. In Christ, broken mirrors shine again with God’s glory. We don’t have to manufacture gods anymore. We don’t have to control God anymore. We don’t have to attach His name to our agenda anymore. We can behold Him, trust Him, take joy in Him, and worship Him. And in doing so, become who we were always meant to be.
The golden calf shattered at the foot of the mountain. But Jesus Christ was shattered on the cross for us. The calf was melted down and ground to powder. But Christ was raised from the dead and exalted to the highest place. The calf gave Israel a false identity and made them bestial. But Christ gives us a true identity, sons and daughters of God, image-bearers being restored, worshipers being remade.
Romans 8:29 NASB: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
God’s plan from eternity was not just to save us from our sins. His plan was to remake us in the image of Christ. The image marred in the fall, twisted by our rebellion, distorted by our idolatry, that image is being restored. Not by our effort or by our religious performance, but by the Spirit’s work as we behold Christ by faith.
Church, we become what we worship. If we worship a god we can control, we become lifeless, passive, bestial. If we worship a god we are more comfortable with, we lose who we are. But if we worship the God who made us, the God who redeemed us, the God who is remaking us through His Spirit, we become like Him. We reflect His glory, we display His character, and we shine with the light of His truth.
Christ is the image of God. And through faith in Him, you can be too. Not because you’ve manufactured something, but because you’ve beheld Someone. Not because you’ve achieved something, but because you’ve received Someone. Not because you’ve controlled God, but because you’ve been captured by His grace. We become what we worship. Let us worship Him.
