Aaron's Failure of Nerve

Title: Aaron’s Failure of Nerve
Text: Exodus 32

The Golden Calf story is a leadership story. Everything pivots around the action/inaction of Aaron and Moses.

While we can clearly see that the people hold significant responsibility for their actions, Aaron is singled out as uniquely responsible.

In vs. 21, “And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?”

In vs. 25, “And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies),”

Some of you are positional leaders. All of you are relational leaders. Somebody out there looks to you.

Some of you are positional leaders:
Husbands, fathers
Mothers, household managers
Leaders at work, or in the church…

All of you are relational leaders in one degree or another. If nowhere else, you are supposed to be leaders in this local church.

Pastor Jonathan Leeman says the following to those who join his local church:

“Friend, by joining this church, you will become jointly responsible for whether or not this congregation continues to faithfully proclaim the gospel. That means you will become jointly responsible both for what this church teaches, as well as whether or not its members’ lives remain faithful.”

Now if you absolutely refuse to think of yourself as a leader, I still think this sermon can help. Because by the end of it, you’ll have learned a great deal of detail about the fear of man — which the bible says is a snare — and which experience says is a very very common snare.

The Basic Problem

When it comes to leadership, the main problem is something the poet Milton called Effeminate Slackness.

“The real problem of leadership is a failure of nerve. Leaders fail not because they lack information, skill, or technique, but because they lack the nerve and presence to stand firm in the midst of other people’s emotional anxiety and reactivity.” – Bob Thune

That’s exactly right. That’s the situation Aaron has found himself in.

Aaron has found himself leading in what Edwin Friedman would call an unhealthy emotional system. Among other things, Friedman was a family therapist and over time he observed that the families who had the most troubles had certain things in common:

Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by reactivity.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a herding instinct.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by blame displacement.
Unhealthy emotional systems are marked by a quick-fix mentality; relief from pain is more important than lasting change.

In these kinds of highly charged environments, a leader is greatly tempted to sin in one of two directions. He either becomes…

The bully
The bullied

The Bully

Our primary focus will be on #2. That’s the loss of nerve. That’s effeminate slackness. That’s the sin of Aaron.

But as is often the case, there is a ditch on the other side of the road. I want to ensure that nobody responds to this message by saying, “yes, Aaron lost his nerve, and in order to avoid that, I plan on becoming a grade A jerk.”

There are instances of that kind of thing in the bible and even in the Exodus story. That has something to do with the sin that disqualified Moses from the promise land. Where he let his anger get the best of him.

That’s found in Numbers 20. The passage begins like many others – with the people grumbling about the lack of something – this time water.

Moses does what he normally does. He goes to the Lord. God tells him to go to a rock and speak over it – and that when he does that – the rock will split and water will come forth.

But on his way back to the people and rock, something happens in Moses’ heart. His anger gets the best of him.

“Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.” – Numbers 20:10–11

God had his back. In his mercy, he caused the water to flow. But privately, God told Moses in no uncertain terms that he had sinned.

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” – Numbers 20:12

Many of you are leading something. A wife, a home, a team at work, a church – watch your anger. Don’t let the sins of those you lead – lead you into sin.
Whatever we mean by backbone, nerve, etc… must be harmonized with 2

Timothy 2:24-26

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Ok, that’s the other ditch. When the people sin, when the environment is highly charged, some leaders become the bully. Don’t do that.
The Bullied

Don’t become the bully. But also, don’t become the bullied. I would say that problem, of becoming the pushover is the deeper biblical problem of leadership. That’s what we see in…

Saul (1 Samuel 15)
Peter (Antioch)
And many others.

Look at Exodus 32:1-2

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
Baptizing Unbelief: Failure of Nerve & Sin Management

Now I want you to notice one feature of Aaron’s failure. Namely that he attempted to split the difference between the people’s pagan urges and true religion.

When the 2020-21 race riots took place all over the country. Plenty of prominent Christian leaders tried to baptize the sin of rioting, looting, etc… by appropriating biblical categories of social justice.

When the government massively overstepped their authority, shutting down churches, mandating masks and later vaccines. Plenty of prominent Christian leaders tried to baptize those sins with biblical categories like loving our neighbors and Romans 13.

You see the mob wanted to run in a particular direction and many evangelical leaders did a bunch of biblical gymnastics to endorse the mob’s anxious passions.

We see Aaron doing something similar.

In verse 1 the people say, “make us gods who shall go before us.” They’re ready to completely abandon Yahweh all together.

Aaron concocts a scheme involving constructing a golden calf.

In verse 4-5 we see Aaron splitting the difference.

And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 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.”

He didn’t completely vacate his leadership. He is still in charge. And he is trying to minimize their sin rather than confront it. Friends, much of our failure of nerve comes, not so much in going along with the crowd 100% but in going along with the crowd 50%. Rather than speak openly and honestly to those in sin, we try to manage them, manipulate them, and mitigate the trouble the people we love will get themselves into.

Our main question is why? What motivates this kind of leadership meltdown?
Making Sense of Aaron’s Meltdown

Why did Aaron fail? We can’t trust Aaron’s account. Aaron is an unreliable narrator here.

Look back at vs. 21

21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

We can’t rely on Aaron’s assessment. He’s not being honest with himself.

This leaves us to run through other biblical data about the same kind of thing and make some educated guesses.
False Humility

In 1 Samuel 15, Saul succumbs to similar pressures as Aaron.

After being confronted with his sin. Saul said, ““I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

Why did he fear the people? Earlier we are shown the heart issue at play. That’s in vs. 17,

And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel.

That’s pride masqueraded as humility. His view of himself is not in line with God’s view.

Maybe Aaron suffered from the same kind of insecurity. He was after all, clearly the number 2 man. Why should the people listen to him? Who was he to lead?

Emotional Blackmail

When people get into this state of highly charged anxiousness, they are prone to leveling a very specific charge against any leader who stands their ground. Namely that the leader is being a bully and that he thinks he is better than everyone else.

We see that in Numbers 16:1-3

16 Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

An anxious people want you to make their anxiety your agenda. And if you resist this, refusing to be the bully or to be bullied…. if you resist this emotional sabotage, the next step will almost always be an accusation of arrogance.

And if you are not careful, you will go out of your way to show how reasonable you are. How you are the opposite of a tyrant, you’re a servant leader, you’re an empathetic leader, a consensus builder!

And what you really are is being bullied.
Love of Position

Another possibility is that Aaron would rather be an ineffectual leader than to lose his position all together. Plenty of leaders choose self-preservation in these kinds of situations.

They feel they must give in to the sinful desires of those they lead or they won’t have anyone to lead.
Love of the People

Here’s the trickiest motivation.

God has programmed good leaders with deep feelings for those they lead. In Philippians Paul talks about longing for the people with the very affections of Christ. We see throughout the Pauline epistles that Paul is walking around with a deep emotional burden for the people.

“…imprisonments, countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:23-28

Good leaders carry deep feelings for those they lead.

Illustration: Greg Dirnberger (when one church is not doing well, he is not doing well)

If we aren’t careful, the flesh will hijack those deep feelings.

This is a very very old sin.

In 1 Timothy 2:12-14, Paul gives some apostolic insight into the fall of Adam and Eve.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Ok. So if Adam was not deceived, then why did he partake? Why did he follow Eve into death? And the answer appears to be wrongly ordered loves.

One early church father said something to effect of, “Though believing death would ensue, he partook of the fruit knowingly so that he would not be separated from his bride.”

In Paradise Lost, Milton handles the subject of the fall of Adam.

“Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her, and, extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit

He then writes a section in which he imagines Adam’s inner dialogue…

“However I with thee have fixed my lot,
Certain to undergo like doom: If death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of Nature draw me to my own;
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself

Once again, this is so easy to do. God gives us deep feelings for those we’re supposed to lead. But those deep feelings must never go deeper than our feelings for God. We have to watch out for instances where our love for others is more pronounced than our love for God.

And this isn’t purely a male and female thing. It is unfortunately routine to see older saints, who hold a God-given mantle of leadership over younger saints, choose empathy over exhortation.

Plenty of instances where older women disobey the mandate in Titus 2 by choosing empathy over exhortation.

So many young men struggle with sins of the flesh, in part, because older men choose empathy over exhortation.

Again, this is not only a male or female thing.

In Paradise Lost, when the angel is showing Adam the future of the human race. When the angel shows Adam the future seduction of men by the “daughters of men,” Adam’s initial response is to blame the women involved—”Man’s woe holds on the same, from Woman to begin.” The angel contradicts him. That is not it at all: “From Man’s effeminate slackness it begins.”
Conclusion: How should have Aaron responded?

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

To which Aaron ought to have said – I don’t work for you.
I don’t work for you.

I work for the Lord. And he has made it clear what we are to do. I hope you’ll join me in trusting him. But if you won’t, then I will, with great sorrow, need to show you the door.

The solution to effeminate slackness is something Edwin Friedman called “self-differentiation.” Which is just another way of talking about holding your ground.

In this story, there are three leaders. Moses, Aaron, and in vs. 17 Joshua is mentioned. Joshua would eventually become the people’s leader as they entered the promised land. And while Joshua would make plenty of his own mistakes, he did not succumb to a failure of nerve. He was a properly self-differentiated leader.

That’s what motivates his famous speech. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

That’s how Aaron ought to have responded.

I don’t work for you. I work for the Lord.

Mothers and Fathers must say to their children, “I don’t work for you, I work for the Lord.”

Husbands must say to their wives, “I don’t work for you, I work for the Lord.”

Church leaders must say to their congregations, “I don’t work for you, I work for the Lord.”

God’s Self-Differentiation

In verses 7-14, we see that the only thing that keeps God from completely destroying the people is his motivation for his own name.

9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

God doesn’t save us because he must. There is nothing in his nature that requires him to save us.

God doesn’t save us because he needs us. He is able to raise up a people for himself from the stones.

God certainly doesn’t save us because we are deserving.

In the end, God saves us for the sake of his own name.

Look at vs. 11-14

11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

God saves us for the sake of his own glory.

Pastor Mike Fabarez writes,

While most people believe God saves people for “people’s sake” (i.e., because of his attraction to them and his inner compulsion to promote and honor them), Psalm 106:8 tells us that God is in the business of saving sinners for “his own name’s sake” (i.e., for his own honor, promotion and glory). In considering his grace and mercy toward his people, God repeats through the prophet Isaiah: “For my sake, for my sake, I do this” and “I will not yield my glory to another” (48:11).

Conclusion: The world is in urgent need of leaders who are (to quote the meme): Unbothered. Moisturized. In Their Lane. Focused. Flourishing.

That only happens when the leader is more concerned about pleasing God than anyone else.

That is the cure to effeminate slackness.

Friends, you are servants of the most high God. Be done with the prideful insecurity. You are what God says you are.

You are servants of the most high God. Do not be intimidated by emotional blackmail. Who can bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

You are servants of the most high God. Your position is given to you by God. The favor you have is given to you by God. Honor and serve the one who gave it to you.

You are servants of the most high God. It is good to feel a deep love for those you lead. But if you let that love eclipse the love you have for God, you do nobody any good.

We have got to move away from a people-centered religion and back to a God centered religion. And that starts by seeing that our very salvation was worked out by God as a service to God.

Psalm 106:8 – “Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.”

All of the fundamental good that has been done in Christendom. All the human flourishing it has provided. Came into the world through God-centeredness and not people centeredness.

So fellow leaders, would you join me in resolving to trust in the Lord with all our heart and leaning not on our own understanding. In all our ways let’s acknowledge him and trust that he will direct our paths.
Illustration: Latimer & Ridley

Under the cruel and violent rule of Queen Mary, two godly men named Latimer and Ridley were arrested as heretics. Their offense? Proclaiming protestant doctrine. On their way to being burned at the stake the following words were recorded.

“Be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.”

“Be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”

Communion:

The Lord Jesus was the king of self-differentiation. In John’s gospel we are told:

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. – John 2:23-25

In John 5:19,

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

And it was this purity of purpose, his singular service to the Lord that secured our salvation.

No failure of nerve on Jesus’ part. No effeminate slackness. And that is why you and I are saved.