Aaron's Failure of Nerve

Aaron's Failure of Nerve

Series: Exodus

Speaker: Chris Oswald

Sunday Morning

Date: 10th November 2024

Passage: Exodus 32:1-35

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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