God Introduces Himself

It's my joy again to continue this morning on our journey through Exodus. This morning, we sort of step ahead to the next chapter. And like I said, we're not going to move chapter and verse through the Exodus. We're really going to move through very significant stages in the story of Exodus. But these opening chapters of Exodus are very important to understanding the whole Exodus.

So we're moving slowly through these opening chapters for the next few weeks. This morning, we're going to be looking at chapter three, and we're going to see the moment or the day that God introduced himself. The day that God introduced himself. I wanna start this morning by asking the question, do you remember that moment where the concept of God was introduced to you for the first time? Do you remember that moment where the concept of an invisible supernatural God was explained to you for the first time?

Do you remember what that person, mom or dad or a friend, told you in that time about who God is, about how he works, or how we can relate to him even? Perhaps for some of us, we remember that quite well. Perhaps it didn't happen so very long ago, but for others, it may have happened a long, long time ago. We may not even really remember it was that long ago. To be honest, I can't exactly remember the first time where I was explained who God was for the first time because I grew up in a Christian family, but I'm very sure that it would have been one of my parents.

But also very clearly, I do remember some moments in my early childhood where some key truths about God were really cemented or explained for the first time, and some of them were so shocking, I remember, that they've stuck with me since that time. I remember a moment where my mom said to me that she loved God more than dad because he was the most special person, the most special thing in the world. That was shocking. I remember the shock to my little worldview that you could love someone that you couldn't see. You could love someone you couldn't see more than you love someone that you saw every day.

Or I remember the moment where I realized or my dad told me that God was stronger than him. Wow. That's significant. All the time my mom said that she wasn't scared of dying because it meant that she could be with Jesus. Do you remember something like that?

Really significant things where these amazing concepts were explained to you for the first time. What did you think? What did you feel? Alternatively, how are you introducing God to your children today? How have you spoken to them about God?

How have you explained God to your friends? Well, this morning, we look at the moment where God was not so much introduced as he introduced himself to Moses and to the Israelites through him. And we see this moment the attributes, the key attributes that God wanted to reveal about himself at that time because they are significant. They are significant to understanding who he is. Remember that four hundred years had gone by from the time of Joseph to the time of the Israelites here in Exodus.

And it seems that in those four hundred years, God had all but been forgotten. The day God introduced himself was a day that would influence theology, that would influence faith, and influence the hope of people then, but even to people in this day. So this is what God says about himself. This is who God is. Let's have a look at Exodus chapter three.

Starting from verse one. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.

So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord then said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I've seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go. I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you.

And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me, and they ask me what is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am.

This is what you are to say to the Israelites, I am has sent you. God also said to Moses, say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me and said, I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.

The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.

After that, he will let you go. And I will make the Egyptians favourably disposed towards this people so that when you leave, you will not go empty handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbour and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters, and so you will plunder the Egyptians.

So far, our reading. Four hundred years have passed. We see Moses tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, and God appears to him in a burning bush. We see the first attribute of God being displayed as his holiness. Firstly, God is supremely holy.

Moses, the hopeless wannabe saviour of Israel, royally messed up his attempt to liberate Israel and had spent forty years in the refinement of God's wilderness to refine him, to grow him, to prepare him for the work that he was to do. Imagine this, Moses, the prince of Egypt, tending a handful of smelly sheep in the backwater part of the Midian Wasteland. Imagine it. Just a regular Tuesday morning perhaps. Moses in the early morning with his mug of coffee just standing by under the shade of a tree waiting for a sheep to eat.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Moses notices a bush on fire. Now this is perhaps not too unusual because fires are a necessity in those days. So fires were a common thing for cooking and for heat, but what is strange about this fire is that there is no one around. No one has lit this fire. Now, okay, perhaps the fire could have been started by lightning or something like that, but what was even stranger about this untended fire was that the bush wasn't burning up.

You can imagine Moses just lazily standing around again watching his sheep, seeing this fire and thinking that's interesting. I guess that gives me a few minutes of entertainment, because these sheep aren't very talkative this morning. And he stands for a few minutes and notices this thing is not burning up. This dry bush is not being destroyed by this fire. That's bizarre.

It's a bit strange. So Moses decides to go a little bit closer to see what's going on. The bible says that God saw Moses come closer and then called him from the bush. Moses, Moses, he said. Moses replied, here I am.

And then God commands Moses not to approach any closer, not to come any closer to that bush, but to take off his sandals because the ground that he was standing on was holy. God then says to him, I'm the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And immediately, all those vague, far off childhood memories of the forgotten God comes flooding back to Moses. And he collapses in fear and reverence before God. The first thing that is communicated about God in Exodus is that he is holy.

Throughout the rest of Exodus, God's divine presence enters the physical world through fire and smoke. Exodus 13:21-22 shows God's leading of Israel as a pillar of smoke by day or a pillar of fire by night. Exodus 19:18, when Moses goes up to the mountain to receive the ten commandments, it says that the mountain is covered in fiery smoke. Exodus 24:17 literally says, to the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. The burning bush begins the theme of God's presence, and it begins by showing God's holiness.

The Hebrew word which is used here to say this is holy ground literally means separated. God is not of this world. God is not of this world. Take off your shoes, Moses. God said, this place is different.

In those days, the Egyptian priests would take their shoes off as a sign of respect when they entered their temples. For Moses, for God, the entire world is his temple. Take off your shoes outside in the wilderness because where I am, this place has become holy. Of all the attributes, think about this, however, of all the attributes God could have communicated about himself. Of all the power or the majesty or the love or whatever God could have communicated, the first thing he chose to introduce himself with was to show that he was holy. Why?

Why? Well, I believe it is because a god who was anything like Moses, a God who would be anything like us, would always fail. God had to show that he was completely other, that he was completely separate, that he was completely different because it is in his holiness that there would be confidence that he could do anything worthwhile. If he were anything like us, in other words, if he were anything like Moses, he would fail, but he's not. Moses, the weak liberator, tried to rescue an Israelite by murdering an Egyptian and then fled for his life.

God had to show that he is completely different to Moses. He is holy. He is superior. He had to take off his sandals and humble himself to this superior being. And so the God who introduces himself as holy also in that moment shows himself to be powerful.

As fire, the symbol, the metaphor, consumes and destroys, he is also powerful enough to destroy since he burns like fire. And yet, he controls the physics of thermodynamics to keep a flame burning without using up any fuel. And from this time forward, God's people would hear again and again how God's consuming fire would act as a purifier. It would act as a powerful force that would destroy or purify anything that would go against his nature, his completely different nature, and that is namely called sin.

Malachi 4:10 would later say, behold, the day is coming burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble for the fire. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. The God who introduces himself for the first time as fire, the bible says, is holy, is separate from all that is sinful and broken. And that is shown in Moses having to take off his shoes. He cannot stand in arrogance as a human being before God.

He must show respect and humility. And so this is the beginning of the introduction of God. This is the beginning of the introduction of God. He is completely different to us. He is not our plaything.

He is not our buddy. He is a God who is fire. He is dangerous. He is pure. I love that image of C.S. Lewis when he writes in one of the Narnia books that Aslan, who is the archetype of Christ, Aslan is good, but he isn't safe.

Aslan is good, but he isn't safe. Now as Christians, we sit with this tension, between the God who at one time is holy and separate, and yet we see him coming to Moses personally and intimately. God is both transcendent above and immanent among us. And as Christians, we hold this tension. Unfortunately, because it is a perfect balance between these two that God is both bigger than us and higher than us at the same time among us and in us even.

We hold this tension, but because we are imperfect and flawed, we can tend to emphasise one over the other as well. We don't always hold these two perfectly balanced. And the way we know that this is a reality is by looking at the world religions around us. We have Islam that understands God to be so far above them that he doesn't even know our names. Allah does not know us personally.

On the flip side, we have Hinduism that says that God is in us and through us, and in fact, we are gods. Each of us carries the divine spark. Unfortunately, however, this flawed understanding isn't just in other world religions. Christians wrestle with this. And you can see that you can see it in the way that their theology is lived out.

On the one hand, we can hear people make a mockery of the holiness of God, his transcendence, his otherness by claiming, for example, to do things or say things on his behalf, which really aren't from him at all. They understand him to be so personal and so close that what they say is what he says. Speaking on his behalf, on behalf of this holy God, their actions are shown later to be false or to be motivated by very flawed motivations or intentions. Speaking on behalf of this holy God, they make God out to be a liar. They make him out to be a cheat.

They make him out to be a failure. Now this is really dangerous territory because God is holy and his true word never fails. Because he is holy and separate, he is not corruptible and flawed like our words or our actions. So no wonder he would later say in Leviticus that any false prophets who spoke or did things on behalf of God that weren't really from God, no wonder those prophets were to be stoned, to be put to death. For speaking on behalf of this holy God who is incorruptible yet made him to look like a liar.

Conversely, we can think incorrectly that God is far off and distant, far removed from us. Some think that he is a reality too magnificent to understand or to relate to. And these Christians can lack the real power or the passion of working in God's kingdom. God cares about this planet. God cares about how we relate to it and to others.

He cares about it very much. So much so that he sends his holy spirit into this plane of existence. If we deny the intimacy, the personal impact of the spirit in us, we also deny the goodness of his holy nature. The nature that unlike our own is perfectly loving, is kind, is compassionate, and is at work. So you can see again how these two tensions must be kept together.

You cannot separate the two. This leads us to our next attribute. So the first one is, if we can just move that one for me, please. The first one is that God is holy and the second one is that God is compassionate. Verse seven begins by saying that God has seen the misery of the people in Egypt.

I've heard them crying, it says, and I'm concerned about their suffering. Only a few verses ago in chapter two, the story mentions that God heard the cry, the Hebrew says, of the people. They groaned under the yoke of their slavery. But immediately following, we see this introduction of God as holy. We see that God is compassionate.

This God who is fire shows that he is like a loving parent, worried about his kids. So he has a plan, he says. An audacious rescue plan. Something the world has never seen before. He will bring them up out of the land of Egypt, the land of slavery into a spacious land, a land flowing with creamy rich milk and sweet delicious honey.

A land that these guys cannot even imagine. This compassion is unexpected and super gracious. Why? Why is this so gracious? Why is this compassionate?

Because the Israelites didn't know God. They had done nothing to get his favour. They had earned nothing from him. When they groaned under the slavery of Egypt, they cried out. It's true.

They cried out, but their cries went out into the deep blue sky to no one. No one in particular. They just cried, help, God. Help us. Help someone.

Someone help us. But it was God who heard and it was God who was moved by it. So why does God reveal himself, in his second attribute as loving or as compassionate? Well, the truth is without his compassion, we actually wouldn't know him. Without God being a compassionate God, we wouldn't know God.

I was shocked one day, when my Old Testament lecturer said this to us, and I respect him very much. So that is why I was really surprised. He said, the bible, the word of God, is actually not about God. It is about us. And I wrestled with this and I said, what do you mean it's man centred?

How can it be man centred? It's about God's glory. It's about his character. It's about his kingdom, isn't it? And he said, well, yeah, of course.

It's about God's glory. Well, we have to ask ourselves the question, why was the bible given to humanity in the first place? It was given to us so that we could understand. It was given to us so that we could know God's glory. Because God's glory is eternal.

God's glory has always existed. He is fully complete in and of himself in that glory. It is to us that the story of God needed to be explained. The bible tells us that we were created by God. The bible tells us how we got lost.

And then magnificently, it tells us how we got saved. The bible is a story of humanity. It is man centred in that sense. It is the story of a humanity who can come to know a compassionate God who came to save it. So while God is supremely holy, while God is supremely other, he allows us to know him.

He comes to Moses for no other reason but simply that he is moved by the plight of this people Israel. This is the God we know. This is the God we know. And if you ever struggle with feeling God's mercy and goodness, if you ever don't feel that it's there, please remember this, that if it wasn't for his mercy, you would have no idea who God is in the first place. You can only know God because he has mercifully reached out to us.

As Romans 2:4 says, it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. It is the kindness of God in the first place that would lead us to turn from our empty, dead, futile ways into an understanding of his existence. And this is exactly what God was gonna do with Israel. Though they didn't know him, though they cried out to their deep blue sky, though they did not acknowledge him, he would show them the extent of his love by bringing them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. That was the promise.

God says, I'm concerned about them, and reveals that he is compassionate. And then lastly, thirdly, God is dependable. After God lays out this master plan of how he was going to rescue Israel, Moses asked the question, well then, what do I say to this Israelite people? Who are you? What is your name?

And God replies to Moses and says, I am who I am. Tell them I am has sent you. This is so interesting and so fascinating. The name that God gives to Moses is not a title. It's not a noun.

It's a verb. I am has sent you. But even more fascinating than this, this verb, scholars even today cannot accurately translate with any certainty. You see, in our bibles, you might see that there's actually a footnote here that says, I will be what I will be is another option for this word. It can also be translated, I will be who I was.

I will be who I was. We have no idea what tense this verb happens in. It can be I am who I am, I will be who I will be, I am or I will be who I was. But this is exactly what God intended. This is not a problem that we as Christians and scholars wrestle with now because we don't understand Hebrew.

It's exactly the same thing that the Israelites would have thought and pondered about back then. The god whose name is a verb, He is a god who was. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of your forefathers. He is a god who made a covenant.

I want to be your God, and I want you to be my people. At the same time, he is the God who is the God whose nature does not change regardless of the circumstances and the situations. I am what I am. But he's also the God who will show Israel the full extent of his power and love in the wilderness. The God who will rescue them out of Egypt with signs and wonders no one had ever seen before.

I will be what I will be, and you will come to understand who I am. This is the name that God will have forever, he says, for generations to come. You will remember my name. I am from generation to generation. This is the God who introduces himself not as a noun, but as a verb, a doing word.

And he reveals his unchanging nature and therefore his dependability. God is dependable. God is faithful, he says. If he says he is holy, then he will always be holy. If he says he is compassionate, then he will always be compassionate.

His love will always persevere. His love will always protect. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who bestowed upon them unmerited grace and favour will give and bestow and lavish love upon the generations to follow as well. The god who would rescue Israel would later send Jesus as well. The god who is, cannot, and will not change, and that is our greatest hope as Christians.

Because whatever our circumstances may be, whatever changing situations we find ourselves, we know that God remains perfectly the same. He is not fickle. His love protects and therefore he is dependable and faithful. We'll skip ahead a few thousand years and we see supremely this dependability when a man called Jesus comes thousands of years later, who at one time in John 8 made this astonishing announcement and listen to this. Speaking to the pharisees and the religious leaders, Jesus said to them, your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day.

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. They asked him, well, you aren't even fifty years old and you claim to have seen Abraham? I tell you the truth, Jesus answered. Before Abraham was born, I am. Before Abraham was born, I am.

That's how the Greek is translated. Friends, the amazing thing is that the I am God of Exodus 3, the one who showed himself as holy and compassionate, came to humanity in one great act of mercy in the person of Jesus Christ, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, who in his very nature being God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, humbling himself to death, even death on the cross as Paul says. This dependable, unchanging, perfectly loving God was moved by the plight of his people Israel under the yoke of slavery. But this same God was also moved by the plight of us under our burden of sin and death. As the new and better Moses, the Son of God came to lead us into a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where we can dwell and live and relate to our holy, compassionate, and dependable God.

Amen. Let's pray. Almighty God, holy, compassionate, and faithful. Lord, we thank you that you have come to us, that you have stooped down from your holy perfect throne to reveal yourself to us in this way. And father, thank you that our eyes have been opened, that even today, as we hear this again, our hearts are moved, that our hearts are warmed, and we know, Lord, that that experience is because of your Holy Spirit within us.

The holy transcendent God, the powerful God who controls even thermodynamics has set himself into our hearts and souls. What an amazing truth that is. Father, I pray that in our understanding that we will not forget who you are, that we will rest in the fact of your dependability, that you are the God who is always faithful, that your name is not a noun but a verb, that you will show to us who you are through your actions. That you will prove yourself to be faithful to us. We thank you, Lord, as we look back in our lives and we have seen this to be true.

That in all our situations, in the highs and the lows, you have proven yourself to be dependable and faithful. Father, we have also seen that you are compassionate, that you are moved by our plight, that you hear us, that you acknowledge us, that you value us, that you love us deeply. Lord, for whatever situation we find ourselves in, whether good or bad, we ask, Lord, that we may sense and experience your love. Fill us, Lord, with that. Fill us with the hope of that.

And, father, as we worship you as our holy God, we also pray that we may have the right reverence of your name, that you are not a play toy, you're not a plaything, that we cannot diminish your worth, and we ask for forgiveness of our corruption of the name that we bear of ourselves, the name of Jesus Christ that we carry. Forgive us for besmirching your name, for not giving it proper glory through our lives. We ask for your forgiveness as well. Father, we pray that as we go home, as we reflect on these words, Lord, that our knowledge of you may increase, that we may continue to press deeper and deeper into you, that we may come to a richer, more meaningful understanding of who you are in our lives, so we may love you better, that we may sense your nearness better. And so, Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.