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I AM WHO I AM
I AM WHO I AM Exodus 3:1-22 Key Verse: 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’” In the previous passage we learn how God began to raise up one man to be the deliverer for his people Israel. God began by using his nameless parents to protect him and to even raise him for the first few formative years of his life. Through this Moses was able to identify with God’s people rather than identifying himself as a prince of the Egyptians. God also provided the best education both physically and mentally for the young Moses by enabling him to be raised in Pharaoh’s household. After forty years of this upbringing we learned about Moses character. Like God Moses hated to see injustice and he was willing to act to correct it when he saw it. When he saw an Egyptian mistreating one of his own people Moses tried to correct this injustice by killing the Egyptian. This did not work, because Moses was acting based on his own sense of justice and according to his own timetable. God still had to train Moses until he could humbly listen to God and do exactly what God wanted him to do in order to bring about God’s perfect justice. In this passage, Moses forty years of desert training as a shepherd is over and it is time for God to call Moses forward for the great mission He has in store for Moses. Although, this chapter is about God calling Moses we learn mainly about who God is. God is the one who exists simply because he exists. God has to exist or nothing else can exist. Moreover, God is the one who sees the end of the matter before the matter actually begins. God knows exactly what is going to happen because he is the absolute Sovereign ruler of all history. May God open our hearts today and help us to clearly understand who he is so that we can take up the cross of mission he has prepared for each one of us. Part I, God call Moses by name (1-4). At the time this passage opens Moses had been tending his father-in law’s sheep for forty years in the desert. It is interesting to note that verse one repeats the fact that Jethro was the priest of Midian – this is also the way that he is introduced in 2:16. We don’t know what God the priest of Midian served, but the fact that Moses mentioned this twice might indicate that he served the one true God and that Moses had grown spiritually under his care for the past forty years. This is another example of how God took perfect care to see that Moses was raised in a way that would perfectly build him up to accomplish the mission that He for Moses. After forty years of shepherding Moses had probably seen just about everything there was to see in the desert. There was probably nothing that would really surprise him or even draw any special attention from him. However, on this day there was something that caught his attention. He was with his flock at Mt. Horeb, or the “Mountain of God” – this was another name for Mt. Sinai. As he was tending his sheep there as he had probably done hundreds of times before, he noticed a bush that was on fire. This may not have been that unusual given the fact that deserts tend to dry out plants and they can easily catch fire, but this fire and this bush were different. Although it was burning, the bush did not appear as though it was being consumed by the fire. This immediately drew Moses attention and he went over to investigate. As he was about to learn, this fire was no ordinary fire. Look at verse 2. “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.” The Bible says that this was no fire at all, it was the angel of the LORD who had come to speak with Moses personally. It is interesting that God chose this way to visit Moses. In Exodus 24, Deuteronomy 4, 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 18, Isaiah 30 & 33 and Hebrews 12, God is described as a consuming fire. Yet here God is appearing as fire but not consuming the bush, in fact he is preserving the bush. God does consume those who transgress against him, because he is a righteous God. But God also preserves those who fear him and honor him just as he preserved Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were thrown into the fiery furnace when they wouldn’t bow down to the image of gold Nebuchadnezzar had set up. God is a god who can consume, but he is also the God who can preserve us in any situation. When Moses saw this and decided to go aver and see exactly what was happening, suddenly a voice called out to him from inside the bush. The voice said, “Moses, Moses!” God knew exactly who was approaching him. He knew Moses by name. In fact, it was God who had raised Moses and brought him specifically to this place in his life. God had taken care of Moses and made sure that he had received everything he would need to complete the unbelievably difficult mission that God had in store for him. In the same way I believe that God knows each of us and he is calling each of us by name to carry out the mission he has prepared for us. God knows what we have been through, and God can use all of it as our training. Like Moses, God has brought each of us to this point in our life and he is calling our name. He has trained us perfectly to carry out the specific mission he has created us for. Like Moses we must listen for his calling and simply answer like Moses, “Here I am.” Then we need to listen to what God has to say. Part II, I am the God of your father (5-13). So what did God say to Moses once he got his attention. Look at verse 5. “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” God began by telling him to stop where he was and not come any closer. In fact God told him to off his sandals because the place where he was standing was holy ground. As I said before, Moses had probably been to this place a hundred times over the previous forty years and he had never once thought of stopping and taking off his sandals because that ground was holy. It was just ordinary ground like all the other ground he grazed the sheep on. However this day it was different. On this day, God was present on this ground and where God is, the ground, the air and everything around him is holy. By telling Moses to stop and take off his sandals God was saying “Moses you must be holy because I am holy and I am in this place.” This tells us the basic attitude we must have when we come into the presence of God. We cannot approach him any way we want, we must approach him with reverence and fear because where God is holy ground. This idea is brought up again and again at the end of this book, and also in Numbers, Leviticus and Deuterronomy. Look at verse 6. “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. In this verse we learn several things about God and one thing about Moses. First, God begins with the words “I am” which he will expand upon in verse 14. This is important because the verb “to be” or “am” in this case is in the present tense. It means that God is always present. There is never a time when God is not there; he always is. Now let’s think about the next words. “The God of your father.” Many Biblical commentaries claim that this word “father” here is a singular form a collective word because God mentions the three patriarchs immediately afterward, however I like to think about as exactly what it would mean in today’s English. God is saying that he is the God of Moses father, that no named Levite who went to such great lengths to save Moses when he was a baby. The same Levite, who together with his wife, raised Moses in such a way that he identified with God and God’s people instead of the Egyptians. Perhaps by mentioning him here right before the three patriarchs god was giving this man the recognition he deserved. Then God goes on to mention the three patriarchs who had died almost half a millennium ago. That’s 500 years before and yet God used the present tense of the verb “to be” and he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” As Jesus would point out nearly 2000 years later this must mean that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive and living with God, because the great “I am” is still their God. So in God, there is no death. God (and Jesus) is the same yesterday today and forever. He is my God now and he will be for all eternity because he is (he exists) always in the present. The final thing that I am reminded here about God is that he is identifying himself with the patriarchs and therefor as the God of the Israelites. God remembers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he remembers the promises that he made with them. Now God was ready to fulfill those promises. God never forgets the promises he makes. We often forget these promises especially when we face difficult situations in life, but God never forgets. God goes on to tell Moses that he remembers the promises that he made to those patriarchs and now he was going to fulfill them. He was going to deliver his people from bondage just as he told Abraham nearly 500 years before and then he was going to bring them into a good and spacious land. The land was good because it was flowing with milk and honey and we know it was spacious (at least for that time) because there were six nations living in it at that time; the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perrizites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. God also told Moses that he heard the cries of his people. God hears his people when they cry out to him. We must always believe this so that when we feel that we are facing a hopeless situation we can have great hope because the great “I am,” the sovereign God of all history hears us and remembers us. I encourage you to go through the Bible and find even one promise that you can hold onto. Memorize and never forget it no matter what situation you might face. The promise that I hold onto can be found in Jeremiah 29:11-14 “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.[a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Part III, I AM WHO I AM (14-22) In verse 13 Moses asks God what he should tell the Israelite leaders when they ask the name of the God who sending Moses to them to do these great things. Look at verse 14. “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’” As we have said, the words “I AM” have great significance, but I want to think about this a little bit more. I am, or I exist, because God created me. You are, or you exist, for the same reason. Without God neither of us, nor anything that we see around us can say “I am” because we don’t exist in and of ourselves. We are created beings. We exist because we have a creator, but God is much different. He is simply because He is. He exists because he is existence. It is something that beyond our comprehension as human beings because we have never nor can we ever experience this. Yet this is who God says he is and this is absolutely what I believe. So what practical application does this have for my life. Well, the simplest way to say it is this, without God our life has no meaning at all, because only God exists in and of himself. Only God has absolute meaning in him. Without Him none of us can create our own meaning in life. We can try, but in the end it won’t be a real meaning, because it will all go away in a few years. However, in God we have pure existence and therefore pure meaning. After all our existence comes from God and therefore he must know the meaning of why we exist. These simple words are really profound and they must be accepted if we are to hold onto the Bible as absolute truth. It is a deep spiritual truth and it takes a lot of prayer, time and perseverance to accept. God goes onto to say to Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that 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. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” He reminds Moses and us that he is the God who hears us and he is the God who will rescue his people. He is also the God who gives a great mission to carry out. Sometimes this mission might seem overwhelming as it did to Moses. The mission seemed so overwhelming to Moses that he tried to refuse it no less than 5 times. Can you imagine that, saying “no” to God, not just once or twice, but five times. |
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