We continue our study of the book of Exodus this morning that we began last Sunday.
So, take your Bible and join me in Exodus chapter 3
Let me remind you again of the free study guide that is available for you out in the foyer or as a download from the sermon page on our website. The study guide is for you to use the week before the sermon is preached so that you’ve got a better grasp on the context of our passage before we get to it on Sunday. There’s also room for you to take notes then at the end of each week.
We saw last week in Exodus chapters 1 and 2 how God sovereignly worked to bring the nation of Israel to the land of Egypt where he providentially preserved them during a severe famine in the land.
As the people of Israel multiplied and spread across the land the Egyptians became fearful of them and enslaved the entire nation.
For 400 years God’s chosen people were afflicted with heavy burdens and oppressed by ruthless taskmasters. Generation after generation was born and died as oppressed slaves yet God was sovereignly weaving together his perfect plan. God heard the cries of his people, he remembered his covenant with them, he saw their toil – and he knew.
In the midst of despair and hopelessness God preserved the life of a Hebrew baby boy named Moses. After spending the first 40 years of his life groomed and raised by the royalty of Egypt, Moses made a horrible decision and killed an Egyptian who was beating one of his fellow Hebrews.
When Pharaoh heard what Moses had done, he sought to kill him. Moses fled the land of Egypt and ended up in the land of Midian where he would spend another 40 years as a shepherd keeping watch over someone else’s sheep.
That’s where we find Moses at the beginning of chapter 3 of Exodus. (Acts 7:30 tells us 40 years had passed!) His 40 years of shepherding in the wilderness is about to come to a close because he’s going to have the “mountain top experience” of all “mountain top experiences.”
Let’s look at the text together – Exodus chapter 3 beginning in verse one. I’m going to read down to verse 17 and then pray.
Exodus 3:1-17 -
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the wmountain of God. 2 xAnd ythe angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, zGod called to him aout of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; btake your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, c“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for dhe was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the LORD said, e“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their ftaskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and gI have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and hto bring them up out of that land to a igood and broad land, a land jflowing with milk and honey, to the place of kthe Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, lthe cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the moppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 nCome, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, o“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, p“But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, qyou shall serve God on this mountain.” 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”1 And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: r‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD,2 the sGod of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is tmy name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. 16 Go and ugather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, v“I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that wI will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land wflowing with milk and honey.”’
Exodus 3 begins in a very unremarkable way. Moses was doing what many in his day would have done - he was tending sheep! The one who would soon be called to shepherd God’s people has spent 40 years undergoing shepherd training in Midian as he tended the flocks that belonged to his father-in-law, Jethro, who is referred to as “the priest of Midian.”
We don’t know why he is referred to as a priest at this point but based on what we’ll see later in Exodus with Jethro, it’s safe to say that he was not yet a follower of the One, True God.
Nevertheless - Moses was out one day, tending someone else’s flock and he came to a mountain named Horeb, which is referred to as “the mountain of God.” It’s the same mountain that is later referred to by its more well-known name - Sinai.
And in verse two things go from very unremarkable to almost unbelievable!
Moses sees a bush burning which isn’t a noteworthy occurrence in and of it self. But the more he looked at it there was something that wasn’t adding up!
Clearly the bush was burning but it was not consuming the bush!
Now, we just had a bonfire at our house Friday night. When we started the evening we had a decent pile of wood sitting next to the fire. By the end of the evening that pile was gone because the fire consumed the wood.
I’ve been around fire all my life and I can confidently say that’s what fire does! It consumes the fuel being burned as it undergoes rapid oxidation accompanied by heat and light. Whether it’s the wick and wax of your candle, the fuel in your car, or the wood on your campfire. Fire consumes whatever it is burning.
BUT NOT THIS BUSH! Moses knew that there was something strange about this burning bush so he turned aside to see what was happening.
And verse 4 tells us that when the LORD saw that Moses turned aside to see what was happening with the burning bush, he then spoke to Moses from “out of the bush.”
We, as the reader, are told back up in verse two that the reason the bush was burning was because the angel of the Lord was in the midst of the bush which we learn down in verse four was the Lord himself!
Often when we read “angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament it is a representation in some form of God Himself to his people, ultimately fulfilled and fully realized in Jesus! That’s the case here. The presence of the Lord was in the midst of the bush!
Moses didn’t have a clue what was about to happen until the LORD called his name from out of the bush!
MOSES! MOSES!
And I love Moses’ simple reply at the end of verse four “Here I am.”
Talk about a “mountain-top experience!” This would be the first of multiple encounters that Moses would have with the Lord, Himself, on top of this mountain. This is the same mountain top where Elijah would encounter the Lord. And each time the Lord meets with his people on this mountain, we learn more about how God has revealed himself to us.
Today we’ll see three main ways God reveals himself in this passage.
After calling out to Moses from the bush and Moses responded, The LORD then said in verse five… “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
This is the first occurrence of the noun “holy” in the Bible and it’s used to describe the ground around the bush. Even the ground around the bush is holy because God is holy!
The first way God reveals himself in this passage:
(1) in fiery holiness
Anytime the Lord appears in some manner to his people it is referred to as a “theophany” – literally “the appearance of God.” These visible appearances or representations of God don’t reveal the entire fullness or essence of God – meaning, we don’t see all of God’s glory.
Yet, even just a glimpse of His glory often involves fire and/or light.
In Genesis 15:17 (When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.)
The Lord’s presence appeared as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.
A little later in Exodus 13 we’ll see the Lord appear. Exodus 13:21b ”by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.”
The Psalmist in Psalm 50:3 “before him is a devouring fire.”
The Prophet Ezekiel observed
Ezekiel 1:4 “As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal.”
Later Moses told Israel (Deut. 4:24), “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
In the New Testament we see the same exact thing! John the Baptist announced that Jesus would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11).
In Acts 2 – when the Holy Spirit of God came upon the believers for the very first time he appeared as fire! (Acts 2:3)
In Acts chapter 9 – the Risen Lord Jesus appeared to Saul in a bright light from heaven and stopped him in his tracks.
In Revelation 1 – John said the eyes of Jesus were like a flame of fire!
Here in Exodus 3 God’s presence is revealed in fiery holiness from the midst of the bush and God now has Moses attention. But look at the warning back at the beginning of verse 5 – The Lord said, “Do not come near!”
Moses could not come any closer because God himself is a consuming fire! Think of the hottest, brightest flames you’ve ever seen. When you get too close you feel the effects of the heat.
And when the LORD revealed himself in fiery holiness so that the bush was burning, even the dirt around the bush was made holy by the presence of the Holy One of Israel!
This ought bring our understanding of God’s holiness to a whole new level.
Holiness is a glorious perfection belonging only to the nature of God. The basic sense of the word “holy” is “set apart from that which is commonplace, special, unique.” God is unlike any other being for he alone is complete and infinitely perfect in and of himself.
When we speak of God’s holiness, there are and infinite number of ways that God is “set apart, special, unique from everything and everyone” Here are just two:
(1) He is void of sin and evil
God’s holy nature cannot tolerate any form of sin so the unquenchable fire of his holy presence simply consumes any sin, including any sinful person.
That’s what John meant in his first epistle in the New Testament when he wrote “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)
God is void of sin and evil.
The second aspect of God’s holiness:
(2) He is right and true
There is a standard for proper holy living and it is God’s very own nature.
The standard is the fiery holiness of God which reveals his glory!
Moses did not and could not meet that standard on his own so God warned him in verse five “DO NOT COME NEAR!”
We’ll see in a few weeks in Exodus 15:11 – Moses proclaim in song -
Exodus 15:11 “Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”
Moses could sing that song because had seen first hand the fiery holiness of God! God’s holiness surrounds his presence and is produced by his glory like a consuming fire!
So that even the dirt was made holy.
After calling Moses, the first thing God did was proclaim his holiness.
The second thing he did was make a connection to the past. He identified himself as the same holy God of Moses’ father - the same holy God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And at the end of verse six, look at the response of Moses - Moses hid his face from the fiery holiness of God! Think how many times you’ve shielded your eyes from the bright sun or the first time you flip on that light early in the morning.
The power of God’s fiery holiness is infinitely more than the blinding light of a welding torch or scorching sun! It is the burning and brilliant glory of God that reveals the power and majesty of God!
Do you have a right, healthy fear and reverence of God’s fiery holiness? Or are you becoming too casual as you approach him? Perhaps too casual with the sin hanging around in your life? Perhaps too casual in the way you approach the corporate worship of God as we gather on Sunday? Perhaps to casual in the way you fail to prioritize the reading of God’s word and prayer?
Warren W. – “The professed Christian who uses God’s love as an excuse to sin and violate God’s holiness is (to use a phrase from Thomas Merton) ‘living on the doorstep of hell.’”
But, when you begin to think about and dwell upon the holiness of God it will wreck you just as Isaiah was wrecked as he saw the glory of God revealed in fiery holiness.
In fact, I submit to you today, that if you thinking about the awesomeness of God without the slightest tremble, without the least bit of awe -THEN YOU HAVE YET TO MEET THE GOD OF THE BIBLE!!
Maybe you’re frustrated with God today because you’re still waiting for a burning bush type moment. You’re waiting for God to call out your name so that you can fall on your face before him in reverent awe. Here’s the reality, God has already spoken directly to you, through his Son and his Word!
Every single time you open his breathed-out, living and active word, he is speaking to you!
The Lord called Moses’ name, and He, fellow Christian is calling your name. He wants to have an intimate relationship with you as his son or daughter. The Lord speaks to you directly, daily, decisively, through the Bible.
Burning bush experiences often flow from the regular spiritual disciplines of our lives. Don’t expect God to show up in your life in dramatic ways if you don’t regularly read his Word with a soft and humble heart, ready to hear the word of the Lord, where you are responding as Moses did – “here am I.”
God reveals himself in fiery holiness, that’s the first way He reveals himself in this passage. On to the second, look at verse 7.
Exodus 3:7 Then the LORD said, e“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their ftaskmasters. I know their sufferings
The same three actions of God we observed last week at the end of chapter 1! See – hear – know.
God sees the pain in your life. He hears the groaning from your soul. He hears the cry for help.
I don’t have time to retrace our steps our steps from last week, you can listen online or read the transcript. Here the truth is the same. But as we come to verse 8, there is a new phrase “I have come down to deliver them”
This is yet another way to signal the divine intervention of God. The all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present God does not hear or see or remember like humans, nor does he move from one place to another like humans.
He’s not been sitting up in heaven saying “don’t make me come down there. OK, now I’m coming.”
Rather when he says, “I have come down to deliver them” it shows us that God continues to be at work in the circumstances of the Israelites, even when he seems so silent.
Second, God reveals himself:
(2) by coming to save his people (VS 8)
God came down to rescue, “deliver” his people. God would bring them out of bondage to the Egyptians and he would bring them to a land as he promised to Abraham back in Genesis 15.
And oh was it a good land! A land flowing with milk and honey.
Milk meant animals sustained by good pasture lands. Honey meant plenty of bees feasting on the many blossoms from all the plants.
This is the first of over a dozen times in the Old Testament that the Promised Land is described as “flowing with milk and honey”
God would not leave his people in bondage forever. HE was intervening for the salvation of his people.
Just as God would do in the Incarnation, when the eternal Word, the true light became flesh and dwelt among us!
Here’s how the opening chapter of John’s gospel describes Jesus coming to save his people: John 1:10-12 “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”
Friend, no matter how dim the light seems in your life. No matter how desperate your despair. No matter how painful the scars of past sin. No matter the depth of your affliction. JESUS has come to seek and save the lost and to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he freely gives the right to become God’s children.
Believe in Jesus today and John 1:12 (But to all who did receive him, swho believed in his name, the gave the right uto become vchildren of God) shows us that the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ there is an eternal, irreversible change. We who were once dead are now alive. We who were once lost and without hope are now children of the living God.
God calls us as sinners, who were in bondage to sin, into His kingdom! An eternal home stored up for us, flowing with milk and honey.
Our eternal home is secure! Kept in heaven for us.
But God’s calling goes beyond the eternal promises to the personal responsibility to do the work God has prepared for us to do!
Once we are saved from the bondage of sin we become instruments in the redeemers hands.
Look at Exodus 3:10. The Lord said to Moses “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
The means by which God would work his rescue of his people was through Moses!
The Lord came down to deliver his people and Moses said AMEN!
The Lord came down to bring his people into the land flowing with milk and honey and Moses is still on board!
The Lord came down and said he was calling Moses to be his chosen instrument, to return to the land he had fled from 40 years earlier and Moses said - What – what now!?
Look at Moses’ response down in verse 11 of Exodus 3… But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
Moses was standing in the fiery presence of God and he’s about to learn an important lesson! Listen -
It’s not about who WE are – it’s about WHO GOD is. Look at God’s reply in verse 12 “He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Every time I read that verse I marvel at the sign God gave Moses. He said the sign that what He was saying was true would be that AFTER Moses led people out of Egypt he would serve or worship God at that mountain. Moses wouldn’t get the sign until after it had already happened.
We tend to think that God must perform the sign first and God does at least three signs for Moses before he did anything: (1) the burning bush (2) the rod that became a serpent at the beginning of chapter four and then (3) the leprous hand a few verses later in chapter four. These signs were given to stimulate faith.
But the sign the Lord promised in verse 12 would only be given AFTER Moses responds in faith.
So some signs are given to stimulate faith and others are given in response to faith!
While not the main point of this text, there is an application to be made to our lives. Maybe you are waiting for God to give you a sign before you step out in faith, when God has already made it sufficiently clear who he is and what it is that you are to do. God may require that you take that step of faith before he gives you the sign of His presence and power.
The key of verse 12 is at the beginning - God told Moses “I will be with you.”
God will make it happen! Because he has come down to save his people.
Only God has the power, as the Sovereign Lord, to carry out all that He wills. No one can thwart the plans of the Sovereign God. He knows and He guides everything that happens in the world toward the completion of his perfect plan.
Ultimately it is as God said through the prophet Ezekiel “Whatever word I speak will be accomplished.” (Ezekiel 12:25 – NET)
Still, we often question IF and HOW the circumstances of life around us are part of God’s sovereign plan. Let me assure you this morning, if something happens, it is part of God’s plan. In some way, God is allowing or guiding but always using whatever you’re experiencing for his perfect purposes, his glory and the ultimate good of his people.
Again this is what last week’s sermon was all about – so you’ll have to go back and listen – but it’s a building theme throughout all of Exodus. God brings us through periods of exile so that he can bring us to the land flowing with milk and honey.
When Moses objected to God’s plan , the Lord said “I will be with you.”
Brothers and sisters - The Lord himself is enough. God is enough for any problem or pressure or praise in this world. The presence of God in your life is enough to handle your rebellious child! The presence of God is enough to destroy the despair of a broken marriage! The presence of God is enough to empower you to forgive the most grievous offense.
God himself is enough. You don’t need more money, better health, more sleep, better behaved children, or a different job to handle your life problems. God with you is enough.
The foundational promise woven through Scripture at the heart of God’s redemptive plan, the means by which God would save His people, is the enduring promise of God’s presence.
Listen to the words of the hymn written over a 100 years ago…
“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.”
Jesus is, Immanuel, God with us. God has come to save his people. The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary and said “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
On to the third way God reveals himself:
In verse 13 and following - Moses looked around and he wasn’t convinced God had it right. He questioned God and said, “if I go to the people and they ask what your name is, what should I say?” Look at God’s reply in verse14.
Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ “
God identifies himself as I AM. HE is the ONE, true, Sovereign God who always has been and always will be. Referring to himself as the “I AM” points to God’s self-existence. God depends on no one for anything.
Children and sometimes adults ask, “Who made God?” Because we learn at a very early age that everyone and everything in our world has a beginning. But God is not a part of the Creation – He is the Creator.
When we think about and study God, endless mistakes and heresies have resulted from supposing conditions, bounds and limits of our own finite existence apply to God.
They do not! God has life in himself and draws His unending power from Himself.
He needs nothing from no one!
He is the I AM, totally transcendent and beyond anything we can comprehend.
Yet he has revealed himself so that we might know him.
The third way God reveals himself:
3) As transcendent yet knowable
Because of his revelation to us in His Word, we can now know - the transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present – CREATOR GOD!
We can now know God because he has come to us. In the New Testament book of Colossians we read that in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).
John 14:6-7 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
The only way we know God is by knowing Jesus, God-incarnate.
Jesus is infinitely more than a good teacher or prophet of God.
Listen to what Jesus said to a group of Jews -
John 8:58-59 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”
Why did the Jews immediately pick up stones? They understood that Jesus just claimed to be divine. He referred to himself as the “I AM” reference to YHWH
If you know Jesus then you know the transcendent God!
And when you know the transcendent God it will change the way you live because you’ve seen the fiery holiness of the God who came to save his people.
As I close, listen to these words of the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:9-12: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Peter is highlighting the reality of knowing the transcendent God and look at what he says will happen as a result of knowing Him and experiencing his mercy. His very next words: “11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
© Geist Community Church
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the content in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. Questions? Email: church@geist.org. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: by Matt Walker. © Geist Community Church—McCordsville, Indiana. www.geist.org
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