The God Who Is

[0:00] All right, well, on our church's Facebook group this past Monday, I encouraged all of you to ask friends, ask family members these two questions.

[0:12] So here are the two questions that we put out to our friends and family members this week. How did you get your name? That's the first one. Second one, why is a person's name significant or important?

[0:25] How did you get your name and why is a person's name significant or important? Now, if you passed on the opportunity this week, let me just tell you, you were missing out. Because I had some really great conversations about that.

[0:39] Everyone I talked to, everyone I heard from, it seems like just about everybody gets their name from their parents. That seems to be a thing and it's very telling, right? We'll get back to that in a little bit later in the service.

[0:52] But where their parents got those names from, well, that was all over the map. And that was pretty, I just learned some fascinating stories. We've got a story, one man whose parents found his name in an almanac of all places.

[1:06] There's another man named, he was named, believe it or not, after a cartoon character, a raccoon, that his sister was obsessed with growing up. And so he, you know, he told me, he says, I think that's where I got my big ears and big nose from.

[1:20] And then there's another man I spoke to. He gave me permission to say his name, and that's important. His name was Dominique with a Q-U-E. And that's a name that parents will usually give a baby girl, not a boy.

[1:34] Growing up, his dad told him that he'd been named after the basketball player Dominique Wilson. And then at age 13, his mom told him the real story. His parents had picked out the name Dominique before his birth because they were expecting a girl.

[1:50] And when he was born, they just said, well, I guess we'll keep the name. So this guy usually goes by the name Dom, but he doesn't mind the name Dominique.

[2:01] In fact, what he told me is that he actually likes the name. He subscribes by the saying, all you have is your name. All you have is your name.

[2:13] And that saying is true in some ways, isn't it? Because you can have relationships, you can have possessions, you can have a home, food, shelter, money, you name it. But in the end, all that can be taken away from you.

[2:26] And just about all of it is taken away from you. But your name represents your nature. It represents your essence, who you are. So your name defines you.

[2:39] It identifies you. All you have is your name. Now what we're hearing this morning is that, what we're going to be hearing this morning from Exodus chapter 3 is this truth that God has a name.

[2:50] God actually has a name. This is something that I guess I didn't realize growing up and it kind of bowled me over when I found out about this. But God's name is not God. Even though we address him as God.

[3:01] The word God, it describes what kind of being he is. It's like talking to me and calling me human or man. That's what I am.

[3:14] That's not who I am. And so God describes what he is, but his name tells us who he is. And because of who God is, as we come to know who God is, that tells us a lot about who we are as well.

[3:30] Because we are human beings created in the image of this God. And our understanding of ourselves is going to come from our understanding of who God is.

[3:41] So let's look at Exodus chapter 3, verses 11 through 22 to see how this plays out. Now if you're using one of the blue Bibles that a rush was handed to you, that'll be on page 46.

[3:52] Exodus chapter 3, verses 11 through 22. Now Carl read this text earlier, so we won't read it in its entirety. We'll just sort of go through it bit by bit to understand it.

[4:04] But the background behind this text is this, that thousands of years ago the people of Israel, they were slaves in the land of Egypt. They were suffering brutally under Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

[4:14] But God had made a covenant commitment before they went to Egypt. God had made a covenant commitment to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[4:25] He'd made this covenant to make them a great nation, to give them the land of Canaan, to bless the world through this people. So God, at this point in the story, by Exodus chapter 3, God has set apart a leader, a man named Moses.

[4:43] Moses has been exiled into the desert to the east of Egypt. Moses has been a shepherd for the last 40 years. Until at age 80, God appears to him in a burning bush in the wilderness.

[4:56] So I don't want anyone to ever say, well, I'm too old for God to do something with me. Moses was 80. And God's work in his life is just beginning.

[5:08] God has told Moses that he is sending him to rescue his people from slavery and bring them into the promised land. And so in Exodus chapter 3, verses 11 through 12, here is how Moses responds.

[5:24] Moses said to God, So this is the first response, the first of five consecutive responses that Moses has to God's call, to God's commission of him as the leader of Israel.

[5:52] His first response is this, Who am I? Who am I? And truthfully, that is a very good response. Because God has just revealed to Moses, we saw last week, that God has just revealed to Moses his holiness, his power.

[6:10] And so Moses responds with humility. Who am I? He's recognizing his own lack of status, his own lack of success. Moses has already tried to save his fellow Israelites.

[6:23] We saw that a couple weeks ago. Moses kind of did a little bit of a vigilante justice thing. He tried to get the Israelites to follow him, tried to work some justice for them. Instead, he was rejected.

[6:34] He was alienated. Moses is a failure. Moses is a failure. He could not save the Israelites from a desolate future. In fact, he couldn't even save himself.

[6:46] He was exiled. Had to run for his life. Exiled into the desert. This is the first reality that we encounter in these verses. Human beings are inadequate for God's mission.

[7:00] Human beings are inadequate for God's mission. God's intentions for Israel. God's intentions, his plan, was to bless the whole world by delivering the Israelite people from slavery, by establishing them as his new kingdom in the land where he is present in this promised land.

[7:21] And through his son, through Jesus Christ, the man who fulfilled all that Israel was meant to be, God has done that. He's brought good news that Jesus is Lord, that the kingdom of God is meant to not only be, not to be confined to one nation in the, to one area in the Middle East, but to reach every corner, every continent on the earth.

[7:41] And God has given you and me, as Christians, the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ, to show the world the mercy and justice of God's kingdom.

[7:53] Now here is the problem. You and I do not have what it takes to carry out God's mission. You and I do not have what it takes.

[8:05] First, as human beings, we cannot save ourselves. We were born into this world as slaves, just as surely as the people of Israel were.

[8:20] The thing is, we were born as slaves, and our slavery is a lot harder to escape from. Because we're born as slaves to our desire for independence from God, our desire to defy God and go our own way, corrupting the good world that God has created.

[8:37] So the Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 6, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

[8:54] So we're born slaves to sin, obeying it, always, always, always, always seeking independence from God in everything that we do.

[9:05] And the problem with this sort of slavery is that it is inside of you. You can get, maybe, if you have the right connections, if you have the right money, if you have the right opportunity, you can get out of a country where you are a slave.

[9:22] You can't get out of your own skin. That selfish ambition and pride, that craving for security and comfort, trying to get it all by any means other than the Lord, it has corrupted every part of our being.

[9:39] Our desire to usurp God, to replace Him, to put ourselves at the center, we can't save ourselves from that.

[9:50] Second of all, not only can we not save ourselves, we can't save others either. That's one of the most difficult things you learn about being an elder of a church, is that we're charged with shepherding, we're charged with caring for the people of the church, and we have absolutely no ability to change the heart of a single person in this room.

[10:16] I have zero ability to change the heart of any one of you. That can be a very discouraging thing. That can be a difficult thing.

[10:30] I mean, I can't even change my own heart, for that matter. So when I say no one in this room, I mean myself too. And then we live, and if that's just in this room, we live in a whole society, we live in a whole world in which injustice and evil, they are stitched into the very fabric of our way of life.

[10:51] And, you know, it really seems like it just takes this Herculean effort, mass social movement, just to make even the slightest change in the way that our world is structured.

[11:03] We can't save ourselves, and we can't save anyone else. human beings are inadequate for God's mission. This is why God's response to Moses in verse 12 is so important.

[11:20] Moses asks God, who am I? And he noticed that God does not answer his question by saying, well, Moses, let me tell you all about yourself and how great a person you are.

[11:30] Here's what you are gifted and skilled at. Here's who you are as a person. No, God says to Moses and said, I will be with you. I will be with you.

[11:42] So there is no pep talk here. God doesn't tell Moses that he's great. God doesn't tell Moses, you know, that I believe in you. You can do anything if you set your mind to it. He's not here to boost Moses' self-esteem.

[11:53] He's here to boost Moses' God-esteem. He's here to boost Moses' God-esteem. If there's going to be any hope for you, any hope for me, any hope for our church, any hope for our world, it is going to be found in this promise.

[12:10] I will be with you. I will be with you. Because that is the message of the gospel. And that is what we long for.

[12:21] That relationship with God. Eternal life. Knowing God and his son Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And his name is Emmanuel. God with us.

[12:37] It is a promise. I will be with you that God gives to his people again and again and again and again throughout scripture. It is a promise that comes to pass in its fullest form when God sends his own son, Jesus Christ.

[12:53] Because Jesus was not only fully man, he is fully God. And his promise continues its fulfillment because God has sent his Holy Spirit to live in each one of us who believes in Jesus Christ.

[13:10] To live among us as his church. God is with us. And God not only tells Moses, I will be with you, in verse 12, God gives him a sign.

[13:24] Moses and the Israelites will return to Mount Sinai to worship God there. Now, this one always seemed really weird to me because you'd think of a sign as something that comes beforehand to let Moses know, hey, don't worry, it's going to happen just like I say.

[13:38] And God says, well, just so you know, once everything happens, then I'll give you the sign. That seems a little odd to us. This is a sign of a different sort. It's a fulfillment sign. And so, there's a commentator who explained it a lot better than I can, Douglas Stewart.

[13:52] He says, a fulfillment sign is a confirmation that a prophet or leader has completed a key part of a task assigned to him by God. The fulfillment sign for Moses' call was a successful exodus followed by arrival at Mount Sinai and worship there by all the people.

[14:12] This is significant because it is not merely measurable by the movement of the people from one place to another, but also by their movement from one faith to another.

[14:23] They would get to Sinai, but more importantly, they would get to saving belief in the only true and living God. When he brought the people out of Egypt, God says, you shall serve God on this mountain.

[14:37] And that is his mission, to move the people of Israel from despair and unbelief to belief and hope in the one true God.

[14:48] And that is our mission today. And that is how we know that we are doing the work that God has called us to do. God agrees with Moses that human beings are inadequate for God's mission, but God promises to be with him and to confirm the work that he has prepared Moses to do.

[15:07] Now, maybe that helped make Moses feel a little bit better, but Moses still has several concerns he would like to raise to God. And so the first one is pretty straightforward. Moses doesn't seem to know the name of the God that he's talking to.

[15:23] Kind of a big concern. You ever been in that situation where someone starts talking to you and you realize that you don't know that person's name? They seem to know you and you're pretty sure that maybe you've seen that face before?

[15:38] This happens all the time when you're a pastor. Everybody knows your name. And every once in a while you run to somebody where you're like, hmm, hey, buddy.

[15:55] Here's what, well, Moses does the right thing in this situation. So instead of trying to play it off like, you know, God, I really know his name, Moses actually just comes right out and asks him. I had to do that last night.

[16:06] I was meeting some new people and I had to, somebody told me their name and then I realized half an hour later that I'd already forgotten it. So I had to, you have to swallow your pride and ask again. And so Moses swallows his pride and then he says in verse 13, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you.

[16:26] And they ask me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? So, it's kind of funny because Moses knows that this God he's talking to, he calls him, calls him the God of your fathers.

[16:41] He knows that this God has a long history with the people of Israel, with their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses knows that this is the God of his own father because God has told him all these things.

[16:53] But Moses doesn't know the name of this God. It's really, it's kind of, you can't really tell from this passage, you know, whether this knowledge of God's name, you know, has it been lost to the people of Israel in general?

[17:09] Have they forgotten God's name as a nation? Or maybe, you know, they're in a land, the land of Egypt, a land known for, like every other nation on earth at the time, a land known for polytheism.

[17:23] You worshipped all sorts of gods, you tried to, you know, hedge your bets, you tried to keep all the different gods happy. You know, everybody believed that everybody else's gods were real and stuff. And so maybe the Israelites just, they had a whole bunch of different gods that they knew about and served and this God was one of them.

[17:40] And maybe Moses is saying, you know, how am I going to tell them which God? Which God is speaking here? Maybe they do know God's name.

[17:55] And Moses, Moses is expecting them to sort of test him on it. Do you really know the name of the God that we worship? Regardless, no matter what the situation is, there is a lack of knowledge here on the part of Moses, definitely, and probably on the part of the Israelites as well.

[18:16] They don't know who God is. When I was talking with people this week about the importance or the significance of a person's name, you know, each person I talked to would say something very similar about what made a person's name important or significant.

[18:32] Because they would say something like, a name distinguishes who you are as an individual. It gives you a unique character and purpose. Your name becomes who you are.

[18:47] It defines your identity as a person and sets you apart from the people around you. And so it is with God's name. God's name is not known only because God himself is not known.

[19:06] And Moses wants to know who this God is. This God who has said, I will be with you. And here's how God responds to Moses' question.

[19:18] What is his name? Verse 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.

[19:38] So this is the name that God has given Moses. I am who I am. Or if you're into short nicknames, just I am.

[19:53] And there has been so much written about this incredible foundational phrase. Things have been written about this for thousands of years, for millennia.

[20:05] You could fill a library with the literature on this. About what this name means. I mean, just some very basic, obvious stuff that you can tell just right from the get-go.

[20:19] I mean, God is a personal being. I am. He is self-aware. He knows he exists. So God is not an impersonal force.

[20:30] There are many religions in the world today, primarily Eastern religions, that would say, you know, God is just sort of this impersonal force. God is maybe what makes up the universe, but he doesn't really, there is no he.

[20:40] It's just God is sort of this thing. But here, we see that God calls himself I am.

[20:51] Remember that someone's name gives them a unique identity. Someone's name sets that person apart from anyone else, from any other person, any other God. So how does I am who I am distinguish God from any other being?

[21:07] Well, you know, I can't help when I hear that phrase, I am who I am. I can't help but think about a common English phrase, sort of a common expression that we've all heard.

[21:19] And this is one that a former boss of mine used to use all the time. Because when I worked in the warehouse of a carpet store for a couple years, you know, the construction industry, sometimes things don't go like you expect.

[21:33] All right? Those of you who worked in that know exactly what I mean. Things tend to go sideways a lot of times. You know, you'd be put in frustrating or difficult situations. A product arrives damaged and it's due to be installed tomorrow.

[21:46] And the homeowner can't delay any longer. Or the customer just changes their schedule at the last minute. Or something else goes wrong. And when faced with this, here's what my boss would say to me.

[21:58] It is what it is. It is what it is. And what he meant by that is that we could not deny the reality of the situation.

[22:10] We couldn't just close our eyes and wish it away. Right? All the grousing and griping in the world isn't going to make the problem go away. We couldn't control the situation.

[22:21] We had no power to change the situation. We had no choice but to accept it, respond to it the best way we could. It is what it is. It is what it is. Independent of you and me.

[22:37] And so when God says, I am who I am, God is saying something to Moses about God's essential nature. Who he is uniquely that no one else is.

[22:51] What distinguishes God from anyone else? And what distinguishes God is that he is. He is.

[23:03] Now, that might not seem to be very unique at first. I mean, I exist too, hopefully. Maybe some of you just think I'm a figment of your imagination, but I'm here to relieve you of any such misunderstandings.

[23:21] I exist too. I think you guys exist too. I exist too. What sets God apart is that his existence, his being, is different from ours. It is fundamentally different.

[23:34] God is in a way that you and I are not. Now, theologians call this doctrine the aseity of God.

[23:47] Aseity of God. And you'll find a definition in sort of the theological vocabulary corner section of your books. And I think it's on the outside cover on the back page. Maybe not. So if not, just look around and you'll find it in there.

[23:58] So what I did was I found a couple definitions for this aseity of God and combined them into one because I thought that together they worked better. So aseity, that's A-S-E-I-T-Y.

[24:10] And here's how you define it. Aseity is an attribute of God, also called his self-existence, or independence. His self-existence or his independence.

[24:22] God is not dependent on anything else for existence. He has eternally existed without any external or prior cause.

[24:34] And he does not need us or the rest of creation for anything. Though we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy. So this is what sets God apart from you, what sets God apart from me, what sets God apart from anything else in the cosmos.

[24:51] You and I exist. We exist. We do. But we exist finitely. We are bound and constrained by space and time. God exists eternally, independent of space and time.

[25:10] You and I, we don't have to exist. We didn't have to exist. You didn't have to be born. God necessarily exists.

[25:27] God necessarily exists. He has to exist. You and I, we need to be sustained by food and water, by air and light, by gravity and the laws of physics.

[25:39] God needs nothing at all to sustain him. In fact, God is the one who sustains everything else, including you and me.

[25:55] So human beings are inadequate for God's mission. We are finite, fragile, contingent beings, but God is independent. God is independent.

[26:09] The God who Moses encounters is the God who is. And there are so many implications of this truth and they are all good news.

[26:24] They are good news to those who believe in Jesus Christ. For one thing, God and only God is self-existent and this means that God's very nature is to be.

[26:38] And that God's very nature is not only to be, but to bring into being, to bring to life. That is an outward expression of his nature.

[26:49] That's just who he is. God is life-giving. God is creating. He brings into being the cosmos the universe, everything else that has its being.

[27:03] Why? Because God has being. And God gives the breath of life to you and to me and to anyone and anything that lives.

[27:15] And this means that God has absolute command and absolute control of everything because its being depends on him.

[27:27] in him we live and move and have our being. As an ancient poet once said and the apostle Paul quoted, in the ancient world to know someone's name or to give someone a name much like your parents gave you is to have some degree of authority or control over that person.

[27:51] if you don't believe me on that, you know, I can call your name right now, Murray Purdy and get a reaction out of him.

[28:05] His name gives me control. Hundreds of years before Moses, his ancestor Jacob had literally found himself, long story short, he found himself in a wrestling match with God.

[28:19] Like, literally, he was wrestling with God and it might not surprise you to learn that Jacob lost. Right? He didn't win. Here is the conversation afterward in Genesis chapter 32.

[28:31] And he, that is God, said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel.

[28:48] for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. So not only does God get Jacob's name out of him, he says, you know what, I'm going to give you a new one. I'm going to name you. Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name.

[29:04] But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel saying, for I have seen God face to face.

[29:18] And yet my life has been delivered. Jacob's just happy to get out of this one alive. I mean, just a gumption to be like, you know, well, what is your name?

[29:31] As if he can seize any last little bit of control out of this situation. And God's like, why do you ask that? And he walks away and doesn't even give his name to him. So Jacob says, well, at least I'll name the place Peniel.

[29:43] know. So not only does God best Jacob in a wrestling match, he gets Jacob to admit his name, and then he changes Jacob's name. Just so you know, Jacob, you're not even in control of your own name.

[29:56] And then when Jacob asks God for his name, he won't surrender it. God is in command, not Jacob. Jacob has no control over the situation. It is what it is. Your name is Israel.

[30:06] It is what it is, is a phrase that spells an end to what human beings can control. I am who I am is a name that also spells the end of what human beings can control.

[30:21] It is a name unlike any other name because it is a name that cannot be controlled. Human beings are inadequate for God's mission. Why are human beings inadequate?

[30:32] Because God is independent. God is independent. even though humans are inadequate. And God then proceeds to show Moses in Exodus chapter 3.

[30:44] He proceeds to show Moses how this aseity, his independence, how it makes all the difference. It makes all the difference in the world about what happens to the people of Israel.

[30:54] Because in verse 15, he restates his name for Moses. Now, if you look carefully at your Bible, and looking real close at verse 15, you'll notice that God calls himself the Lord, which is the first time he's done so in the book of Exodus.

[31:12] And in most English translations of the Bible, you'll find that that word Lord, notice anything different about it? What are you noticing? What's different about that from all the words around it?

[31:26] It's all capitalized, right? It's all written in these small capital letters. letters. If you and I were to continue reading through the Old Testament of the Bible, you'd find that most of the times that this word Lord appears, not all the time, but most of the times, it's the same way.

[31:43] It's in small caps. Now, whenever you see the word Lord written that way, what that means is that the word in the Hebrew language actually is not the word Lord or Master.

[31:57] It's a different word. It is the divine name. It is God's name. It's the third person version of I am.

[32:08] It's a word that originally meant he is, as best as we can tell. He is. After the Old Testament was completed, this word, this name, in the centuries afterwards, it became so sacred to the Jewish people that they stopped pronouncing it out loud.

[32:26] They didn't want the they had this, they treated it so, with such high esteem and so sacred that they wouldn't even say it out loud anymore so they wouldn't take it in vain.

[32:38] But if you read the Bible in its original Hebrew, you'll see the divine name written as four letters, Y-H-W-H, Yahweh. Yahweh, he is.

[32:51] Maybe you've read some old writings or seen some old hymns that the name Jehovah appears in. That was an Old English mispronunciation of the divine name. Here's what God literally says in verse 15.

[33:05] Say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

[33:18] This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. God says about his name, this is my name forever.

[33:37] He is, and he is eternally, not bound by time or space. He is not subject to the transforming, eroding effects of time, because you and I, we change over time, don't we?

[33:55] The person you married becomes a different person ten years later, and a different person ten years after that.

[34:07] Your children will be different at age three than they are at age 13. Thank God. You know, we change. But the apostle James, in James chapter one, he refers to God as the father of lights.

[34:22] with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. I saw that line from the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness comes from.

[34:34] Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God, my father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not. Thy compassions, they fail not.

[34:46] As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. He is the same yesterday and today and forever.

[34:58] And so God's character, his holiness, his wisdom, his love, everything about him, everything that is essential to who he is, they never change either.

[35:12] Ever. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob is the God of Moses. the God of the Old Testament has remained unchanged until today.

[35:27] He is the same as the God of the New Testament. He was not a God of wrath in the Old Testament, a God of love in the New. He is a God of wrath and a God of love in both the Old and the New and today.

[35:39] Nothing about him has changed. The God of Moses that we have heard from this morning thousands of years ago is the same God who is present among us whom you and I worship today and he has not changed Nyota and he will never change.

[36:04] 60 billion years from now he will be exactly the same as he is today. And that might be bad news if God were an uncaring God.

[36:19] God were this blind watchmaker who just sort of greets the world and lets it go who has lost interest in it and who does not involve himself in the world anymore.

[36:31] If so that would be terrible news because that means there's nothing you can do to get God back. It's gone forever and we're on our own. But in verse 16 God wants Moses to relay a message to the it's really hard to capture in English what is meant by this word that is translated here in the English Standard Version is observed.

[36:59] I think the New Living Translation does a better job of getting at the meaning when it says I have been watching closely I been watching you closely. The idea is that the Lord has been carefully counting the people of God.

[37:14] He has not lost sight of a God knows them all individually each by name. He knows every hair on their heads because God is self existent but God is not aloof.

[37:33] He is independent but he is not detached. He is transcendent but he is not distant. He is not far away.

[37:46] He is unchanging in his compassion in his concern for his people. And in verse 17 his message to them is I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey because God made a covenant God made a promise bound by an oath swearing by himself because there is no one greater to swear by.

[38:18] He made this covenant with Abraham and with all his descendants after him and God here reiterates this promise again to the people of Israel. Why?

[38:29] Because God does not change and he wants them to know that his purposes do not change either. And from verses 15 through 22 God pretty much just walks Moses through here is everything that is going to happen blow by blow in the coming months.

[38:43] In fact in all these verses God only gives Moses one command. In verse 16 God says to him and it's a little bit confused by the English but there's only one command in all these verses in verse 16 the command is go.

[39:02] Go and the rest is promise. The rest is promise. God is not the least bit concerned that things are going to go any other way than what he plans.

[39:14] This morning in the journey class as we've been studying the book Knowing the Living God we've been studying who God is what it means for God to have a will and the author we're reading Paul Washer he reminds us of this truth he says God is the only one who is completely free to do whatever he purposes in himself without limitations or the possibility of failure God is the only one who is completely free to do whatever he purposes in himself without limitations or the possibility of failure God is the only one whose will is not bound or constrained by outside limitations he does whatever he wants whatever he wants he does so God is both willing and able to keep all of his promises he is sovereign he is in total command of all there is all there was and all there ever will be human beings are inadequate for God's mission but God is independent so he is sovereign and faithful to his promises he is sovereign and faithful to his promises many many centuries after the exodus there was a man that stood on trial before the religious leaders of

[40:47] Israel and they were trying to find an excuse to condemn him to death because they viewed him as a threat to their control over the nation this man refused to answer their questions until the high priest spoke up and in Mark chapter 14 we read the high priest asked him are you the Christ the son of the blessed that means the son of God and Jesus said I am and you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven and they were furious and they condemned him to death for blasphemy because they knew that when he said I am he was claiming the name of God they tried to ruin him they tried to wipe him out from existence but he is and his death was part of

[41:55] God's plan and purpose from the beginning of time it did not surprise God it was always intended to be this way so that God would be known by a new name a name that means God saves and so the apostle Paul writes about this man and this new name in Philippians chapter two being in very nature God he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of

[42:59] Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father and so Jesus of Nazareth the God man he did what no man could do human beings are inadequate for God's mission but God is independent so he is sovereign and he is faith his promises let's pray our God