Today we're reading from Exodus 2, 23 to 3, 15.
In terms of context, God's people are enslaved in Egypt.
All their baby boys have been thrown to the Nile,
and any hope in Moses has gone as he has fled to Midian after killing an Egyptian.
During those days, the king of Egypt died,
and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.
Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God,
and God heard their groaning.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.
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 mountain of God.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire,
out in the midst of a bush.
He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight.
Why? The bush is not burned.
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,
God called to him out of the bush,
Moses, Moses!
And he said, Here I am.
Then he said, Do not come near.
Take your sandals off your feet,
for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.
And he said, 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 he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said,
I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.
I know their sufferings,
and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,
and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land,
a land flowing with milk and honey,
to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Amorites, the Pezizites,
the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me,
and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.
Come, I will send you to Pharaoh,
that you may bring my people,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
But Moses said to God,
Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh
and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?
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.
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 then they ask me,
What is his name?
What shall I say to them?
God said to Moses,
I am who I am.
And he said,
Say this to the people of Israel.
I am has sent you.
God also said to Moses,
Say this to the people of Israel.
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,
and thus I am to be remembered
throughout all generations.
Well, good morning, everyone.
Will you pray with me as we come to God's word?
Father,
I pray that you would capture each of our hearts,
that we would be invited by your word,
and believe that our deepest need is to know you,
the God who is there.
So I pray that you would be speaking through your word now.
I pray that whatever would distract us,
I pray that you would remove that,
and help us sit under your word this morning.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well,
do you think of God as simply the ruler of all things,
or do you know him personally?
Do you know him by name?
Do you see salvation as kind of like a barcode ticket
in your Google wallet
that you just got in your pocket,
ready for when you've reached the pearly gates?
Or do you see yourself as saved from the power of sin
to enslave you,
to obey what sin tells you?
Do you see yourself as saved from the penalty of God's judgment?
Is the lamb's blood critical to your salvation?
Is the lamb's blood, that substitute's blood,
define your identity?
Do you struggle with why the Lord,
if you're one of his people,
why would the Lord lead you into what feels like a wilderness,
into really difficult trials?
Why would he do that?
Do you understand grace
as not having to fuss about obedience and disobedience?
Or do you have the opposite problem,
that you don't think you're worthy of grace until you obey?
Do you see salvation only in terms of from,
from slavery, from death?
Or do you see the goal of salvation?
Do you understand what salvation is for?
It's for a heavenly calling,
to be God's treasured possession,
to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Do you see the for of salvation,
the blazing glory of Yahweh,
making a way to dwell among his people?
As we come to the book of Exodus,
let's just consider a really big picture structure of the book
to consider some of the massive things
we're going to be dwelling in for the next two months.
The first part of the story, redemption, salvation.
What is it?
What does it mean?
Then we've got the law as a response to salvation,
and then we've got the goal of all this,
is God tabernacling with his people.
I know I've covered a lot of ground there,
and I apologise for just so many thoughts,
but Exodus is just huge.
It is huge.
And I hope you're excited.
I hope we have a sense of treading on holy ground
as we come to dwell in this book for two months.
We're going to be flying through Exodus
over these next nine weeks.
Can I just suggest, can I urge,
that why don't you use your personal devotions,
use family devotions,
let's just sit in this powerful book,
because I don't have time to cover all the details.
Well, I'm hoping that wet your appetite to some extent.
But as we get into the book,
there's a massive unsettling question as we open Exodus.
It's a question that we can feel keenly today
as we look at our own lives,
as we look at the state of the church,
not just our church,
but also more broadly the state of the church and the world.
And it's what has become of God's promises.
Where are you, God, if you promised all these things?
Earlier this year,
I think this is the Holy Spirit's planning,
not the elders,
but we finished at Genesis 15.
Maybe we should have finished Genesis,
but Genesis 15,
where the Lord makes an unconditional promise to Abraham.
If you remember that,
his promise arises from God's free decision.
Abraham doesn't merit it.
He's not bargaining with God to make it happen.
It's God himself walking between those torn animals.
Do you remember that picture?
Abraham doesn't walk through.
God alone walks through.
And he's saying,
I'm taking responsibility of my side of the covenant
and your side of the covenant, Abraham.
If you don't fulfill it or I don't fulfill it,
may I become like these animals.
Unconditional promise.
He's promised Abraham to be a great nation.
And as we open the book,
chapter 1, verse 7,
we hear that the people of Israel were fruitful
and increased greatly.
They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.
So that the land was filled.
It was swarming with them.
But they're hardly a nation.
They're slaves of the most powerful nation
in the world of that time.
The new king,
who's forgotten that Joseph saved Egypt
and Joseph made Egypt rich,
the new king is pathologically nervous
about all these Hebrew fighting men.
He could have made a treaty with them,
as was common in ancient times.
He could have made them a vassal state
that gave them protections,
but also they had obligations.
He could have done that, but no.
He has a government-sponsored policy of persecution.
He makes their work hard,
and he's hoping that weakens them.
They just keep multiplying.
It doesn't work.
And so he orders the midwives to kill all the boys.
You can let the girls live.
Kill the boys.
When that doesn't work,
he makes it legal and commanding Egyptian people
for infanticide to throw the boys into the Nile River.
I don't know if you want to pause and imagine that.
You probably don't.
We don't have enough vomit bags.
We're not on an airplane here.
This is a disgusting scenario, isn't it?
Where's your covenant promises, God?
Where's the land flowing with milk and honey?
They're powerless in a foreign land.
Where's the blessing?
Where's the thriving?
Where's the cursing of those who curse Abraham?
How is all the world going to be blessed
through these chosen people
if they themselves seem cursed?
Where's your promises?
Well, we're not told all the reasons,
but in Genesis 15,
when he's making that unconditional promise,
he does give his people a clear word.
Genesis 15, 13,
Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners
in a land that is not theirs
and will be servants there
and they will be afflicted for 400 years.
But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve
and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Now, I don't think Scripture actually answers like 400 years.
I'm not sure.
I've got thoughts.
You can talk to me later.
But I think the main thing here is there's a clear word.
Whatever chaos is going on,
400 years of pretty bad chaos
in the church,
in our lives,
it might seem out of control,
but the Lord is Lord of history.
He keeps his word.
He knows the beginning from the end.
There's an anchor there.
And I think as we open the book of Exodus,
we also see in the early chapters
God's hidden activity.
With Pharaoh's schemes of burdening the Egyptians,
what happens?
They keep multiplying.
We see God's hidden activity.
I think we see God's hidden activity with the midwives.
Most likely they're Hebrew midwives,
given their names.
In the face of the most powerful man on earth,
this is the guy who's ordered the killing of the boys,
they know that he could execute them on the spot.
They're giving an account for the fact
that they've disobeyed his orders.
And they've got the audacity to say,
because the Hebrew women are vigorous
and give birth before the midwife comes to them.
Okay?
And yet God protects them.
I think that's amazing that
they live.
He protects them.
More than that, we're told,
he blesses them with families.
It's likely that this Pharaoh in history is,
I don't know how to pronounce this,
but Pharaoh Thutmose III,
but Scripture never gives this Pharaoh a name.
But we have these Hebrew women,
we have their names.
They're honoured for all history.
We see his hidden activity
in blessing these faithful women.
And I suspect Exodus is setting up a divine principle
that we see throughout Scripture,
that God works his power and he works his plans
through what is weak in the eyes of the world.
I think we see this in the women and in Moses.
Pharaoh isn't afraid of the women.
Let the girls live.
He's afraid of the fighting men.
But in these early chapters,
the Lord seems to be working through the women
who had no social power at that time.
It's Moses' mother who hides Moses in the first place,
risking her own life,
then seems to scheme to,
what do we do?
Puts her in the place where Pharaoh's daughter comes along.
It's Pharaoh's daughter who gives permission
to be raised by a Hebrew nurse
who just happens to be his mother.
It's a lovely touch there.
And who knows what values and identity
she instilled, his mum instilled in him.
He's raising him.
God is working through what Pharaoh saw as weak
to bring down Pharaoh's courts.
We're later told that when the Lord gets the victory in the end,
it's going to be the women who ask their neighbours
for gold and silver and going to plunder the Egyptians.
It's not the fighting men.
And I think we see this principle
of the Lord working through
what the world counts as weak
in Moses as well.
He's given every Egyptian privilege
and education.
He's in the prime of manhood
in these early chapters,
coming up to 40 years old.
I've got to say that now
because I'm approaching 40.
He's in the prime of his life.
But how the Lord would use him
is not how Moses
or we would expect him
to use him.
You probably know the story well.
He sees his brother being wronged
and it's his strength,
Moses' strength,
to strike the Egyptian,
avenging
and delivering the oppressed.
Now the Hebrews could have kept this quiet.
They should have been
excited.
This guy who's grown up in the courts
is fighting on our behalf.
What's God going to do through him?
But it's his own people
who reject him.
And Pharaoh hears the rumours
and Moses has to run away.
All his position and power and strength
in the prime of life,
it vanishes in a moment.
He's a fugitive
in a foreign land.
And I think the picture we have of him,
he's a shadow
of the man he was.
He's a failure.
He's rejected.
He's afraid.
He settles.
He names his child
after being a foreigner.
He just settles
in his lot.
And he gets old.
He's 80.
He's 80 now.
He's powerless
before Pharaoh.
So what's become
a God's covenant promise as well?
Whatever the chaos,
he gives a clear word
that he is Lord of history.
We shouldn't doubt the fact
that he's always at work.
It might be very hidden.
And he loves,
I take great comfort in this,
he loves to use
what is weak
in the eyes of the world
to work his power
and his plan.
His foolishness
is wiser than man's wisdom
and his weakness
is stronger than man's strength.
We might not like
God's pace of things,
but we shouldn't doubt
that he keeps his promises.
Well, I wonder what
in your life is,
or in the church
or in the world,
what's making you
ask that question?
What's become
of your promises, God?
Perhaps it's something
you've used to pray for
and you've just lost confidence
to pray anymore.
Perhaps it's a person
who you put confidence in
and they ever let you down
or the situation
just seems a lost cause.
I want to be clear
what I'm not saying.
I'm not saying
we should go looking
for God's hidden activity.
I think we can read
God's providence.
If we try and do that,
we can,
in precise ways,
we can get it terribly wrong.
I'm not saying
from the early chapters
of Exodus
that that's a blueprint
for us to be looking
for hints
of God's hidden work.
I think there's plenty
that we can see
and be thankful for.
An example
of misreading
God's providence
is that there's
a tragic example
with a great giant
of a man
in church history,
George Whitefield.
If you've heard his name,
he was used by God
in the Great Awakening.
He had a boy
and he named him
John after John the Baptist
because he had
this strong impression
that John would be
a great preacher
like him
of this beautiful gospel,
publicly baptising him
and telling people
about this word
from God
that he's had
and his boy dies
in infancy.
What's become
of God's promises?
What George Whitefield
later convinced
he needed,
what you and I need
and what Israel needed
is to go deeper
in knowing Yahweh,
who he has revealed
himself to be.
Don't go looking
for the hidden messages.
look at who he has
revealed himself
to be
at the burning bush
because whatever doubts
we have,
they are decisively resolved
in the book of Exodus.
He's not hidden anymore.
He's in your face,
resolving any doubts
we've got.
We need to know Yahweh.
So,
if you're in your Bibles,
we'll be saying
in chapter 3.
When people talk
about God,
I think God is like this.
I think he's
a forgiving,
tolerant,
compassionate
God,
or I think God
is like that,
or I think he's
stern,
I think he calls it
whatever you think.
People talk like that,
but we give the weather
more respect
than that.
Like,
I can wish
that it's going to be
22 degrees
and sunny,
maybe a few clouds
the rest of the week.
I can wish
that overnight
it's cold enough,
the heat isn't
keeping me awake
at night.
I can wish
that all I want.
Who cares?
The weather's there.
I've got to deal with it.
God is there.
Let's give him
at least the respect
of we give weather.
The God
who's really there
is speaking
and he uses fire
to help Moses
and to help us
understand
who he is,
his name.
Now fire,
we've all been close
to a fire
that's going out.
Why is it going out?
I'm stating the obvious here.
Because the fuel's burnt up
that it's depending on.
Or I was reading about
a product
you can use in housing
to defend yourself
against bushfires
that's made out of straw.
Straw.
That would just burn up, right?
No, because it's compressed
and there's no oxygen.
So the fire just goes out
once you remove the flame.
The point is obvious.
Fire is dependent
on fuel and oxygen
and ignition.
If you don't have those,
there's no fire.
Not this fire.
The bush isn't burning.
It's self-sufficient.
Listen.
Verse 14.
God said to Moses,
I am
who I am.
This isn't his name yet
but his name is built
on these words.
It's Hebrew.
The verb is just to be
so it's very difficult
to translate.
How do you translate that?
It's probably along the lines of this.
It's being itself has sent you.
Tell Israel that.
Being.
I am who I am.
Moses, you're dealing with absolute just being here.
Now, here's a few things I think this means,
and I doubt it fully captures it.
I am never had a beginning.
He can't go out of being.
He's utterly independent.
All other beings, including the breath I'm using now,
is totally dependent on I am.
If he's not dependent, he's utterly free.
He doesn't need anything outside of him.
There's no constraints on him.
I am is constant in his character.
He's not becoming.
He's not developing.
He's not progressing.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
His character is stable.
I think it means I am is the absolute standard of truth
and goodness and beauty.
If he is ultimate reality,
he is the ultimate standard of what is beautiful
and what is good and what is true.
All this means that he is more worthy of our interests
and our attention and our admiration and our enjoyment
than all other beings and realities put together.
I don't know how you feel about this kind of God.
You can't control this kind of God.
It's a bit humbling, isn't it?
Whatever ego I've got,
there it goes, in the face of this God.
Everything is a gift from this kind of God.
It's also incredibly liberating
because it means I'm not the one holding my life together.
I'm not the one holding this church together.
I'm not the one holding the world together.
I'm not keeping it spinning.
It's really liberating as well.
Apparently, Martin Luther wrote to his worrying, anxious friend
in a letter to Philip Melanchthon,
let Philip cease to rule the world
because I am.
I am runs the world.
What does Pharaoh look like in comparison to him?
All his authority.
Well, good luck, Pharaoh.
If I am comes down to intervene.
I think Israel's afflictions
and their utter helplessness
and their dashed hopes
resonates with a lot of people's testimony
of meeting the true God.
It's often when we're at the end of our resources,
it's at the end of ourselves,
it's at the end of our confidence in people
or society or government.
That's when we meet the real God.
And the God who is real and personal
reveals himself to us.
He's personal.
We hear that the people are not just groaning
under their affliction.
A new Pharaoh comes into play.
Maybe they hoped the regime of slavery would end
with a new Pharaoh, but it keeps going.
And so they're moaning and groaning
under the affliction.
And that's just natural, isn't it?
But at the end of chapter 2,
they do something more than just groan,
which all people do that.
They pray.
They cry out.
They look upward.
Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God
and God heard their groaning.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham,
with Isaac and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel and God knew.
He's personal.
He knew.
It's a funny way of talking, isn't it?
I think that's saying much more than he knew
the facts of the situation.
Because in Genesis, Old Testament,
often knowing is intimate involvement.
Like Adam knew his wife, Eve.
So I'm not saying it's sexual here.
Much more than physical intimacy.
The Lord is intimately involved.
He comes down and gets involved.
He sees.
He hears.
And him remembering his covenant
is not saying anything about his forgetfulness.
It's like we saw with Noah in the flood.
At the height of the flood,
we hear that God remembered his covenant
and that's when God acts to take the flood away.
God remembering his covenant means time to act.
What prompts God to act?
It's the prayers.
It's the prayers of his people.
I have no idea how that works.
God has given a clear word.
But the time of fulfillment of that promise
is responding to God's people praying.
I wish I believed that more.
And we see it again and again through Scripture.
In the exile, Daniel prays
and they return from exile.
At the time of the birth of the Christ,
who's praying?
Simeon and Anna at the temple.
Whatever we think of God's pace
in acting and fulfilling his promise,
prayer is effectual.
The Egyptians wouldn't have seen it straight away.
But it's effectual.
Yahweh knows.
He sees.
He hears.
He remembers.
He's personal.
He remembers his covenant.
Verse 15.
Being itself sent you.
Tell them that, Moses.
Verse 15.
There's more to my name.
God also said to Moses,
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.
This is my name forever.
And thus I am to be remembered
throughout all generations.
Just in case you haven't heard this before,
capital L-O-R-D
is always the personal name of God
when you're reading the Old Testament.
It's over 6,800 times.
He wants to be known by name.
When we sing hallelujah,
we're not just going praise some divine title.
We're praising his name.
Yahweh.
Hallelujah.
We're praising his name.
I don't usually call Emma wife.
Unless I'm trying to be playful.
I call her by a name.
He wants to be known by name.
And he's a covenant-keeping God.
His name represents all he is.
And at the heart of who he is,
inseparable to who he is,
is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He always acts on his covenant promises.
I think another way of saying it is,
I work with the most unpromising material
to bring about my promises.
Abraham, who is a coward.
Now he changes, God changes him.
But he's also a coward.
Dysfunctional Isaac.
He's a dysfunctional father.
You've got Jacob, who's a schemer and a con man.
Now these guys all change through God's grace.
But now, and we're going to see this more next week,
we've got failure feeling,
rejected, doubting Moses.
I work to keep my promises
through pretty ordinary material.
He keeps his covenant.
We don't see this in these verses,
but I want to mention it now,
given it's the start of our time in Exodus.
We should understand his name
as tied with the whole book of Exodus.
That he is Redeemer.
That he is the covenant Lord.
That he provides the blood of the lamb.
When we get to the Passover lamb,
his name is all through that passage.
That his purpose is to dwell with his people
in the tabernacle.
His name is tied to the events of Exodus.
And his ultimate goal
is that the whole world will know
that God is Yahweh.
We hear this when he's speaking about Pharaoh 9.16.
For this purpose I raised you up, Pharaoh,
to show you my power
so that my name
may be proclaimed in all the earth.
In chapter 14, verse 4,
I will get glory over Pharaoh
and all his hosts
and the Egyptians shall know
I am Yahweh.
That's the purpose of this book.
It's the purpose of history.
It's the purpose of the universe.
It's the purpose of your life.
Whether you know it or not.
Is that the world would know
that I would know
that God is Yahweh.
The God of the Exodus.
The final thing I want to draw our attention to
in this passage is
in verses 4 to 6.
His goal is personal encounter
and yet he's unapproachably holy.
Yahweh attracts Moses' attention
with the fire
and calls him, Moses.
He calls him.
He wants encounter.
But then Moses comes
and he goes,
whoa, don't come near.
And Moses hides his face
afraid of God.
We're going to see it again
when we get to Mount Sinai.
God comes down
and the people hear his voice
and they're terrified.
They can't come near.
We're going to see it
when Moses asks
to see God's glory
in chapter 34
and God says,
I can't.
I'll kill you.
I can't show you all I am.
He wants personal encounter
and yet,
like fire
is life-giving,
it destroys.
The big question
isn't why isn't
the bush consumed?
The big question
is why isn't
Moses consumed
if we understand
his holiness?
We see a tension here
that we're created
to know this God.
We're made to know him.
Remember the Garden of Eden.
We're made to
not be afraid
of this God
and yet,
because we've turned away,
his presence is traumatic.
It's fatal.
As one person put it,
the human condition is
we can't live with God
and we can't live without him.
But Yahweh will make a way.
We don't make a way.
He makes a way.
The book is going to end
in the tabernacle,
his glory dwelling,
coming and filling.
At the centre
of his people's camp
is the tabernacle
and God
makes a way.
He wants to be known
and yet he's
unapproachably holy
but he'll make a way.
Well,
after 400 years
of slavery,
whatever Israel's
groans and doubts,
what's become
of God's promises,
they were
thrillingly put to rest
at Exodus.
Yahweh decisively
makes himself known.
He saves them
from Egypt
and he brings them
to himself.
But we're also
going to see
something else
in Exodus
that Israel
had a deeper
enslavement,
worse than Pharaoh.
Yahweh intimately
knew his people.
He remembers
his promise
but his people
keep turning away.
They don't want
to intimately know him.
They don't
remember his promises,
his clear word.
It's that
enslavement
of the heart
that keeps
turning
from the God
who is there
and wants to be known
and has done
everything for us
to be known.
I wonder
if you can
resonate with that.
We need
a greater Exodus.
Exodus 2.0.
When we're
asking the question
what's become
of God's promises
we come
to a man
named Jesus
who says
in John 8.58
truly,
I say to you
before Abraham
I am.
We should read
the gospel
why Jesus
came
as
the second
Exodus.
A greater
revelation
of Yahweh
absolute
being
who
knows us,
who hears
our prayers,
who always
acts according
to his covenant
promises
so that the
whole world
will know
him.
to know
Yahweh
in Jesus
is
thrilling
or it should
be thrilling.
It should
fill us
with hope
and it
should call
us to a
heavenly
calling
to make
him known.
So whatever,
can I just
end by saying
whatever
is causing
us to doubt
God's promises,
promises,
the main
thing we
need is to
know
Yahweh
and to
know our
calling to
make him
known in
the situation
you're in.
Will you pray
with me?
Let's pray.
Father,
as we
walk through
Exodus,
these next
few months,
I pray
that you
would give
us deeper
insight into
who you
are and
your great
acts of
salvation.
I pray
that it
might help
us grasp
more deeply
who Jesus
is and
all you've
done and
the great
riches of
the inheritance
you've bought
for us through
Jesus and the
great calling
to be your
people and
to make you
known in
whatever
situation
we're in.
Lord,
please do
this for
us.
In Jesus'
name.
Amen.