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Matthew 16:13-17 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.
Exodus 3:1-15 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said further, “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. 7 Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from 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 country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” 13 But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors 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.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” 15 God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.
The Great I AM
This passage is often called the Call of Moses and in it we find revelation of a personal God who steps into history to act with purpose—to call Moses by name and to reveal His name to Moses. All this is done in order to save the Israelite people.
Last week the sermon was about Joseph. Through his actions the Israelite people were saved from a famine by moving to Egypt. There they prospered. We are told that Joseph and his brothers all died “7 but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.” (Exodus 1:7) All went well for a while but then we are told, “8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. (Exodus 1:8) Scholars believe that a new dynasty came to rule in Egypt. This new pharaoh enslaved the Israelite people.
Now we come to the story of Moses. The pharaoh had declared that all the Israelite boys who were born were to be killed. Moses’ mother hid him for 3 months and when she could hid him no longer she placed him in a basket and he was found by the pharaoh’s daughter. He was raised in the palace of the Egyptian pharaoh. After he had grown up he was angered by an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and he killed the Egyptian. Moses fled from the wrath of pharaoh into the wilderness of Midian. There he married a daughter of the Midian priest and became a shepherd watching over his father-in-law’s flock. According to Acts chapter 7 Moses spent forty years in Midian tending the flocks. He had a very ordinary life, he was a simple shepherd. The days of being a prince in Egypt are long behind him. Life is routine. Just as he did every day Moses led the flock into the wilderness. Here, in this ordinary place while Moses was doing what he did every day God appeared to him. This is our first point this morning. God appears in the ordinary. We never know when or where.
Henry Blackaby once wrote, “When God was ready to judge the world with a flood, He came to Noah. When He desired to build a nation for Himself, He turned to Abraham. When He heard His children groaning under Egyptian bondage, He appeared in a burning bush to Moses. They were three of the most ordinary of men. But God had work to do, and He knew just who to do it with. God has always given His people assignments that are too big for them to handle alone, so that a watching world can see—not what we can do—but what God can do.”
Second, God often has to get our attention. Moses was simply going about his everyday business. He’d probably walked the path he was on hundreds of times. But that day in front of that bush the ordinary became holy. Moses saw that the bush was burning but not consumed so he turned aside. That was when he heard the call. Moses, Moses. And Moses answered, “Here I am.” Moses was available to God. He heard the call and he responded.
Could God have saved the Israelites without Moses? Of course. But God chooses to work through human beings. The prophet Isaiah heard the call of God and answered, “Here am I, send me.” “The prophet Jeremiah was called and so was the prophet Jonah . When confronted with an angel Mary, the mother of Jesus, answered, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” God works through ordinary people.
God said to Moses, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Moses stood in the presence of God and wherever God is the ground is holy. Moses not only removed his sandals but also hid his face, he was afraid to look at God. He knew he was in the presence of God Almighty.
David Wilkerson said, “Holy ground is not a physical place, but a spiritual one. When God commanded Moses to take off his shoes because he was on holy ground, He was not referring to a two-by-four piece of real estate. He was talking about a spiritual state. Moses had arrived at a place in his growth where God could get through to him. He was now ready to receive, ready to listen. He was mature and ready to be dealt with by a holy God.” That’s a good question to ask ourselves. Where are we in our walk with God? Are we reachable, teachable people? (pause)
God tells Moses that He has seen the misery of the Israelite people and has heard their cry. God says He has come down to deliver the people from the Egyptians. Moses has been in Midian for forty years but he remembers his peoples suffering so I’m sure he thinks this is a good idea. It would be good if God saved the people. Then God said to Moses, “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” Can you imagine the look on Moses’ face? How did God saving the people become Moses going to get them? Is it at all surprising that Moses then said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” I’m sure it sounded like an impossible task.
God’s purpose, His mission will always be larger than what we can do on our own. Moses asked, “Who am I?” In the face of a mission from God who wouldn’t ask that question. Look at God’s answer. “I will be with you.” In actuality God doesn’t answer his question because it doesn’t matter who Moses is, what matters is that God is with him. It isn’t about Moses or what Moses can do. It’s about what God can do.
Do you remember the book “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren? The first sentence says, “It’s not about you.” When God is with us the impossible becomes the possible. As we said last week, with God all things are possible. God called Moses for a purpose. God gives purpose to our lives.
Next Moses says, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God answers Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” That sounds a bit confusing to our ears. Another translation says ‘I am the one who is’. In ancient culture names communicated something about the character of a person so a name carried a great deal of meaning. By telling Moses that His name was I AM, God is saying I exist and there is nothing before that. It emphasizes His eternal power and unchangeable character. There is nothing that is outside of or beyond God. He is the Creator, the only uncreated One, the One who spoke time and matter into existence. He is without beginning or end. As such God is not bound by time but exists outside of time. He is the God who is the only true God.
There is much that can be said about the name that God told Moses, entire books have been written about it. It consists of only four letters in Hebrew. No one knows for sure how to pronounce it. Originally Hebrew had no vowels so to know how to pronounce a word someone else had to speak the word to you. The name that God spoke to Moses was considered so sacred to the Israelites that they never spoke it out loud so the pronunciation has been lost over the centuries. When the name occurs in scripture they substitute the world Adonai which means Lord. That’s the word we see in our bibles as lord in small capital letters.
I AM is the name God chose to identify Himself as the covenant God of Israel. It tells us that God is present with His people. God is ever-lasting; He always has been, is now and always will be. As Hebrews 13:8 says, “He is the same yesterday, today and forever.” In a world that seems to be constantly changing, God is the one constant.
In our reading from Matthew this morning Jesus asked His disciples who they thought He was. Some made guesses but only Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus told Peter that this was revealed to him by His Father in Heaven. As good Jews all of the disciples knew of God, they knew God existed. Jesus wanted to move them further into a relationship with God, His Father. Peter took a step on that journey when he declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It is not enough to know that God exists. It is necessary to have a personal relationship with God. Does that mean we each need to see a burning bush? No, but we each need to encounter the living God, to come to an awareness of our sin, come to a place of repentance where we know God’s forgiveness and God’s love and put our trust in God. Only then can we know God, only then can we hear God’s call in our individual lives. May we answer with Moses, “Here I Am.”