The Burning Bush: Revelation, Promise, Call

⁜ Prayer ⁜

Intro

Have you ever waited a long time for something that your were anxious about seeing happen? Perhaps it was a well deserved promotion at work you were hoping to receive - but just kept waitin on? Or perhaps it was a broken relationship awaiting resolution? Or an illness or addiction either you or a loved one were facing, and you wanted to see healed? Take a moment and think about that... what was it for you, that you were waiting and hoping for a resolution to come about? Also, take a moment to consider how that waiting felt.

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Now break open your Bibles with me and look how our passage today opens up. What do we find there? "During that long period, the king of Egypt died" (2:23). What long period are we talking about? It is everything that we find recorded in the first two chapters of Exodus.

Specifically... that after Joseph and his family arrived in Egypt, the king of Egypt who had appreciated and welcomed their presence died, and a new one came to power... one who did not care for this foreign people and decided to enslave them and make their lives terribly difficult. It is that long period of time we saw God tell Abraham about in Gen. 15:13, when he told Abraham: "for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and... they will be enslaved and ill treaded there."

That is the "long period" that our Scripture today turns our attention to.

And why did I ask you to take a moment to consider those memories of longing for a resolution for some problem in your own life? Because, I wanted each of us to have a moment to feel, just a little!, how the Jewish people felt.

Of course I would be willing to bet that none of us weren waiting for four-hundred years... but it may have felt like it! It is in those moments that we can gain some understanding of how long that "long period" must have felt for the Jewish people!

Here they where, in a land that was clearly not their own, and they were not only there, but they were slaves. Surely, the question must have arisen: "Has God forgotten about us?"

We see the Jewish people asked that very question at other points in their history as we see recorded over and over in the Psalms! For instance, we see many centuries later, in Ps. 89:46 - which was written after the Babylonians took the Jews out of Jerusalem and into captivity - the Jewish people cry out to God: "How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?"

This is at the very heart of the human experience! Isn't it? We know that things are not how they ought to be, and so we have this sense of longing to see things made right! And that experience of knowing things were not as they ought to be was especially heightened for the Jews because they knew God had promised them that he had great thing planned for them! So how could they be in this lowly situation of slavery and oppression?!

Well, that is where we are going with this new sermon series we are now in, whichI have titled it: "God Redeems a People for Himself." In this series we will be tracing out exactly how God goes about redeeming a people for Himself!

But what does that word redeem mean? We use it so often in churches, and familiarity can cause us to just pass over important details. So I ask: do we really understand the word redeem!? Just to make sure that we are on the same page, this is how Scripture uses the word "redeem." It means: to reclaim from the grasp of something, to purchase, to ransom. And what does it mean when the Bible says God redeems a people for himself (as we see expressed in 2 Sam. 7:23)? It means God is drawing his people out from both oppression and sin, and into a new life, filled with his grace, so that they may live lives that glorify him.

And that is a perfect theme for us to be considering during the season of Lent that we are now in... isn't it!

Yes, I know, it surely feels like spring is right around the corner.

And as we start thinking of the season of spring, we think of celebration and the joys of coming out of our winter hibernation. And if you are like me, perhaps you have started dreaming of breaking out your grill and throwing that first rack of ribs on there!

So why do we spend this time leading up to spring, doing Lent?! It can seem like such a heavy thing... with its focus on our need to repent and seek renewal.

But I would suggest it is exactly what we need as we start gearing up for the joy and celebration of spring. Why? Because Lent reminds us we can only truly celebrate and find joy because of the fact of what Jesus did on the Cross. That is why we do Lent!

We remember during this season that we too were like the Israelites trapped in slavery. We remember our need for redemption from the power that hell and sin has over this world... and even in our own lives.

And so as we dive into the book of Exodus these next weeks, I invite you to remember what Lent is about... it turns our eyes to the Cross and the power of Jesus blood shed there... blood which has won our redemption and enabled us to be freed from the chains of sin and all its effects, and to now live in the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to live holy lives.

So as we consider those themes, let us dive into today's text where we see God working redemption for his people, and drawing them to himself. And in our Scripture today, I would suggest that we see those elements prominently arise in three ways:

First, there is the need for revelation!

Second, there is the need for a renewal of promises!

And finally, there is the call to acknowledge God and follow him!

Revelation

So first, we must consider the necessity of revelation - that is God's act of disclosing his heart, mind, and purposes to his people.

But why do I say that God revealing himself is essential?

Well, the problem is that after the fall, our hearts and minds are skewed in the wrong direction. Sure, each of us is born with an natural sense which recognizes that there is something greater than us out there - something divine. But we also see throughout history that people have gotten much about God wrong! Just consider how so many of the world's religions say that there is not one God but many gods! That is a terrible error, and it is a denigration of God's glory. Why? Because it leads people to worship that which is not God!

And the source of such errors is because of the fact that humanity's relationship to God was broken by sin and the Fall. So, we find that humanity needs God to reveal who he is, so that we may know him and worship him rightly.

We see that need right here in today's passage too. Notice what our Scripture says about Moses, in ch. 3, v. 1: "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian."

What is so important about this detail? Well, first consider who Moses is. He is one of Abraham's decedents - an heir to the promises made to that family, right? But we need to take note of where is he and to whom has he subjected himself. He was "tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian."

Now that may seem like a detail to just pass over, right? But we shouldn't!

Who is Jethro? He is Moses' father-in-law and he is a priest of Midian. As we know from the book of Numbers 25:1-3 the Midianites were a pagan people, and they worshiped a multitude of gods, one of whom was the "god" Baal - who we see the Jewish people continuously succumb to the sin and error of worshiping and serving over and over throughout the Old Testament! And here we find Moses, for all essential purposes, living as a Midanite - a pagan! - far away from his own people, and not only that but he even married into a family of pagan priests! How far he has departed from God's way, he is not even where he is supposed to be!

But notice what happens.

God appears to Moses - and he does so in quite a captivating way. As 3:2 notes: "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush." This is clearly intended to grab Moses attention and draw him in. And it works!

So we see Moses go over to this burning bush, which "though it was on fire it did not burn up."

And then God speaks!

Now remember, that it has been about 400 years now since any Israelite had heard God speak. But now, God's silence is broken! And why, because - as we see in 2:25 "God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."

But notice the first thing that happens when God reveals himself! He points us to his glory and holiness! Yes, he tells Moses in 3:5 that in order to approach this ground which has been made holy by his presence, Moses must: "take off [his] sandals."

And so we see the very first and most essential point of God's revelation! Because sin has so distorted our vision of who God is... because we are so often tempted to make God into our own image... because we so often think that we can manipulate God... because of all of that, when God reveals himself, he reveals what is most important for us to know. And that is first and foremost his holiness and his glory. He reveals this so as to grant us a restored vision of who he is, and who we are in relationship to him.

That is exactly what happens here for Moses. Right!? He immediately recognizes God's holiness and glory, and what is his response. WORSHIP! So, our Scripture today reads: "At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God." Those are acts of reverence and worship.

And so it is only then, when Moses' heart has been set aright to worship the only true God, that God continues. And God goes on to make promises - and we will get there in a moment - but we should notice that God grounds his promises in something.

Does anyone notice what that God grounds his promises in?

Yes! He grounds his promises in a further revelation. And it is a revelation about who he is! So in v. 14-15 we see:

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘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, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

How precious that is! God entrusts us with his name - and he gives his own name as the guarantee that his promises, to all the generations of his people, will be fulfilled! And in revealing his name, God invites Moses and the Israelites to trust him and to enter into a renewed and deepened covenant relationship with him!

But consider this: because you and I are reading this, we are also invited into that as well! Isn't that AWESOME!

This is God's revelation to all people, through all time! He reveals himself and then calls us into a right relationship with him.

Promise

But as we consider that, notice too, that God's self-revelation also comes with a promise. So we see in Ex. 3:7-10, 12, 17-22 that along with the revelation of who he is, God also guarantees that he has determined to deliver them from their slavery!

And these promises issue forth because of what may sound like two deceptively simple sentences. First, we find in Ex. 2:24, that "God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob."

Now it could be easy to look at this and ask: did God forget his covenant, did he forget his people!

But that actually misses what the passage is trying to tell us. It is not saying that God forgot his covenant or his people. That is not what the Holy Spirit is trying to reveal here. What the Holy Spirit is trying to get us to see is that God hears the cries of his people. He is showing us that even when life seems to throw one misery after another at us, or that we are hidden in some deep darkness away from God's sight, God is paying attention.

Yes, God hears. And we also see here that his hearing is not passive! No, as God hears his people crying out to him, “he remembered his covenant.” And so we see that as he hears his people cry out, his hearing stirs up a response on our behalf - because he cares for us, because he made covenant with us!

And so this verse affirms that God not only heard his people, but that he also holds his covenant promises in perpetual remembrance!

But that is not the end of it! No, from there we move on to v. 25. And there we read that: "God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." This continues the affirmations we were just considering. So we move from God hearing his people's cries and holding his covenant in remembrance, to here seeing that God sets his eyes upon his people, and is concerned about them!

Notice the intimacy here. God looks upon us, and he recognizes our needs. And as he recognizes our need, he tells us in Scripture that he has concern for us and our needs! But the "concern" which God expresses here is not just an emotional sense of being concerned. The Hebrew word which is translated for us as “concerned"here, has rich depth of meaning. It directs us to consider that God's concern is grounded in his knowledge of his people and their needs, and that as he knows us and our needs he is also actively working to attend to those very needs!

That is an important point for us to ponder! God knows what we need - and he will take care of those needs! And so, we see here in today's passage that God promises to be there for his people.

But notice too that his promises contain not just an assurance that he would free his people from slavery and oppression under the Egyptians which they cried out about. That is essential. But once he has free his people from that, notice the other promise he makes in v. 12: "When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." He promises to fulfill the even deeper need that his people did not even think to mention in their cries for help.

Here we see God reveals his blueprint! This is not just about God freeing his people from slavery in Egypt! NO! Egypt and the people's slavery there points to a deeper slavery - humanity's slavery under sin and Satan’s kingdom of darkness, which directs our hearts away from God and worshiping him!

The first thing that needed to happen in light of the people’s slavery was God's redemption of his people. People need to be free from bondage before they can move forward. So he promises to free them from their slavery - which in today's passage is specifically slavery under the Egyptians, but ultimately humanity's enslavement to sin.

But once that has happened God promises something even greater and more glorious. In short: "When you have been brought out of slavery, then you will worship God." Notice what God is saying! Our being redeemed has as its greatest purpose our being freed for something!

And what is that something for which we are freed? We find the Scriptures telling us that God frees people so that that may become his people.

And what is the greatest proof that we are his people? YES! That we worship him! This is why, as the Bible ends and we read of God's definitive victory over all the powers of darkness in the book of Revelation, God shows - as he describes it in Rev. 21:1 - that he will establish a "new heaven and a new earth." And what is that new creation described to be like? Yes, a temple where God will be worshiped and his glory will shine forth in indescribable radiance!

So when God frees us, it is a freedom to live as a people made new… That is, we are made into a people whose lives reflect God’s grace at work in us… and also a people whose hearts are set upon God and his glory above all else! In short we are freed so that our whole lives can be defined as worship!

Call

But before we end today, let us note one final thing in today's passage! In the midst of God revealing himself and making such great promises, he also does something else.

And what is that? He issues a call to Moses. Yes, God promises that he will bring his people out from slavery. So he says in Ex. 3:8: "I have come down to rescue [my people] from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land...".

But he follows this with something Moses did not expect! He says to Moses in v. 10: "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." And he also calls his people to listen to Moses and heed the instructions given him by God - as we see in vv. 16-20.

What is this about? Well, as we crack open vv. 10, and 16-20 we see God doing something wonderful. Yes, he promises to redeem his people and bring them to freedom. But as he makes promises he is also doing something else. God is inviting his people into the story that he is weaving - as he reveals himself to be the Lord of history, who no human, not even a king as powerful as the king of Egypt can ignore or countermand.

And as he calls his people into this story, they become witnesses of God's great works - and they are primed to become missionaries in the land he is promising to bring them to.

My friends, this is just as true for us today, as it was for the Jewish people during the events we read about today! As we read about God revealing himself, and making promises, and calling a people to him to be witnesses of his great work of redemption, you and I are invited into this story as well!

We too are seeing God reveal himself to us in the pages of the Scriptures, and we become the bearers of his promises, and we too are invited to be witness to his great love and mighty power. The story that we see unfolding before in Scripture, as we reading it, is just as relevant and meaningful to us today as it was for the Israelites all those thousands of years ago.

Even today, we need God's work of redemption to be applied to our own lives and to the broken world around us. And God calls you and me to share the good news that he has indeed come to free us from every bondage!

So I invite you to pick up your Bibles throughout this upcoming week, read them, and consider how God is challenging you in the Bible to share the good news that he frees us and calls us out of bondage, and to share with everyone around us the very good news that God is still active in our world and continues to call people into fellowship with him! So as you leave this building today, remember, you are a missionary people sent into the world to bear witness before everyone about God and his powerful working of redemption throughout history and in your own lives.

Can I get an AMEN!? ...Amen!

⁜ Prayer ⁜