1 - God Has A Name

SLIDE: Scripture: Exodus 3:14

Exodus 3:14 (NLT)

14 God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.”

BUMPER:

SLIDE: Title

Introduction

Today we’re embarking on a 9 journey together through the gospel of John and into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what that means for us. What’s in a Name is a comprehensive look at the I AM statements of Christ in the New Testament, which like most things, traces its roots back to the Old Testament.

In Greek, the language of the New Testament, “I am” is “ego eimi”—and that’s the way each of the seven statements begins in John’s gospel. But, as I mentioned, the roots of this phrase go back to Exodus 3:14, where God introduces himself to Moses with the expression “I am who I am.”

SLIDE: God’s Eternal Name

It is rendered in Hebrew—which has no vowels in its alphabet—as YHWH, usually pronounced Yahweh. Later in Israel, the name Yahweh was considered too holy to even pronounce, so God was simply referred to as “The Name,” in Hebrew “Ha Shem.” Some rabbis taught that the name could not be pronounced, only breathed. In keeping with the tradition, many English translations of the Bible usually render Yahweh as “The LORD,” in all caps. In Exodus 3:14 God says:

“This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.”

The name also became a way to connect with God personally—yes, God has a name—and it was used throughout Israel’s history to convey that God always was, always is, and always will be. But the name is not just about God’s stoicism, his “is-ness” sitting silently and passively like a giant, cosmic Buddha statue impervious to what’s happening around him. “I am” also connotes action as the “First Cause,” the One for whom there is no prior cause, the One who makes things happen according to our deepest needs. This becomes clear in the story of Moses’ encounter at the burning bush. Which is where our journey begins today.

Main Teaching

SLIDE:

Moses’ background

Exodus 2:1-10

He was 1 born in Egypt when it was unhealthy to be Jewish boy. This was more than 2 400 years after Joseph had brought his extended family to Egypt during the great famine.

For a while they prospered, but eventually were enslaved by a Pharaoh “who did not remember Joseph.” They continued to multiply in numbers that made Pharaoh nervous, so he gave the order for all male babies born to the Hebrews to be thrown into the Nile and drowned.

After a miraculous turn of events:

Moses' parents 3 saved him from death by hiding him in a basket on the Nile. The basket is symbolic of the ark, which carried Noah and his family to safety when God destroyed wickedness from the face of the earth, 4 he grows up in the palace as the grandson of the Pharaoh himself. But as a young man, he had an identity crisis, and he remembered who he really was.

Hebrews 11:24–25 (NLT)

24 It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin.

SLIDE:

Moses’ Good Intentions

Exodus 2:11-15

One day, he kills an Egyptian for mistreating one of his people, the Hebrew slaves. His intentions were good, but he tried to accomplish God’s purposes in his own power.

Afterwards, even his own people didn’t trust him. “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Exodus 2:14) So God had to humble Moses, to show him the limitations, the complete inadequacy, of his own strength and ability. So he sent him to the back side of the desert to tend sheep for 40 years. While there, he has a life-changing encounter with God’s presence in a burning bush. (Exodus 3:1-10)

SLIDE:

Moses’ Objections

Exodus 3:11-22 (NLT)

11 But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 God answered, “I will be with you. And this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.” 13 But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” 14 God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, 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 eternal name, my name to remember for all generations. 16 “Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me. He told me, “I have been watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you. 17 I have promised to rescue you from your oppression in Egypt. I will lead you to a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.” ’ 18 “The elders of Israel will accept your message. Then you and the elders must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord, our God.’ 19 “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him. 20 So I will raise my hand and strike the Egyptians, performing all kinds of miracles among them. Then at last he will let you go. 21 And I will cause the Egyptians to look favorably on you. They will give you gifts when you go so you will not leave empty-handed. 22 Every Israelite woman will ask for articles of silver and gold and fine clothing from her Egyptian neighbors and from the foreign women in their houses. You will dress your sons and daughters with these, stripping the Egyptians of their wealth.”

ADVANCE:

First objection:

“Who am I…?” Have you ever used that one? It’s great because it gets you out of the assignment but you still sound humble. Interestingly, God never answers that question.

He just says, “I will be with you.” I.e., “This is not about you, it’s about me. It doesn’t matter who you are; it only matters who I am.” Let that sink in for a moment.

ADVANCE:

Second objection:

“Who are you…?” (Exodus 3:13-15) Moses asks God, “What is your name? If the people ask me which God I’ve been speaking to, what shall I tell them?”

The descendants of Abraham living in Egypt had only a distant memory of the God of their forefathers. After 400+ years, they probably had adopted many of the polytheistic worship practices of their Egyptian neighbors. They needed to be re-introduced to Elohim, the God Most High. So, when Moses asks for God’s name, God answers, “I am Who I am.” In Hebrew it comes out Yahweh, which is a form of the verb “to be.” “Tell them, ‘I Am’ sent you.”

Well okay, but, what kind of a name is that?

Actually, it reveals four very important things about God:

SLIDE: The Revelations

First revelation:

Yahweh is the only one of his kind. We use names to distinguish someone from others of their kind. But there are no other “gods” but God alone. There isn’t anyone like I AM.

ADVANCE:

Second revelation:

Yahweh’s existence has no extension in time. God is eternal, and lives outside of time, in the eternal now. There has never been a time when God did not exist, and there will never come a time when God ceases to exist. God always IS. Scripture says there is coming a time “when time shall be no more.” But God will continue to BE. Everything else in the universe has limits, including time itself. But not God. God is the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover, the Great I AM.

ADVANCE:

Third revelation:

Yahweh is always the same. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “As Thou hast been, Thou forever shalt be. Great is Thy faithfulness.”

ADVANCE:

Fourth revelation:

Yahweh is the One with the power to act on the people’s behalf. He is the One who makes things happen according to our greatest need.

So, Jesus’ use of the expression “I Am” would have been an unmistakable signal to his hearers. They knew the ancient significance of the words, even in Greek, “Ego eimi;” Jesus was explicitly identifying himself with God, and bearing God’s presence on Earth.

The theological term is Incarnation, “enfleshment,” but we need to back up even further to fully grasp what that means.

HOURGLASS:

This hourglass is an attempt to show the big picture of our growing, unfolding understanding of God and the various forms God has taken to reveal his mystery to us.

At the top of the hourglass are ideas of God too big for the human mind to grasp: The Triune God, the pre-existent Christ, the Logos spoken of by John at the beginning of his gospel (John 1:1-5). We start with the Trinity, with God as love and relationship.

Then creation happens in, through, and for the pre-existent Christ, the second person of the Trinity.

And the Christ prepares to enter into our physical world.

Colossians 1:15–16 (NLT)

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

This grew into the notion of the eternal Wisdom of God that was eventually going to leap “down” from heaven into our human and time-limited realm. This Wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman, Sophia, and is a beautiful, compassionate abstraction of Divine Reality, but not yet personal and relatable.

Proverbs 3:13–18 (NLT)

13 Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding.

14 For wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages are better than gold.

15 Wisdom is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her.

16 She offers you long life in her right hand, and riches and honor in her left.

17 She will guide you down delightful paths; all her ways are satisfying. 18 Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her; happy are those who hold her tightly.

Next, in the book of Daniel, the pre-existent Christ moves toward greater personification with the idea of the “son of man.” This is the phrase Jesus most frequently used to identify himself, and is likely based on a verse from Daniel’s prophecy. Daniel 7:13-14

Daniel 7:13–14 (NLT)

13 As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal —it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed.

The Son of Man is an archetypal, prototype figure of a corporate personality, one who sums up the whole. And Jesus fully embodies this identity in himself; he is the microcosm of the macrocosm. It’s also why Jesus could say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:58

More on that this coming Sunday.

So, The Great Mystery at the top of the funnel is gradually reduced to a single human being. Jesus comes forth from the Father into the world to say, “This is what God is doing. Look at me; I am what God is saying and doing. And I’m the whole process, from beginning to end.” Jesus reveals the whole pattern of creation and human history in condensed form. Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we know ahead of time that the final chapter is always resurrection. Even though so much of life is filled with suffering, disappointment, disillusionment, absurdity, and death, God will turn all of our crucifixions into resurrections. Look at it in Jesus, believe it in Jesus, love it in Jesus, and let it take shape in your own soul! This is the glorious Good News that we have to share with the world!

Then, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the hourglass shape starts expanding again. Jesus said, “Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24) Paul actually refers to Jesus as a second Adam, the progenitor of a whole new race of people on earth. (1 Corinthians 15)

Next in the HOURGLASS:

Is the Ascension. As told in Acts 1:9-11, angels appear next to the disciples as they gaze after the rising figure, and ask, “Why are you standing here staring up into heaven?” Most of historic Christianity has been doing just that ever since, straining to find the historical Jesus “up there.” Where did he go? We’ve been obsessed with the question because apparently we still think the universe is divided into separate levels—heaven and earth. But it is one universe and everything within it has been transformed by the glory of God. The whole point of the Incarnation and Resurrection is that the Christ is here—and always was! But now we have a story that allows us to imagine it just might be true.

Jesus didn’t go anywhere. But he was transformed into the universal, omnipresent Body of Christ. In his first sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowd, “God has made him both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36) Jesus told his disciples before his death, “It is good for you that I go away. Unless I go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7) I like to ask people who are eagerly awaiting the “second coming” of Christ, “Where do you think he is now?”

The final book of the Bible promises us a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1), not an escape from earth. But we have been focused on “going” to heaven instead of living on earth as Jesus did—which makes heaven and earth one. It is heaven all the way to heaven. What you choose now is exactly what you choose forever. God will not disappoint you.

And then Paul’s wonderful declaration in Phillipians 2:9, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him ‘the name’—Ha Shem—that is above every name…”

Also in Ephesians 1:9-10 “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

Conclusion

This coming Sunday will be another brief introduction, this time to John’s gospel itself. Then over the following seven weeks, which include Easter, we’ll look at each of the seven “I Am” statements. That’s where this journey is taking us.

For now, spend some time this week contemplating the hour-glass shape of God’s work in the universe. Where are you and I in the hourglass? Does that change the way we live in the here and now? It’s mind-blowing and life-changing at the same time!

The Great Mystery of the universe gradually became a single point in time (Incarnation). Then the Life of the Ages began expanding outward again to include you and me, and eventually, all of creation! Hallelujah!

Let’s pray together.

Prayer: “Father, we want to see you better and better with each passing day. And we have come to believe that we see you most clearly by looking at Jesus, the one who showed us exactly what you are like. Open our eyes to see the glimpses of truth you have for us this day.”