Exodus 3:13-22 - God’s Faithfulness to Reveal His Name
Notes
Transcript
The Word Read
The Word Read
Please remain standing for the reading of the Holy Scripture. Hear the Word of the Lord from Exodus 3:13-15:
13 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 they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 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.’ ” 15 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.
Behold, brothers and sisters, this is the Word of the Lord. Please be seated.
Exordium
Exordium
Dear Church,
I invite you to open Holy Scripture to Exodus 3:15-22 this morning. Last week we saw Yahweh speak to Moses out of the burning bush. Moses was told he would go back to Egypt. God is about to act and He will deliver His people from their oppression. Moses responds by asking God a simple question, “Who am I? Who am I to go back to Egypt and bring these people out of the land of Egypt?” God reassures Moses with a simple answer, “I will be with you.” Isn’t that the most wonderful promise? God is with us. As we continue to talk about God’s presence throughout this sermons series, It is my prayer that this past week you’ve spent more time enjoying the presence of God than you did the week before. I am also praying that we would spend more time in prayer pleading that the Lord would open the hearts of the lost so they would hear the Gospel. I pray that we would have the boldness to declare the Gospel to the lost so they would come to know the living God through the Son’s redemptive work.
As I reflected on God’s presence over this week, Nancy Wrangham came to my mind. I thought about her coming to repentance and knowing Christ right before she passed. Then I thought about completing my doctoral work which occurred over the course of 4 years and thousands of hours in study. I thought about the moment we paid off our school loans that put a significant strain on our finances for the first decade of our marriage. Mentally, I reflected on and compared the three of those realities side-by-side and marveled at the reality that finishing my doctorate and paying off our debilitating school debt cannot even come close to the joy I have knowing that Nancy is home with the Lord. My education, my titles, and my debt will pass away with this Earth, but I will enjoy eternity side by side with Nancy forever!
My prayer as your pastor is that at a congregational level this would be of the utmost importance as well - seeing those who do not have a relationship with the Lord come to know His presence through Jesus Christ the Lord. I pray that our primary focus be the evangelization of men, women, and children in our city, state, nation, and world. One day, Lord willing, we will celebrate that the mortgage has been paid off. We’ll probably have some sort of covered dish celebration, and we might even burn the mortgage bill. And while this moment will bring some earthly satisfaction, we will not carry this success with us into eternity. Therefore, my heart’s prayer is that the joy we have when we think about paying off the mortgage would vastly pale in comparison to the joy we have when we think about the eternal souls of men, women, and children come to know the incredible sweet presence of God through Jesus— and may they experience that presence Here, with the members of FPC.
You might be thinking, what does any of this have to do with our passage this morning? Glad you asked. I started reading “God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church,” published by Crossway, recently. The authors detail how, for many evangelicals, evangelism is awkward, clunky, and can be a really terrifying experience. Now, most books move from this premise straight to the practical. Here are 5 ways you can share Jesus with your family and friends. These are needed, but the authors take a different approach. They root the lack of evangelism is the fact that we are not delighting and enjoying God. They write, “Christians who don’t enjoy God can’t and won’t wholeheartedly commend him to others.” Experiencing the presence of God is paramount in our ability to share the love of God!
So, Moses has asked his first question- “Who am I?” In our passage this morning, Moses will ask a second question to God - Who are You? It’s an understandable question that Moses asks. He wants to know who this God is, and he wants to have some level of credibility when he returns back to Egypt. He is not here in his own power, but he comes under the banner of the Lord. He will know the Lord’s name and then, over the course of his life, wholeheartedly proclaim that the people of Israel must follow Yahweh with all of their lives.
With this in mind, the sermon title is, “God’s faithfulness to Reveal His Name.” The sermon will have two portions, 1) Exodus 3:13-15 - The Name, and 2) Exodus 3:16-22 - The Promise of Provision.
Exodus 3:13-15 - The Name
Exodus 3:13-15 - The Name
13 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 they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 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.’ ” 15 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.
You've got to admire Moses’s honest response to the Lord, “If I come to the people.” There appears to be a reality that Moses is not fully convinced he is to go to Egypt. Imagine his predicament. The last time the Hebrews saw him he had just murdered an Egyptian taskmaster, his people rejected him, and Pharaoh sought to kill him. Moses has his gaze upon himself and his own inadequacies instead of trusting in the promise he already received, “I will be with you,” from the Almighty. I think if we are being honest we might see ourselves in Moses more than we’d like to admit. I just don’t have the right personality for X, I don’t have the right education for X, I’m just not good at X.
Anticipating the response he may receive, Moses begins to construct a narrative in his mind. He anticipates the elders saying, “Well who is this god who sent you?” We’ve all been here right? How many times have we anticipated a conversation so we begin to play it out over and over again. Moses is doing the same here. So, Moses seeks to know who is this God. Here is where we run into a bit of discussion on God’s response to “What is His name?” Is the name given, “I AM WHO I AM?” Is the name simply, “I AM.” If so, this would mean that God’s name is a verb, “to be.” The other possibility is that the name the Lord gives is Yahweh which is given in verse 15. In his commentary on Exodus, Phil Ryken writes these words:
Exodus—Saved for God's Glory Who are You?
Moses probably spent the rest of his life trying to figure out exactly what it meant. Bible scholars have spent the last 3,000 years trying to understand it, and they still don’t agree, because “I AM WHO I AM” is the kind of statement that raises more questions than it answers.
Ryken goes on to write that he believes the name given to Moses is Yahweh. I side with Phil Ryken who says that the name given is Yahweh. Yahweh, in the Hebrew, is called a tetragrammaton. This means that Yahweh consists of four Hebrew letters - YHWH. Supporting evidence that Yahweh is the name given to Moses is found in the song of Moses in Exodus 15. Moses pens these words, Exodus 15:3
3 The Lord is a man of war;
the Lord is his name.
Now, we are not entirely sure if the Hebrews knew the name God is going to give Moses. There is debate whether or not this is a new name given. Commentators and scholars disagree on whether or not this is a new name.
I’ll give you my personal opinion. I do not believe this is a new name given. Here is my reason why. In Genesis 15, God makes a Covenant with Abram. Genesis 15:6-8
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
The word Yahweh is used here as God speaks to Abram. God calls Himself “Yahweh” and Abram calls God “Yahweh.” Also, as Jacob is giving his blessings to his sons, he uses the word “Yahweh” in Genesis 49:18. When Moses returns to Egypt he comes with the name Yahweh which had been given to the patriarchs. It will be clear, Moses does not come in His own power, but Yahweh’s.
Over the course of a few hundred years the Jews treated this name with such reverence that they stopped pronouncing the name. This is certainly admirable, but Yahweh says that HIs name has been given to them forever, and He is to be remembered throughout all generations. His name is to be known to them.
I want to extrapolate a truth about God’s response to Moses, and then two truths about God in His response. The Lord must disclose His answer to Moses. This speaks to God’s self-revelation. Moses would not have known the name unless the Lord gave it to him. Now think of your own life. Would you have come to know the goodness, glory, majesty, and beauty of Christ if the Holy Spirit had not revealed Him to you? No! God in His kindness is still revealing Himself to men, women, and children who sit under the power and dominion of sin. So, we should be thankful that the God of the universe reveals Himself to sinners like us.
Now regarding the first truth about God, God is eternal. God says, “I AM.” There was never a time without God- God has always existed. The Hebrew word used for “I AM” is in the present tense. There has never been a time when God did not exist. He is eternal and He is unchangeable, or immutable. This is why throughout the book of Exodus He can claim repeatedly, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” He is the God of the patriarchs , He is the God of His people in Exodus, and He our God today. He is eternal and He never changes. The God of the Old Testament is the Same God we serve today.
Second, God is entirely self-sufficient. This attribute of God’s is called His aseity. This means that God is not dependent upon anyone or anything for His existence. Furthermore, this attribute belongs to God alone. Think of the contrast between God and mankind. God needs nothing to sustain. Now, think of a newborn baby. If a newborn baby were to be placed in a carriage and then left alone, we know the child would eventually die. The newborn needs Dad and Mom to care for her. The child needs to be nursed. The child needs for the parents to keep a watch on her well-being. This is not the case with God. He is not dependent, but is self-existent. He is utterly and absolutely independent from all His creation. The source of His life is internal, not external. He has no cause for He is the great Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8). He and He alone is the Great I AM - Yahweh.
Exodus 3:16-22 - The Promise of Provision
Exodus 3:16-22 - The Promise of Provision
16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’ 18 And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’ 19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. 21 And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, 22 but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.”
In verses 16-20 we will see the Lord promises provision to Moses in that He will be successful in leading the Exodus. The Lord tells Moses to do three things in verse 16. 1) Moses is to go back to Egypt, 2) He is to gather the elders of Israel together, and 3) He is to tell them of the theophany. This is all fascinating. The one who has been rejected is sent back with a commission from Yahweh. What Moses attempted to do in his own power previously, he will now accomplish as the Lord’s representative. There will be victory over Egypt, but it will be the Lord’s victory, not Moses’s.
What is Yahweh’s message that Moses is to speak? “I have carefully witnessed what has been done to you in Egypt.” Can you imagine what the elders experienced upon hearing these words? Do you remember how Exodus 2 ended? Moses has to flea to Midian and a new Pharaoh arose to power. Did this new Pharaoh stop the oppression? No. The people of Israel remained under bondage and slavery. 40 years ago, they cried out for help and their cry for rescue came up to God, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That was 40 years ago. You have to wonder how many of these elders continued to cry out to the Lord. Did they all preserve in their pleas to God, or, maybe, did some of them lose hope resolving that their prayers would never be not heard? Yet. God remembered and God acted. Their prayers did not go unanswered.
In verse 17, Moses is to relay the promise that God gave him - He promises to take us out of this land and bring us to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. A land that is spacious and fertile. This is an incredible promise they are given. No longer will they be under the oppression of the Egyptians. They will have a land of their own where they will enjoy the presence of the Almighty.
Now look at verse 18 and see the wonderful promise the Lord gives to Moses. The elders, the spiritual leaders of the tribes, will believe Moses and they will go with Moses to Pharoah. Then the king of Egypt will be told, “The Lord, Yahweh, has met with us and we would like to take a three days journey into the wilderness to make sacrifices to Him.”
Let’s stop here. How is it that Moses is to tell Pharaoh that they are only going on a three day journey when the Lord promised to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt and he will bring them to a different land? Is there deception here at some level? There is some evidence that a three days’ journey is an idiom which Pharaoh would have understood as the people of Israel are going to leave the land entirely. This is why he so quickly dismisses the request. There are others who believe this is merely a starting point of the negotiations. The people of Israel would leave for 3 days to make sacrifices to Yahweh, but they would return to Egypt. After all, God and His people keep their word. Eventually, the Lord would lead them out of Egypt.
Whatever this means is merely a tertiary point because the king of Egypt will not say “yes” to the request. Pharoah is going to reject the request. He desires to keep the people of Israel enslaved under harsh oppression. Why does the Lord know this? As verse 19 states, Yahweh knows the king of Egypt. The Lord knew the pleas, pains, and hearts of His own people, and he knew the heart of this wicked king.
The only way by which the king of Egypt would release God’s people was by a mighty hand, and this mighty hand belonged to the Lord. The mighty hand of God will bring wonders as He strikes Egypt. The word for wonders here means “miracles” and “terrifying punishments.” As I’m sure some of you know, the Egyptians and their land are going to be struck by 10 plagues in the near future. They will endure miraculous, terrifying punishments. This will be the undoing of Pharaoh, and it will be the way by which the people of Israel are released from their bondage and oppression.
Pharaoh will not willingly give up his stronghold over the people of Israel. If it were left to him, he’d continue to strangle power away from the growing Hebrews. This is exactly what the power of sin does to every single person. The power of sin is so comprehensive than none can get out of it on their own power. Like the Hebrews dwelling under oppression in Egypt, we also had no hope of coming out of sin’s grasp on our own. Like the people of Israel, we desperately needed a Mediator. This is the beauty of the Gospel. The Eternal Son of God moved by love comes to earth born of a virgin. God incarnate, the God-man Jesus Christ tabernacles with His creation. He lives a perfect life fulfilling every aspect of the Law of God. He dies a substitutionary death for our sins. As the Israelites were to take a 3 day journey out of Egypt worship Yahweh, so Christ spends three days in the tomb. Salvation, like the Exodus, will be complete. By the power of the Holy Spirit, He is raised from the dead. He ascends to heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the Father where He rules over the universe and the Church in His glorious Session. Right now, He continues to be our Mediator. He is moving all things to the end of time when He will return. The dead will be raised. He will judge the wicked and cast them to Hell forever. We, those who have been saved from the power of sin, will be found righteous - not of our own righteousness, but by the righteousness imputed to us by Christ - and we will enter the gates of Paradise, enjoying the presence of the living God forevermore. The power of sin’s grasp might be great, but there is a far superior Mediator, Jesus Christ.
In Exodus 3:20, there is a mighty promise of judgment against the Egyptians. We also know that there was a mighty promise of judgment against the enemies of God at the cross.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
At the cross, there was a full cancelation of our sins, the debt that stood against us. Christ took the penalty due to us for our own disobedience. His death fully satisfied God’s justice. Furthermore, God made the demonic rulers and authorities an open spectacle, putting them to open shame. God has the victory in Christ!
Yet what did this victory look like? What does it mean that God put these rulers and authorities to open shame?
7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
At the cross and the resurrection, Satan is defeated and he and his minions are cast out of heaven’s abode. The blood of the Lamb conquers the dragon and his angels.
The last promise God gives to Moses is the promise of financial and physical provision. In Exodus 3:21-22, we learn the people of Israel will find favor or respect in the eyes of the Egyptians, and when they leave the land they will not leave empty handed. The Israelite women will ask the Egyptian women for gold, silver, and clothing. Notice too that this will not just be for them, but also for their children. God’s provision extends beyond the wilderness generation, but also to the generation who would inherit the Promised Land. The last portion of verse 22 states that the Egyptians shall be plundered. “Plundered” is a military term used to defeat a foe in a battle. The Israelites will win the war without fighting. Yahweh will fight their battle because He has seen and heard their afflictions. God remembered the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In closing, I want to tell you a story about a man. This is a true story. There was a Jewish man that the religious leaders hated. He was a constant thorn in their side. At one point, this man told the religious leaders that their father was Satan. Pretty strong words. No wonder the religious leaders did not like this man.
Then at one point, they tried to kill him. Let’s pick up the story in John 8:57-59.
57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Jesus’s announced to be the God who appeared to Moses at the burning bush. There was no confusion here. Jesus’s point is crystal clear - He is the “I AM WHO I AM,” and the Jewish leaders knew what he meant. Their response? They picked up stones to kill Him for blasphemy.
In our modern times, we have many that will claim Jesus was a good teacher, or a morally upright person to follow, but He never claimed to be God. Jesus, Himself, could not be more clear in this passage. He declared to these leaders that He is God. We have the absolute right and duty to combat the view that Jesus was merely a good moral teacher. Jesus announced Himself to be God. There is no denying this fact. He claimed to be God and the religious leaders attempted to kill Him for blasphemy.
What have you done in response to the reality of who Jesus is in your life? Have you repented and claimed His as Lord? Is He merely a good teacher to you or is He the Lord? Jesus made this striking claim in John 8:24:
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
Do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah who has come to save you from your sins? If not, you will die in your sins. Jesus does not pull punches here. Call out to Christ to save you or you will certainly die in your sins.
For those of us in Christ, He has plundered the enemy and He has purchased your salvation. The Advent candle this morning was the Bethlehem/Peace candle. Do you enjoy experiencing only the peace He brings to you? This week, will you praise God for the peace He has given to you. A peace that we did not deserve, but one that He so willingly gave to us. Glory to His name forever and ever. Please stand with me as I pray.
