I Am the God Who Was, Who Is, and Who Will Be

Introduction

Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3

When I was younger, my older brother would often take me and my two other brothers out camping for the weekend

Before we left, my mother would make my oldest brother promise to protect us,

and not let us do anything stupid

During one of these weekends, I was about 11 years old at the time,

we hiked up a mountain to push rocks down

Because we were bored, and thats what young boys do when they’re out camping

While I was pushing a rock, I slipped, and started to slide down the mountain

Fortunately I was able to stop myself,

but I was now suck on loose rocks,

unable to move,

otherwise I would fall further down the mountain

As I was holding on for dear life, hoping not to fall further,

My older brother, who had promised my mom to take care of us

called out to me, saying

I am here to save you

In that moment, nothing He said had actually changed my situation,

But by the simple fact that someone was there to help me, comforted me deeply

To know that someone was there, who was able to assist me was all I needed to hear

I knew He wouldn’t let me fall

The same type of situation happened with the people of Israel,

while they were in Egypt

At their darkest hour of slavery and death,

When they had lost hope,

They cried out to the one who promised to deliver them

And their God heard them, and called out to them

The deepest confort that God gave His people was to reveal Himself to them

That He has heard their cries, and is there for them

But He doesn’t say to them, I am here,

rather He says something far more revealing about not only His presence,

but his capacity to deliver them

Please rise for the reading of the word of God

Reading of the text

Exodus 3:1–15 LSB

1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of the bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. 3 So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight. Why is the bush not burned up?” 4 And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look, so God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then He said, “Do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 And Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sufferings. 8 “So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 9 “So now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 “So now, come and I will send you to Pharaoh, and so you shall bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain.” 13 Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 And God furthermore said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons 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 this is My memorial-name from generation to generation.

This concludes the reading of the Word of God

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are the great I am

The covenant keeping God

The God who remembers his promises for a thousand generations

The sovereign King overall who lays low kings and kingdoms

We humbly come before you this day

Reveal to us who you are

So that we might learn to trust you more everyday

Bless the preaching of your word

Amen

You may be seated

Revelation from God

Do names have meaning?

for most of us, our names are relatively meaningless for us

It’s not something part of our modern culture

But, for Israel, names were extremely important as they revealed something about the person

There are many examples of God changing names to reflect their persons new identity

Peter, or Paul for example

Like them, the name of God reveals something about Him

But for Him, His name reveals not an aspect of His character,

But His very being

In His conversation with Moses, He calls Himself “I am”

I am …. what?

Simply I am

Moses when He first heard it, may have simply waited a few extra seconds to let God finish His sentence

I am … what ….Lord?

Loving? Merciful? Powerful?

Pause

But no, simply “I am”

In verse 15, the name Yahweh is also introduced.

It is derived from the verb “to be” in Hebrew

Its basically a noun form of the verb

So every time you say the name Yahweh, you are repeating that God is “I am”

The name “I am” essential means that God is who He is, or He will be who He will be

His character and works flows from His very nature

All of us have unique character traits that make us who we are

Me, sometime I have difficulty finishing jokes because I start laughing before I’ve gotten to the punch line

All I can say is,

Its who I am

And I can’t deny that aspect of my character

Neither can God deny who He is,

and there is none who can make Him be anything other than the way that He is

And, as we shall see, the aspects of His being that He reveals about Himself,

demonstrate that He is able to save Israel in their time of need

They establish that He is who they need

He is not simply powerful, but He is so much more than that

What they need is a God who is:

Self-sufficient,

sovereign,

and unchanging

These attributes come together to form the basis for God’s covenant faithfulness

He has everything He needs to accomplish His promises,

He has the authority to do them,

and His promises never change because He never changes

This is the reason God waited till this point in Israels history to reveal the divine name

None before Moses knew it

The promises needed to be made, then tested for the people to grasp the significance of the name

He is a God who keeps His promises

Even after 400 years, He keeps them

His very nature guarantees their success

and in Israel’s darkest hour,

He conforts them by saying that He will accomplish all that He has set out to accomplish

Abrahamic Covenant

God beings His conversation with Moses by reiterating the promise He first gave to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, & 17

Exodus 3:6 LSB

6 He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

He is the God who revealed Himself to Abraham and made a covenant

He is the God who revealed himself to Isaac, the promised son

And He is also the God of Jacob, their father

God covenanted with Abraham to bring forth a seed through which the whole world would be blessed

The people of Israel would become a great nation

and He would bring them to the promised land

The land of Canaan

But, as God told Abraham, the people would suffer first

They would spend hundreds of years in captivity before God would bring them out and into the promised land

Despite knowing in advance what would happen,

they still cried out to God for deliverance

They were powerless before the might of Egypt

They were totally dependant upon God to liberate them

They looked forward to this

and their God who was faithful would bring them out of their slavery

But there is an even greater fulfillment to this promise that they couldn’t yet see

One that brought them, not only out of slavery in Egypt,

but out of slavery from sin

The promised seed of Abraham would leads the people on a true exodus to the final promised land

The new creation

Composed of people where were in the covenant,

not by birthright, but by faith

The true I am, who kept His promise to His people

Despite all their short comings, and failures

That final and complete fulfillment finds it place in the person of Christ,

The great I am in the flesh

Outline

The plan for this morning works through how the attributes of God form the basis for His covenant faithfulness

Culminating in the fulfillment, not only of liberation from Egypt,

But liberation from sin, in Christ our Lord

The God Who Needs Nothing Guarantees His Covenant

The God who is self-sufficient in all things

The God who has all that He needs in Himself to accomplish His promises

He is completely independent from creation in every respect

He is the God who is existence itself

This attribute is known as the Aseity of God

The God Who Rules Everything Accomplishes His Covenant

Because He needs nothing to do what He promises,

None can stop Him from doing what He plans

He is the sovereign God over all of creation

Who destroys false Gods

and protects His covenant people

This is the sovereignty of God

The God Who Remains Forever Upholds His Covenant

The God who is constant in every way

The God who will be who He will be from generation to generation

He is the God who cannot change

This is the eternality and immutability of God

Christ, the Covenant God

Finally, the ultimate fulfillment of the covenants is in the person of Christ

He is the one who liberates His people from bondage

He is the one who is faithful to His people until the very end

He brings the true people of Israel together

The culmination of the Exodus

Because, even before Abraham, He is

Transition

God doesn’t make promises He can’t keep.

If he has promised to deliver His people,

Then He will, even if it takes 400 years

These attributes combined together to form a covenant keeping God

The great I am who we can trust completely

We can completely trust all that He has said to be accomplished because it is guaranteed by His own being

And if He has promised to save you, you can rest easy in the Lord your God that it will be accomplished

The God Who Needs Nothing Guarantees His Covenant

Which brings me to the first point,

the God who Needs nothing

Is able to guarantee the success of His covenants

The first major attribute of God we are looking at is His aseity

It is a latin word meaning from Himself

God is from Himself, or self-sufficient

He is self sufficient in His being, and His promises

Exegesis/Explanation

The phrase “I am the one who is” is a reflexive form of the verb “to be” expression that His existence is in or of Himself

He is saying that “I am of myself”

I am existence itself

God’s existence is grounded in Himself

He is self-existant, and self-sufficient in every respect

He is totally uncaused in His being

In other words, He is independent.

For comparison

We are extremely dependant beings

I depend on a lot of things to sustain my existence

Food, water, clothing

And even my parents for the origin of my existence

without any of these things, I would eventually cease to exist

But not God,

He depends on nothing to exist

Nothing in creation contributes to either His being or His existence

He simply Is

Self-Sufficient in His Being

Life and existence itself find their source in the being of God

John 5:26 LSB

26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;

The Life of God doesn’t come from any other source

He doesn’t have life, He is life,

it is part of His very being

He doesn’t derive His being from another like us

Nor can we give Him anything

Paul, talking to the greek philosophers says,

Acts 17:25 LSB

25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

Nothing can be given to Him, to help Him

Or make Him stronger

He has everything He needs

In short

God doesn’t depend on things not God to be God

That is the essential idea here

But He gives all things to His creation

He gives life to all people

Acts 17:28 LSB

28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’

He is infinite in His being, and gives without measure to His creatures

When He gives us life, it doesn’t diminish or subtract from His life

He cannot exhaust what He gives His creatures

Purpose

This means that He didn’t need to create in order to be fulfilled, or complete

God was under no obligation to create the universe

He doesn’t profit from creation

He also wasn’t obligated to make a covenant with us

It was out of His pure grace that He made a covenant

And it was ultimately for His own glory

So that he might in fact demonstrate His attributes to His creation

Self-sufficient in his promises

Not only is His being self-sufficient, but His will and everything He promises are as well

His self-sufficiency means that He has all that He needs in Himself to do whatever He decides to do

He doesn’t need our assistance to accomplish what He has covenanted to do

Nor our permission

Psalm 115:3 LSB

3 But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

All the resources necessary can be found in the being of God

He cannot be served by human hands

He takes no council from us

Purpose

His promises aren’t contingent or conditional upon certain events or decisions within creation

First, His promises aren’t conditioned on our compliance

Pharaoh’s refusal wasn’t a problem for God

God will make Pharaoh submit

He cannot resist His will

Proverbs 16:9 LSB

9 The heart of man plans his way, But Yahweh directs his steps.

God wasn’t surprised when Pharaoh resisted,

nor was He impotent in the situation

It all went according to His will

Second, his promises aren’t conditioned on our faithfulness

The Abrahamic covenant was one sided

Only God has obligations towards Israel

Their disobedience doesn’t exonerate God from His part of the Covenant

Nor did it disinherit them from what God had promised

Third, His promises aren’t dependant on our skills,

God’s sufficiency meets all of Moses objections and needs

Neither Moses’ power to convince the people to follow him,

nor his capacity to convince Pharaoh to listen aren’t a problem for God

God provides Aaron to help,

but ultimately its in God’s hands

But God still chooses to work through these means,

Pharaoh, Israel, and Moses

despite their insufficiencies or resistance

Despite, the fact that God doesn’t actually need them to accomplish His plans

But like Israel, we are completely dependant on the Lord our God for all things

He is the God who needs nothing,

But gives freely to all

without which, we would cease to exist

In our times or darkness, and sin

Cry out to Him, He is never far away, and able to save you

He is faithful to His people because of who He is, not because of who we are

Transition

This is the aseity of God

He has everything He needs in Himself to do all that he wills to do

He is faithful to His covenant with Israel because He depends on nothing to accomplish it

This also means that since He is independent,

He is most free in all that he does,

In other words, He is sovereign over all

Because God Is who He is, none can resist Him

The God Who Rules Everything Accomplishes His Covenant

Which brings me to my second point

The God who rules everything is able to accomplish His covenant

He has the authority and power to do all He wills

He is the King over all things in His creation

He is sovereign over nations and rulers,

He is sovereign over who we worship

demanding exclusivity,

and destroying all who would deviate worship from Him

He demonstrates His sovereignty both over Israel, and Egypt throughout the drama of the Exodus

There is nothing outside of His control

He is the sovereign Lord who is able to deliver His people from bondage

Sovereign over nations

When Moses demands Pharaoh set his people Go,

Pharaoh asks a leading question

Exodus 5:2 LSB

2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh that I should listen to His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and also, I will not let Israel go.”

Who is your God so that I should listen to Him?

He will soon see why He must listen to Yahweh

But as you read through the story,

on multiple occasions we read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart

Its an uncomfortable reality in the story

God hardens Pharaoh’s heart,

then punishes Him for his disobedience

Because God is sovereign overall, He is able to do things like this

Proverbs 21:1 LSB

1 The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of Yahweh; He turns it wherever He pleases.

And He pleased to turn Pharaoh’s heart into rebellion for His own purposes

So that He might be further glorified in the deliverance of Israel

It is usually understood that God accomplishes this hardening by removing His restraining hand from the sin already in Pharaoh’s heart

Leading to Pharaoh naturally, and willfully rebelling against God

Speaking of Pharaoh, Yahweh says,

Exodus 9:16 LSB

16 “But, indeed, for this reason I have caused you to stand, in order to show you My power and in order to recount My name through all the earth.

Its like God is staking the deck against Himself so that when he prevails,

His name will be heard all throughout the earth for such a magnificent deliverance

This caused Israel to be even further dependent upon God for their deliverance

Because not only were they in slavery, but now their ruler was setting himself against them, and their God

Sovereign over our worship

And the reason that God wanted to deliver His people wasn’t necessarily for their sake,

But for His own

He liberated them so they they would worship Him

He says this in verse 12

Exodus 3:12 LSB

12 And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain.”

Yahweh wants His people to leave Egypt so that they would come worship Him on mount Sinai

He is sovereign over the worship of His people

And he guarantee that Moses will return to the mountain for worship

God is telling Moses,

Go, I will be with you, bring the people here to worship Me

I alone am worthy of your worship

Because I am the true and only ruler of creation

Purpose

We were created to worship God

We were created to be in communion with Him

and we will worship Him for eternity in heaven

He was setting the people free from Egypt to do what they were created to do,

and what they covenanted to do with God

Because while Israel was in Egypt, and in fact, at many times in their history,

They deviated and worshiped false gods

As soon as they were delivered, they made a golden calf to worship

because it pleased them more than staying faithful to the One who had just delivered them

But God is sovereign over who and How we must worship Him

We do not get to invent new methods of worship

We must do it as prescribed by God Himself

Sovereign over false gods

And He demonstrates this reality when he destroys the false Gods of Egypt

He is sovereign in His judgement of them

Exodus 12:12 LSB

12 ‘And I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am Yahweh.

When Pharaoh refuses to listen to Moses,

God begins to show him why He must obey

He is greater than all their false gods, who are not gods at all

Each of the 10 plages is a judgement on one of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon

He is greater than all

There is none that can stand in His way

There is none more powerful than Yahweh

When the Nile flowed red with blood, it was a judgement upon Osiris, the god of agriculture

When God sent frogs, it was a judgement upon Hapi, the god of fertility

When God blocked out the sun, it is a judgement upon Amon-ra, the god of the sun

And finally, when He kills the first born son, it is a judgement upon Pharaoh himself, who was worshiped as a god.

I have only named a few of these judgements, but each one demonstrates the weakness of the gods of men

Yahweh is sovereign over all of them

None can stand in His way!

None will prevent His people from leaving Egypt

Purpose

No false God can stand in the way of will of Yahweh!

He is the creator of heaven and earth

He is the sovereign covenant keeping God

And He will not tolerate idolatry

We are to worship the true God alone

The terms of the covenant were that He would be their God, and they would be His people

and He will destroy all that distracts their attention and worship from Him

Transition

But the sovereign power of God isn’t the only thing that accomplishes His covenant,

but also His unchanging nature

He has the power accomplishes the promise,

but His constant nature preserves it throughout all generations

The God Who Remains Forever Upholds His Covenant

Which brings me to my third point concerning the attributes of God

He is the God who remains forever

and He upholds all the elements of His covenant

He is the eternal and immutable or unchanging God

He is constant in His being, throughout all time

Because He is the One who will be who He will be

Exegesis/Explanation

When He beings speaking with Moses, God reminds Him that He is the same God who covenanted with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob

He is the same in his being, and the same in time

God is not bound by time, and He isn’t affected by it

He isn’t changed by events, or experiences

Nothing destabilizes or disturbs Him

He is the rock of ages, the immovable God

The statement “I am who I am” is an statement indicating that everything about His is constant

It can also be translated

“I will be who I will be”

I will be who I will be throughout all time for all people

Constant through time (Eternal)

He is the sovereign Lord of the past, present, and the future

Hebrews 13:8 LSB

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

The same promise he made with their fathers is also available to them now in Egypt

Nothing in Him expires

He doesn’t forget what He promised,

and doesn’t change the conditions or the content of it

He doesn’t get so old, that He can no longer guarantee its accomplishment

Purpose

His covenant doesn’t expire

There is no time limit upon it or its blessings,

He is eternally faithful to His people

because He is their eternal God

Constant in his being (Immutable)

The eternal, and unchanging God

He is the same God that made the covenants of the past

This is called the immutability of God, or his unchanging being

Malachi 3:6 LSB

6 “For I, Yahweh, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

He has an unchangeable heart towards his people

We are not consumed, as the verse says because of His persisting faithfulness

Because, His attributes are sovereign

Exodus 33:19 LSB

19 And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”

His mercy, grace, and compassion are unchangeable

They do not increase or decrease over time like us

If humanity can be defined by anything, it is change

we grow in intelligence, height, maturity

Our love is every changing

But not God’s

He is constant, and perfect in all his attributes

Purpose

And He won’t change his mind about the covenant that He has made

It is as unbreakable covenant as He is

Our constantly changing emotions don’t change his constant posture towards us

He is faithful because of who He is, not because of who we are

If God’s love towards us depended on our capacity to love Him back,

we would all have been lost long ago

But He is the eternally unchanging God, who is faithful to His people

Transition

These attributes,

The self-sufficiency or aseity of God,

His sovereignty,

His eternality,

and his unchangeable or immutable nature

culminate in our God being the Covenant keeping God

The God who brought His people our of bondage in Egypt into the promised land

according to His covenant

But the promised land wasn’t the end of God’s covenant with them

There was still a deeper slavery from which they needed to be freed

The true purpose of the covenant with Abraham

The true darkness that we all need deliverance from

The covenant finds its true fulfillment in the person and work of Christ

Who liberated His people from their final ruler,

Sin

Christ, the Covenant God

Which brings me to my fourth point

Christ, the covenant God of Israel

Though Jesus is no where mentioned in the story,

the whole thing is about Him

He is the guarantee of the covenant,

He is their covenant God

He is the one who is faithful to His people

He is the one who is the great “I am”

Covenant Fulfillment

God didn’t deliver Israel to the promised land to let them die in their sins

No, He liberates them from that as well, which is the true end goal of the covenant

The true bless of the seed of Abraham

Which finds ints realization in Christ

Galatians 3:16 LSB

16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.

he is the promised seed through whom the world would be blessed

Through His work on the cross securing an eternal salvation for His people

it is Christ that gathers believers as His covenant people

Galatians 3:7 LSB

7 so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham.

The true Israel isn’t national, but spiritual through faith, not birth right

The true people of God, the true inheritors of the promise of Abraham are those of faith

And He brings all His people to the true promised land

through the righteousness of faith

Romans 4:13 LSB

13 For the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.

The true promised land is the new creation, the new Jerusalem

Where the people of God, who have been liberated from their sin will dwell forever

in communion with their God

This is the true exodus, the purpose of the whole story points towards the deliverance from sin and death

All of this is guaranteed through Christ’s work on the cross

He was faithful to His people, even to death

God of the Covenant

But that’s not all,

He is not only faithful to His people,

But He is the very God who delivered them from Egypt

He is the self-sufficient, sovereign, and unchanging ruler over all the earth!

The great I am is Christ Himself!

While talking to the religious leaders, Jesus says

John 8:58 LSB

58 “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Before Moses even knew the name “I am”, before Abraham made the covenant,

Jesus was the great I am, pre-existing them all

He is the covenant God of the people of Israel

and the covenant God of the all those who are joined to Him by faith

John 8:24 LSB

24 “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

To be part of the covenant of God, you must acknowledge Christ as the Covenant God!

Else, you will not benefit from His faithfulness, nor His covenant

Behold the salvation of the people of God!

Conclusion

From aseity to immutability, our God is a faithful covenant-keeping God.

There is nothing that can stop his promises from accomplishing.

He lacks nothing outside of himself necessary to ensure its realization

He has the absolute authority over all to do as He wills, laying waste to nations that oppose Him

He is the same God yesterday, today, and forever

His promises don't expire, nor are they forgotten.

He is faithful, not because of who we are, but because of who he is

And who He is, is the great I am

The God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob

Who walked among us

and who brought the covenant to its true fulfillment in the liberation of His people from the bondage of sin

This is our covenant-keeping God