God of Holy Ground

Introduction

Have you ever met someone who completely changed the course of your life? Maybe it was a teacher who believed in you, or your spouse who forever changed your understanding of love.

Maybe it was a mentor who saw potential in you and challenged you in ways that propelled your growth. There are certain encounters in life that become defining moments.

Throughout the Bible, we find men and women who experienced defining encounters as well... not merely with another person, but with the living God.

Some met Him in the wilderness, others in a temple. Some on a mountain top others in the middle of unimaginable suffering. Some were terrified, others where overwhelmed with joy.

Some fell on their faces in worship and others where sent on missions they never imagined they could accomplish.

All of these encounters are different but the one thing they all have in common: no one ever encountered the living God and walked away unchanged.

Over the next several weeks we will be studying some of those defining moments. But this series is not ultimately about Abraham, Moses, or Isaiah. It is about the God who revealed Himself to them.

These are not merely stories about remarkable people. They are revelations of the character of God. Every encounter teaches us something about who He is.

Every encounter ultimately points us to Jesus Christ, who is the fullest revelation of God to mankind.

This is important because we live in a culture that talks a great deal about experiencing God. Many people claim to have had encounters with God. Books are written about them. Videos go viral because of them.

People often measure their spiritual lives by emotional experiences or dramatic moments. However, Scripture teaches us something completely different.

A true encounter with God is not measured by how emotional the moment was but by how deeply God's self-revelation transforms us.

It is the depth of transformation that is the true measure of the encounter.

The songwriter captures the essence of this reality when he says, "Shackled by a heavy burden, neath a load of guilt and shame. Then the hand of Jesus touched me and now I am no longer the same."

This morning we begin with one of the most familiar encounters in all of scripture: the burning bush. As exciting as that was, the miracle was never the bush.

The miracle was that the holy God graciously revealed Himself to a shepherd in the wilderness and in doing so changed both Moses' life and the course of redemptive history forever.

Today as we step onto this Holy Ground with Moses, we will discover that true worship always begins when God reveals Himself and that same Holy God still calls his people to draw near through Jesus Christ.

Every encounter with God in Scripture exposed something about God, but it also exposed something about the person standing before Him.

I. God Reveals His Holy Presence (vv. 1-5)

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law…” (v. 1)

A daily activity Moses had performed for 40 years. It had to have become second nature. It was just part of his normal routine. His people were shepherds, a job he had learned to master.

Long gone were the days of being treated as royalty, being a prince in Egypt. Long gone were the delusions of grandeur that may have plagued his mind concerning being Israel's deliverer.

Long gone were the ideas that somehow he was special because the circumstances surrounding his surviving pharaoh’s murderous edict and even being given access to the best education possible

Moses certainly knew there was something unusual about his story. Born under a death sentence, providentially preserved, raised in Pharaoh's household, and yet he knew that he belonged to the people of Israel.

But now it's been 40 years. There's a settling that comes at this time of your life where you kind of accept “this is who I am, this is what I do.”

Whatever Moses's expectations would have been concerning his role in Israel's deliverance forty years ago had long gone.

At 40 Moses apparently thought he was ready. At 80 Moses thought he was finished but now God knows he is ready.

It is in the middle of this ordinary routine of life that God chose to reveal himself in an extraordinary way.

We tend to imagine that if God is going to work in our lives, it must happen during some dramatic spiritual event. Perhaps we expect Him to speak during a conference or a revival or some mountain top experience.

That may very well happen but God is not bound by those events. Scripture repeatedly shows that God often meets his people in the ordinary rhythms of everyday life.

David was tending sheep. Gideon was threshing wheat. The disciples were mending nets. Matthew was collecting taxes. The Samaritan woman was drawing water. Ordinary people doing ordinary things.

Then according to God's own calendar this day, unbeknownst to Moses, was going to be a transformative day. The day may have begun for Moses the way every other day had begun for forty years. But this day would end very differently than any other day of his life.

“ And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush.” (v. 2)

Who is this mǎľāk YHWH: mǎľāk simply means messenger. It can refer to a human messenger or an angelic messenger. The identity is determined by the context:

“And the Angel of Yahweh appeared…” (v.2)

“And Yahweh saw…God called to him…” (v. 4)

“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God, of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (v.6)

The messenger is distinguished from God, yet He speaks as God, receives the reverence due only to God, and identifies Himself as the covenant God of Israel. This is major.

Here we see a pre-incarnate appearance of the eternal Son of God… what theologians call a Christophany. This correlates with the Apostle John's testimony:

John 1:18 LSB

18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of the Father because he has always been the one through whom the Father reveals himself.

The burning bush was never ultimately about a bush. It was about God making himself known. If you know God, the only way you know him is because he made himself known to you.

Exodus 3:3 LSB

3 So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight. Why is the bush not burned up?”

Curiosity. God chose to reveal Himself to Moses through his own curiosity. How sovereign is God? So sovereign that He controls even the things that draw our attention?

Did God simply know that this was something that would have made Moses turn and come see or did God create in Moses the curiosity for such a phenomenon so that at the right moment he would have been drawn?

Just thinking about the depth of this concept is humbling. Indeed this adds another layer to the reality that

“In Him we live and move and have out being” (Acts 17:28)

Not only did Moses have to notice the sight, he had to have enough insight to be curious about the sight. The Psalmist says,

Psalm 36:9 LSB

9 For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.

God gives sight, He gives in insight to understand that this is not a normal sight and gives the curiosity to investigate the sight? God initiates contact by drawing Moses unto Himself. Jesus said,

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him…” (John 6:44)

So Moses goes to see this thing never imagining that it was not a thing at all, but a Him. Imagine the shock:

Exodus 3:4 LSB

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.”

God initiates the conversation. Even Moses's approach does not place God under any obligation to reveal himself. Every genuine encounter with God begins because God chooses to make himself known.

Salvation works the same way: We love because He first loved us. We seek Him because He first sought us. We respond because He first revealed Himself.

When God calls his name twice he says, "Moses, Moses," which tends to be something that God does in scripture at pivotal moments in a person's life.

He said, "Abraham, Abraham," when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac.

He said, "Jacob, Jacob," when Jacob goes down into Egypt.

He says, "Samuel, Samuel," when God calls Samuel into prophetic ministry.

He says, "Martha, Martha," when she is so concerned about housework.

He says, "Simon, Simon," when Jesus warns Peter about Satan's attack.

He says, "Saul, Saul," when Paul has an encounter with the risen Savior.

So he does it here Moses, Moses, because after this encounter Moses will not go back to being the same Moses he had been.

So God initiates contact by provoking Moses' approach yet his holiness controls The manner and the closeness of that approach:

Exodus 3:5 LSB

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.”

There is nothing sacred about dirt. There was nothing inherently holy about the ground itself. The ground became holy because the holy God was present.

Holiness is not a property of geography. It is the presence of God that makes something holy. People often speak about holy places as though certain buildings, cities, or landmarks possess unique spiritual power.

But Scripture consistently teaches that holiness belongs to God himself. Wherever he manifests his presence, that place becomes holy because of him. Not because of the location itself.

And taking off one's sandals was an act of reverence and humility. In that culture it was an acknowledgement that one stood before something infinitely greater than one's self. Moses cannot approach God casually. Neither can we.

This is where the gospel shines even brighter because the old covenant revealed the reality that holiness demands distance. This is why Moses was told not to come near.

But through Jesus Christ, the one who perfectly fulfilled God's holiness on our behalf. Through Him we are told:

Hebrews 4:16 LSB

16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The holiness that once condemned us is now the holiness that Christ has reconciled us to. God's holiness has not diminished. He is still the most holy, unapproachable God.

But Jesus Christ has satisfied every demand of that holiness through his life, his death, and resurrection. Because of this his redeemed children are welcome into his presence.

The first lesson from this encounter is simple but profound. True worship always begins with a right view of God's holiness. We are in no position to discover God. If we are to see him, it must be by his own revelation.

Our culture often wants a God who is approachable without being holy, comforting without being sovereign, loving without being just, but the God of Scripture will not allow himself to be reshaped into our image.

Before Moses could receive God's commission he first had to stand in awe of God's character. The closer we see God for who he truly is, the more we will worship him with humility, reverence, gratitude, and joyful obedience. Only then will we be prepared to hear his voice and follow his call.

II. God Reveals His Compassionate Heart (vv. 6-9)

Now God begins to reveal himself by not just saying what He is but who He is:

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.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

The God standing before Moses is infinitely holy but He is not an unknown deity. He is the covenant God of His people so He identifies Himself by His relationship to people Moses knew about.

He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those names matter because God is connecting what he's about to do with the promises he made hundreds of years earlier.

In fact immediately before this encounter the Exodus narrative tells us:

Exodus 2:24–25 LSB

24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 And God saw the sons of Israel, and God knew them.

When Scripture says, "God remembered his covenant," it does not mean that God had a momentary memory lapse that suddenly came back to him. For God does not forget.

Biblically, remembering his covenant simply means that he is now moving to act in faithfulness to what he has already promised.

Israel may have wondered whether God had forgotten them. But God's apparent silence was not God's forgetfulness. Upon God's revelation of his relation to the patriarchs, notice what happens:

“Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God.”

Moses hides because Moses is now coming into the understanding of Who exactly was the person standing before him. But Moses was about to discover something even more remarkable:

Exodus 3:7 LSB

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.

Listen to the language God uses. I have seen. I have heard. I know. God had not been blind to the injustice suffered by his people. He had not been deaf to their cries in agony and he did not stand unaware of their afflictions.

There is not one moment of Israel's suffering that has escaped the attention of God. From every blow from an Egyptian taskmaster, to every cry from an Israelite slave, to every pain they experience, He saw, He heard, He knew.

This creates a tension that we must acknowledge here and now too because we too experience pain and difficulty. We too cry out in agony. We too suffer.

Yet we have to contend with the fact that if God sees and if God hears and if God knows, why does He sometimes seem to take so long to act?

God's delays do not mean indifference. God's silence does not mean absence. The same God who says, "I have seen," also says, "I have heard," and that same God says, "I know."

The Hebrew word here is Yadah, which carries the idea of personal relational knowledge. He was intimately acquainted with their suffering.

The same word is used of Adam knowing his wife. God was not simply aware of Israel's suffering. He knows his people. He knows their suffering. And His compassion now moves from seeing, hearing, and knowing to acting:

Exodus 3:8 LSB

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.

Notice who the Deliverer is. We often speak of Moses as Israel's Deliverer but he is merely an instrument in God's hand. God declares Himself as the deliverer

But Exodus 3 will not be the last time God comes down to deliver his people. Jesus said,

John 6:38 LSB

38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

As real as the deliverance from Egypt was, as historical and mighty that entire scene was, it was not God's ultimate act of deliverance. God would again deliver one final and total time.

Matthew 1:21 LSB

21 “And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Egypt was bad but sin is worse. Pharaoh was a tyrant but he pales in comparison to sin, Satan and death. The Exodus points us toward a greater rescue and Moses points us toward a greater deliverer.

Through Christ God's people are brought out of the dominion of darkness and brought into his kingdom. The exodus was always pointing beyond itself and notice the compassion behind it all.

I saw you

I heard you

I knew your suffering

And I came down to deliver you

The songwriter captures the essence of this when he writes, "He looked beyond my fault and saw my need." That is the heart of God ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Incarnation is not just God shouting instructions to suffering humanity from the safety of heaven. No, He came down. Which is why John testifies.

John 1:14 LSB

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus entered our suffering, knowing hunger, exhaustion, rejection, grief, knowing betrayal and knowing pain. Ultimately he went to the cross to deal with the greatest problem we have: the sin that separated us from God.

In verse 9 God explains that the cry of His people has reached Him and that He has seen the oppression that they are under.

He said I have come down to deliver them and now he's about to turn an 80-year-old shepherd into a mighty instrument of God.

III. God Reveals His Sufficient Presence (vv. 10-12)

Exodus 3:10 LSB

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.”

Up to now Moses has just been listening to what God is going to do. God said, "I have seen." God said, "I have heard." God said, "I know." God said, "I have come." God said, "I will deliver."God said, "I will bring them up.”

I can imagine Moses was probably encouraged by everything he was hearing. After all these are His people.

He had once tried to intervene in their suffering himself but now God was finally going to do something about it. I can imagine Moses just going, "Yea God, I hear you. Amen, amen, and amen."

But then God says, "Come and I will send you." Oh I know that if I was Moses…Huh?

Suddenly the encounter has become personal. God has not simply called Moses over to the burning bush so that Moses can receive information but so that Moses can participate in what God is doing.

The reason you know God, is not just so you could receive information, it is also a call to participate in what God is doing.

In verse 8 God says, "I have come to deliver them," but then in verse 10 he says, "I will send you so you shall bring my people out of Egypt."

So who is going to deliver Israel? God is. And who is going to bring Israel out of Egypt? Moses is. Both are true because God accomplishes His purpose through the instruments He chooses to use.

Moses is the instrument but God is the source of power. That distinction is critical and Moses is yet to understand that distinction at this point. So he responds,

“…Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” (v.11)

There's an interesting question coming from Moses. Forty years earlier Moses seemed ready to deliver Israel by his own power. He saw an Egyptian abusing a Hebrew and took matters into his own hands.

Forty years tending to dumb sheep in Midian have had an effect on this man. Maybe 40 years earlier Moses thought too highly of himself. Maybe now he thinks too little of himself but either way Moses is still looking in the wrong direction.

There is a ditch on both sides of this road. If you think too highly of yourself, there's a ditch. If you think too little of yourself, there is a ditch. God never answers Moses' question.

Moses asked, "Who am I?" but that's an irrelevant question. The real question is not who he is but who God is.

Whether Moses thinks too highly or too little of himself, the problem is the same. Moses is still looking at Moses.

Notice God doesn't try to build a man's self-esteem: "Oh you got this, believe in yourself. Look deep within yourself and discover your potential." Rather God says.

“Certainly I will be with you…” (v. 12)

The decisive issue, Brother Moses, is not who you are. The decisive issue is who is with you. God's calling is never ultimately dependent upon the sufficiency of the person he calls. It rests upon the sufficiency of the God who does the calling.

This does not mean that preparation or gifting or wisdom or maturity or discipline or faithfulness do not matter. They do matter but none of those things are ultimately the source of sufficiency. God is.

God's presence is ultimately the source of power And the guarantee that God's purposes will be accomplished.

Joshua 1:5 LSB

5 “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

Isaiah 41:10 LSB

10 ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will make you mighty, surely I will help you; Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

God has continually promised to be with his people and that promise culminated in him dwelling among his people:

Matthew 1:23 LSB

23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

“…And behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

True worship begins with reverence before God's holy presence. Contrary to popular belief, true worship is initiated by God not by us. We just simply respond to it.

When God reveals Himself He calls for a response: sometimes to go, sometimes to serve, sometimes to repent, sometimes to trust, but always to obey.

An encounter with God that produces no transformation and no obedience should cause us to question what exactly we encountered. Because no one ever encounters the living God and walks away unchanged.