Knowing Who The I Am Is

Read: Exodus 3:1-15

Introduction:

While there is a ton of events in this passage I want to focus tonight on the revelation of the revealer.

Names in the Ancient Near East were extremely important. They gave a window into the character and personality of the person.

Up to this point Moses only seemed to understand God as an abstract idea, a God of his ancestors.

But in our passage Moses gets an up close and personal encounter with God.

SO close and personal that he receives a very important and powerful name, The Name of God!.

Revelation of What I Do

Look at this text that I have read especially verses 7-8, I want us to notice four verbs that open up to us a little of the heart of God

I have seen (Ex 3:7) - For over four hundred years the children of Israel had been in the land of Egypt and had been reduced to slaves and prisoners.

They faced not only slavery, but all of the horrors that came with it. They were in a bad place.

No doubt they felt forsaken, forgotten, alone, sad, fearful, depressed, helpless,

But God meets Moses out on the backside of the desert, in a burning bush and says to him Moses I HAVE SEEN - I have certainly seen, or I have seen indeed - the affliction of my people in Egypt God knew where they were, and what was happening to them.

We have a God that knows right where we are I love that passage in Genesis "Thou GOD SEEST ME" -

I have heard (Ex 3:7) - It's so wonderful that God didn't just see, but HE HEARD. He heard their cry.

He could hear when they went to bed at night so hungry they could hardly stand it but they didn't have enough to eat.

He could hear when they were so tired they could hardly climb into bed at night from being so overworked.

He could hear the weeping of the mourning families of those who had been killed or beaten and bruised by the evil taskmasters.

I want you to know tonight He is hearing you. he hears us when we cry out to him. Your prayers are not going unheard. He listens, he hears, he's keeping note of every prayer.

I know - Not only did God SEE & HEAR - GOD KNEW - He knows exactly what you are going through.

God knows what it is to lose a Son.

God knows what it is to hurt,

God knows what it is to be in pain, to suffer, to be rejected - whatever we are going through GOD KNOWS about it.

I am come (Ex 3:8) - He will come. "I am come to Deliver" God says. And he can and will deliver you as well.

Now deliverance doesn't always mean what we think it means.He delivered Peter from prison by an angel - but he delivered James to heaven by the sword. He brought his people out of Egypt with a high hand. and he will deliver you too.

I will be with thee - (Ex. 3:12) What a wonderful promise that we don’t have to go it alone. We aren’t in a pandemic alone - God is with us. We don’t go through the fiery trial alone - He’s the fourth One in the fire. We don’t face the foe alone - even in the valley of the shadow of death - Thou art with me!!!

Revelation of Who I Am-

Then when you get down to verse 14 you find God reveals to Moses a powerful and unique name for Himself. Now we don’t really know what it is - Judaism calls it “The unpronounceable name of God.” it has been lost to time - but we sometimes translate it Yahweh and at times Adoni (LORD). I Am that I Am.

The Septuagint and the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo paraphrase this name of God as “the One who is,” the One who is eternal and self-existent, who causes all things to exist, but himself has no cause. Exodus Rabbah (3:6) notes that God says ehyeh—“I am” (or “I will be”)—three times when he reveals himself to Moses. This shows that Adonai is the God of past, present, and future. “R. Isaac said: God said to Moses: ‘Tell them that I am now what I always was and always will be …’ ”

Russell Resnik, Gateways to Torah: Joining the Ancient Conversation on the Weekly Portion (Baltimore, MD: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2000), 66.

I AM that I Am - Whatever your need - wherever you are - I Am that I Am is still God.

This was to be a perpetual name: this is my name for ever (Ex 3:15.)