Identity: Moses Finds God

Intro:

new month, new series.

We are starting our brand new series, “Identity: Who am I Really?”

As I was preparing for this series, I was thinking about all the things that COVID-19 has challenged, some good and some not so much. It has challenged cleaning practices, something that, if we’re honest, we probably got a little lax on lately. It challenged the way we do business, church, school, and life in general. It challenged marriages, families, and living in community. Along the way, we learned things about ourselves that we may not have known we needed to learn.

One of the things that has been challenged that most is our sense of identity, and I’ll tell you why in just a moment, but first, let me ask a question:

Question 1: When asked, “Who are you,” how do you typically answer?

Now there are no shortage of answers to this question. In fact, the answer you give could very well be based on context. What does the person already know about me? What do I think this person needs to know, and what do I want them to know?

Typical answers, after most obviously your name, is what you do, if you’re married and have kids. You might include where you’re from, some people would identify themselves by their gender. If we have some claim to fame or we have influence in a certain area of life, we may mention that. Hopefully we would mention our faith as a source of identity.

Typically, we find our identity in things that we think are important. Our jobs, our family, our faith, our football team, our hobbies, our interests, even our history and experiences make up much of our identity.

But what happens when those things are taken away? This has been one of the biggest challenges that has come out of COVID. Many people find their identity in what they do. Their job takes up so much of their time that it becomes part of who they are. So what happens when you can’t do your job anymore? Either you’ve been sent home because your job is not considered essential, or you’ve been let go because the economy has tanked and you are the low person on the pecking order. What happens when you identify by the love and support of your family, but you aren’t allowed to see them because of a pandemic?

We can take this broader. What happens for the stay at home mom when the kids all grow up and move out? Or the athlete who gets a career ending injury or ages out?

I remember listening to a Chanda Pierce, a Christian comedian, sharing about how she identified as a wife, and the immense struggle she went through when her husband passed away.

The reality is that our identity is constantly in flux because things are constantly changing, but there are things in life that we establish as unshakeable, and when they get shook, it is devastating. Identity crisis is a real thing, and more people are wrestling with it because of how the current state of affairs.

This brings me to Moses. We are going to be looking at the story of Moses pretty intensely, particularly his early goings. What happened to Moses that propelled him to become the leader of Israel? Why was he so secure in who he was, to face the challenges that he did? What did he know about himself, and how can we come to know it?

Early Life of Moses

let me lay the foundation for everyone. We are in Exodus, the second book of the Bible. Genesis concluded with the people of Israel moving to Egypt to escape a famine, led by Joseph. By the time Exodus rolls around, there is a new Pharaoh who feel threatened by the people of Israel and proceeds to force them into slavery. When the people continue to grow in number, he decides to kill the male babies.

Moses is born at this time, and after hiding him for 3 months, his mother puts him in a basket and floats him down the river. That same day, Pharaoh’s daughter is bathing, happens to find the basket with the baby inside, and claims him as his own. Interesting thing, the daughter sees its a Hebrew boy, no doubt knows the law her father has decreed, and still decides to save the child.

The child is reunited with his mother, and when he is done nursing, he is brought to the palace and raised as Pharaoh’s grandson.

Moses grows up in the palace, gets the best education, has everything he could possibly want or need at his disposal. Life is good, yet he never loses sight of the fact he is not an Egyptian. We know this because in Exodus 2:11, we read:

Exodus 2:11–12 CSB

Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand.

So not only does he know he’s Hebrew, he is bothered by the way they are treated; bothered so deeply that when he sees the injustice, he takes matters into his own hands and kills the Egyptian. This is an important point in the story, and I want you make a note of it mentally, on your phone, somehow because we are going to come back to this.

Question 2: What is something that bothers you as deeply as this moment bothered Moses?

Maybe it doesn’t bother you to the point of killing someone, but it does stir you into action. What is something that makes you think, “Someone should do something about this.” This isn’t right, and it needs to change.

Moses stood up for his people, and he paid dearly for it. Pharaoh discovers what he has done and wants Moses killed for it. Moses flees, and suddenly he goes from having everything and being a grandson of Pharaoh to being an alien, a fugitive, and having nothing. When we talk about those things that we find our identity in, Moses lost all of it. His identity is gone, and he faced with embracing one that he never imagined having. This brings us to Exodus 3

Exodus 3:1–6 CSB

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” he answered. “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Moses is trying to put his life back together, but his new situation can not be easy to swallow. In Egypt, shepherds were seen as lowly and repulsive. Yes he’s married, he’s even got a son; he named his son, ‘Gershom’, which means, ‘a stranger there’. Why? Because he says, “I am an alien in a foreign land.”

Enter God stage left. He comes in a bush that is on fire but not consumed. Needless to say, this caught Moses’ attention. What is this phenomenon that is happening in front of me?

God often reaches out to us in our lowest moments. When we are in times of crisis or feeling lost, it is often when we are most open to hearing from him. One of the challenges in our life as a believer is getting to the point where we recognize those nudges, regardless if life is good or bad. If we only ever hear from God when things are bad, we are going to miss out on so much of what He wants to accomplish in our lives. Is God trying to get your attention, and are you missing it?

Now I want you to watch closely to what happens next:

Exodus 3:7–10 CSB

Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

I told you to make note of something. What was it? The way Moses was bothered by how the people of Israel were being treated. What is the first thing God says? I have seen, I have heard, I know how the people are being treated. Moses, you are not the only one who is bothered by this. This bothers me, I am going to do something about it, and you are going to help me.

Last week, we talked about calling and if you are wondering what God has called you to, this is a great spot to start. What bothers you? What is something in this life that stirs you so profoundly that you want to take action? There is a good chance that if it bothers you, it bothers the heart of God. The good news, God has a plan to make it right, and you have a role to play in it. Craig Groeschel often says this about the things that stir us. “Someone ought to do something about it, and that someone might as well be me.” What is something that bothers you or stirs you to that point?

Moses hears the plan, and watch his response

Exodus 3:11–12 CSB

But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

Who am I? Who am I to accomplish such an important mission? Who am I that you would send to free the people of Israel? This is often where the calling and dreams that God places in our heart get caught up and stopped. We ask this question, feeling like we are unqualified, undeserving, unable to accomplish this mission. God, what you are calling me to is big, it is important, and I don’t think I’m the right person. I’m sure we’ve all felt that. Now take into consideration that Moses is trying to put something of a life back together. He has lost everything, and now God shows up to call him to this. Wasn’t he better suited to do it when, oh I don’t know, when Pharaoh actually like him and maybe would’ve listened to him. He was considered a grandson, wouldn’t that have been a better time?

How does God answer? He really doesn’t. God tells him he is going to do this, and that God will be with him as he goes. Which brings up the next important question, one that I would say is more important then who am I?

Exodus 3:13–15 CSB

Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, 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 name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Moses asks, “Who am I?” and doesn’t really get an answer. He then asks God, “Who are you?” and then he gets an answer. We could spend a lot of time talking about this, “I AM WHO I AM.” statement. It can be translated, “I AM BECAUSE I AM” “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.”

Moses asks who are you and God answers by saying I AM. The creator and sustainer of the universe, the all powerful, all knowing, self-sufficient, the completely necessary. I am the one who spoke to Abraham, I am the one who started all of this. I AM. As we learn more and more who God is, we become to realize his opinion of us, the world, people, his standards, his morals; who God is becomes who we are. We begin to embody the things God loves, what he cares about, our heart breaks for what breaks his. Who God becomes the foundation of who I am. Suddenly when everything else in life is changing, our identity is finally founded on something that is unchanging.

This is why the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians says, I will be all things to all people that I may save some. Paul is saying he will be whoever God needs him to be to accomplish the things that God has called him to.

When we come into a new relationship or friendship with an individual, we come into it as equals. I am the expert of me, you are the expert of you, and we trade information as we learn about each other. When we enter into relationship with God, he is the expert of himself and us. We genuinely come to learn about him and us.

This should actually be a huge relief. This means the pressure of discovering who we are doesn’t actually fall on us. If our identity is found in God, and we are whoever God says we are, then we just need to draw near to God and allow him to reveal our identity to us.

Who am I? I’m whoever God says I am. Who does God say I am? Well, according to this story, I am sent, I am called, I am chosen for a purpose.

Who am I? It starts with getting into a quiet place with God and asking, “God who are you?” As we discover who He is, we will begin to discover who we really are.

Let’s pray.