The Great I AM

Welcome, Passage, and Opening Prayer

Good morning church! It is my delight to bring the word of God to you this morning. If you are able, please remain standing as we read our passage for this morning. We will be reading Exodus 2.23-3.22:

Exodus 2:23–3:22 ESV

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” 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?” 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.’ ” 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. 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, 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.” ’ 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.’ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 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. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, 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.”

Let’s pray.

Gracious God, we thank you for the opportunity this morning to gather together in fellowship under your Word. We thank you for your revelation to us - how you have revealed yourself to us in your Scriptures and in the person of Jesus Christ. As we dig deeply today into your patterns of redemption and your self revelation to Moses in the burning bush, we pray that the Spirit will set our hearts on fire for you. We pray that in this text, we would also encounter the living God in much the same way that Moses did - that we will be awed by your majesty, your glory, your holiness, and the unreachable depths of the love for the people that you have made your own. Be with us this morning, Lord, guide our hearts and our minds, and in so doing draw us closer to you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Introduction - The Pattern of Salvation

Have you ever thought much about patterns? Patterns are a wonderful way for our brains to make sense of the world around us. One of the things that my son Luke loves to do is find and create patterns in things. It might be dots on a page or certain types of cars lined up next to each other. Whatever it is, there is some sort of beauty in the predictable. Patterns help us to predict what comes next. It might be something mathematical like the Fibonacci sequence, or it might be something depressing like the seemingly unshakable pattern that my beloved Philadelphia Phillies have of inevitably stranding that lead-off triple on third base. Patterns are a template for the world around us. They help us to make sense of a world that often feels all too chaotic and crazy.

Our passage today contains one of the most wonderful patterns in all of Scripture - the pattern of Yahweh’s salvation. The four key elements that we are going to see in our passage today will play themselves out time and time again throughout Scripture, culminating (as it all does!) in the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. It is a beautiful pattern that helps us to understand who God is, how he acts, and how he deeply loves us.

As I mentioned before, the pattern consists of four elements - first, God remembers and acts based on the covenant that He has made (we see this in 2.23-25). Second, God reveals Himself and “comes down” (we see this in 3.1-9, and again in 13-15). Third, God names his representative (we see this in 3.10-12). Fourth, God’s glory is acknowledged (we see this in 3.16-22). We’re going to walk through these four elements in the story of the burning bush, and we’ll also look at a couple of other instances in the Bible where the pattern repeats itself to help demonstrate that this is not just some sort of “once-off” way that God saves his people - there are greater truths to be found here.

Yahweh Remembers (2.23-25)

Let’s begin with the closing verses of Exodus 2.23-25:

Exodus 2:23–25 ESV

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

I want us to note four verbs that occur to describe what God does in these three verses, because they have important implications for us. God heard, God remembered, God saw, and God knew.

First, God heard. God heard their groaning and their cries for help. Do you ever wonder if God hears your prayers? Here is the answer! There is some important context though - these prayers had been going on for a long time. Later on in Exodus we will read that it has been 420 years that the Israelites have been in Egypt, the majority of which they have been slaves. Their cries after the death of Pharoah may have been especially heart-felt though - according to Egyptian tradition, an incoming Pharoah would often grant amnesty to those guilty of crimes (this seems to be what happened to Moses to allow him to return to Egypt) and free slaves. Perhaps the Israelites thought that this would be their opportunity to go free. But it was not, and their groaning rose up to God. Their redemption did not happen in the time frame that they may have preferred, but it did indeed happen.

Friends, God hears our prayers. He may take longer to answer them than we wish, and the answer that He gives may not be the one that we want to hear. But God is not ignorant of our circumstances. He hears our cries and our groans through the travails of life. He hears when we cry out in desperation, when we call to him from the end of our ropes. But the beautiful thing is that God does more than just hear. He remembers the promises that He has made to us, and He acts upon them.

We’ve seen language similar to this before - back in Genesis 8 when Noah and all of the animals are floating in the ark on the floodwaters. God “remembered” Noah. We talked then about how this is covenantal language - it wasn’t as though God had forgotten that Noah was out there in the ark, no more than he has forgotten that his chosen people are currently slaves in Egypt! Rather, it means that he has purposed to act upon the covenant that he has made with them. God has remembered his covenant with Abraham - He has purposed to put the wheels in motion to bring about what He has promised. He is moved to compassion by the plight of his people, and he acts on the covenant. His promises are not empty. They are rich, full of life and truth. When God promises something, He does not fail to deliver it. It may seem to all the world that He is slow to act upon His promise, but the Bible tells us that we can rest assured that He will be faithful to accomplish what He has promised He will do.

Third, God saw.

There was a Reddit post that has been circulating around the internet over the last couple weeks from an atheist group that was intended to mock Christianity. The post read:

“Christianity - the belief that God created a universe 13.79 billion years old, 93 billion light years in diameter, consisting of over 200 billion galaxies, each containing an average of 200 billion stars, only to have a personal relationship with you.”

I’m sure they thought they were being very clever. But the funny thing is, although they are missing some important material about sin and Jesus, that statement is not wrong. To a Christian, that statement is a remarkable statement of the incredible love that our all-powerful God has for us. To the world, like Paul would say, it is foolishness. But to us who are being saved, it is a glorious truth that the one who created the whole host of the stars of heaven cares for His people on an individual level. God sees us just like he saw the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. He is concerned for our welfare. He knows what his people need because he sees their circumstances and their needs.

Finally, God knew. God knew their circumstances, their pain and their suffering. He knew their groans and their fears, He knew about the cruelty of the Egyptians and the new Pharaoh. He knew how they were forced to worship Egypt’s gods and how their ethnic identity was being slowly chipped away by the powers that ruled them. In the same way, God knows our circumstances. He is omniscient! He knows everything that there is to know about anything! But this is not some cold calculating knowledge, but a knowledge that is tinged in love and care for his people. For just as God heard and remembered and saw and knew the Israelites held captive in Egypt, so He also heard and remembered and saw and knew the whole of humanity that was held captive to sin. And just as He came down and revealed himself to Moses so that the people of Israel might be set free, so He would again come down and reveal himself in the person of Jesus so that those of us who were slaves to sin might be redeemed.

God remembers. We would do well not to forget that! God sees and knows what is being done, he sees and knows our sufferings and pains, and he remembers them.

Yahweh Reveals (3.1-9, 13-15)

The second element of the pattern that we see in our passage is Yahweh revealing himself. We actually see this in two places with the third element sandwiched in between (we’ll come back to that third element a little bit later). Let’s start with Exodus 3.1-9:

Exodus 3:1–9 ESV

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

In case you aren’t familiar with the full story of Moses, this is all occuring after he has fled from Egypt because he murdered an Egyptian who was beating some Israelite slaves. He flees Egypt to the land of Midian where he meets a family of women by a well and helps them to water their flock of sheep. Midian is a long way from Egypt - if you look at a map of Egypt and the Red Sea, it’s on the far side of the east arm of the Red Sea, in modern day Saudi Arabia. The women bring him back to their father and he marries one of the daughters and lives in Midian, working as a shepherd for his father-in-law. That’s where we find ourselves at the beginning of chapter 3 - he is keeping the sheep out in the wilderness, and he has made his way to Horeb, the mountain of God, also known as Mount Sinai. Traditionally, the mountain has been located at the south of the Sinai peninsula, which sits between Midian and Egypt, so Moses would have had to have come a long way with the flock in order to arrive there! But he has arrived, and when he does he sees a curious sight: a bush burning on the side of the mountain, but burning in such a way that it is not consumed.

Moses does what I think any of us would have done if we had been in his shoes - he goes to check out this cool bush that is on fire but isn’t being burned up! But as he approaches the bush, Yahweh calls out to him, saying “Moses, Moses!” And Moses has the same response that Abraham did when God called to him at the sacrifice of Isaac: “Here I am.” God tells him that the very land on which he stands is holy, and that he must remove his sandals, and God identifies himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. Immediately Moses knows who he is speaking with, and he does a smart thing - he hides his face, because he is afraid to look at God.

Now this fear in God’s presence is a consistent feature of theophanies (a theophany is when God comes down and reveals himself in a physical or visual form). This is the natural response to God’s complete and utter holiness when it is encountered by people who are not themselves holy. God’s holiness lays our sins bare before us, we see our own righteousness immediately stripped away when we encounter the true and complete righteousness of God. Moses is indeed right to be afraid!

Yahweh then tells Moses what we already knew from the closing verses of chapter 2 - that he has seen the affliction of his people, that he knows their sufferings, that their cry has come up to Him, and that He has come down to deliver on the promises that He has made to them. He then goes on to name Moses as His representative before Pharaoh (more on that in a minute!) and Moses responds in this way. Exodus 3.13-15 reads:

Exodus 3:13–15 ESV

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?” 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.’ ” 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.

Here is a stunning revelation of who God is - His very name! Names, especially of deities, were incredibly important in the ancient Near East. In order to call upon a god, to have any hope that the god would hear you, you would need to know that god’s name. Now this all might seem very silly to us because we know that Yahweh is the one and only true God, but remember that Moses probably didn’t fully understand this. He would have been raised in the religious culture of the Egyptians, with their pantheon of gods and goddesses. He probably would have known something about Yahweh (after all, Yahweh identifies himself as “the God of your [Moses’] father”), but his theology was likely imperfect and he would have seen Yahweh as one of the many gods. In fact, the plagues that will eventually be visited on the people of Egypt serve to demonstrate the power that Yahweh has over all of the gods and goddesses of the Egyptians - that they are false and have no actual power - but that is sermon for another time! Yahweh reveals His name, and there is much that His name tells us!

Bear with me for a moment as we quickly look at some grammar here. The words translated “I AM WHO I AM” in Hebrew are (pardon my pronunciation!) ‘ehyeh aser ‘ehyeh - the word ‘ehyeh is of particular interest here. It is an imperfect verbal form of “to be” in Hebrew. Now I can see all the cogs in peoples’ heads spinning trying to remember what that means grammatically (mine did too, thank the good Lord for original language commentaries!) - the imperfect form of a verb can be used in three ways: it can refer to the future, it can refer to a recurrent or continuing action or state (equivalent to the “timeless present” in English), or it can refer to the past. In short, we could potentially translate the name of God in three ways: “I AM WHO I AM”, “I WAS WHO I WAS”, or “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE” (AOTC Ex 3.13-14). I love the way one commentator puts it: “God can be counted on to be who God is”. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever into the future. He does not change. His character is the same.

There’s a fourth element here as well though - it can also be translated in a causative sense, which would render the name “I CAUSE TO BE because I CAUSE TO BE” (NAC 3.14). What a beautiful picture we find here of the character and nature of God! He is unchanging, he is eternal, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he brings the very universe in to being. He is the cause of every single thing that exists in this world. What a magnificent name! What a magnificent God! God has revealed who he is in this conversation with Moses.

These revelations aren’t always quite so dramatic - this one instance is one of the more special ones. Many times the revelation takes place as God showing up in the person of the angel of Yahweh. A good example of this is the story of Gideon in Judges 6.11, when the angel of Yahweh appears to Gideon at the winepress. It’s still an instance of God revealing himself before working redemption, but it doesn’t carry quite the same theological weight. But we might expect that - after all, Yahweh raising up Gideon to defeat the Midianites is just one example in a long string of stories in the book of Judges, where the people continue to fall away from God, repent and confess (so God has mercy on them), a judge is raised up who redeems Israel from their captivity, only to have them fall back into idolatry again. The burning bush is something altogether more important - this is God bringing to pass the promises that he has made to his people. It makes sense that his revelation here would be even more marvelous.

Yahweh Names His Representative (3.10-12)

Our next pattern element is sandwiched in between the two revelations of who Yahweh is, in Exodus 3.10-12:

Exodus 3:10–12 ESV

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

God, after having heard the cries of his people, has purposed to rescue them. And he has chosen Moses to be the man to represent him. Moses, however, responds in a way that I think is probably relatable for all of us if we were to come face to face with God and have him tell us that we were going to do something that would have seemed for all the world impossible - he effectively says, “Who, me?” In one sense, there is a proper amount of humility here. Moses is a fugitive princeling from Egypt. In fact, the very reason that he is a fugitive is that he tried to help some of his fellow countrymen and it entirely backfired on him! He’s left the country of his birth and is working as a shepherd for his father-in-law. He’s the very definition of a nobody! But here is the crucial thing - look at the way that God responds to Moses. He doesn’t praise his leadership abilities or his familiarity with the court of Pharaoh from his upbringing. He doesn’t say that he is an elegant speaker or a bold military strategist. It’s almost as though there is an unspoken agreement with Moses’ assessment that he is wholly unqualified to bring Yahweh’s people out of slavery in Egypt. The important thing is not who Moses is or what Moses brings to the table. The important thing is “but I will be with you”. That is all that matters. After all, it is not Moses who is going to bring about the mighty works that will cause Pharaoh to cast the Israelites out of Egypt - he is only Yahweh’s representative. He is Yahweh’s messenger. Yahweh is the one who is going to do the work.

I want to point to another parallel here in the story of Gideon. When the angel of Yahweh tells him that Yahweh is with him and will use him to save Israel from Midian, he responds “How can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” How does Yahweh respond? In the exactly the same way that he does with Moses - he says “But I will be with you”.

And this is vitally important. God uses people as his representatives to accomplish his purposes. But we have to remember that they remain his purposes. The prime mover behind every single act of redemption in the Bible is God. Nothing comes to pass unless he determines that it will come to pass. His chosen representative may seem foolish or nonsensical to us (think of how David was anointed as king over his much more militarily imposing brothers or even the existing king Saul!), but often times that is the point. Like we heard last week, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.27:

1 Corinthians 1:27 ESV

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

So it often is with God’s representative when it comes to accomplishing his purposes. The person he chooses may not make sense from an earthly perspective, but it doesn’t need to, because it is God who is actually doing the work.

So friends, let me challenge you with this little piece of application here - when God calls, how do we answer? If God asks us to go and do, do we rely on our own strength and abilities, and consider the task impossible because we know that we are not up to the challenge? Or do we rest in the fact that if God calls us to do something that he will be with us? Do we rely on the fact that it is not our efforts that bring about the results, but rather the perfect plans and purposes of God graciously worked out through his children?

Moses was utterly insufficient for the task, but it ultimately was not his work that was needed - it was the work of God. He has named his representative, but he is still doing the work.

Yahweh’s Glory is Acknowledged (3.16-22)

This brings us to our final element of the pattern of redemption that we are seeing laid out in Exodus 3 - the full acknowledgement of the glory of Yahweh. Let’s read Exodus 3.16-22:

Exodus 3:16–22 ESV

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, 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.” ’ 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.’ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 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. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, 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.”

There are a couple of different ways that we see that Yahweh’s glory will be acknowledged in this chapter. The first is in the obedience of his people - God tells Moses that when he goes to the elders of Israel, they will believe that he has been sent by Yahweh, they will listen to his voice, and they will support him as he goes to Pharaoh and asks for the people to be let go. God is glorified because his people identify with him. He is glorified because they desire to listen to his voice and obey his commands. Second, he is glorified by the fact that he will give good gifts to his people by bring them into the land of Canaan, a land “flowing with milk and honey”, where his chosen people will dispossess those who have long lived in the land and have transgressed and sinned against the righteous commands of God. Remember back in Genesis 15 Yahweh makes a covenant with Abraham and promises him that his offspring will inherit the land of Canaan, but only after they have been sojourners in a foreign land for 400 years - but this must be done because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete. Yahweh was graciously giving them an opportunity to repent and turn from their wicked ways, even though it was clear that they would not do so. Yahweh is glorified because those who oppose him will be conquered. Third, Yahweh is glorified by his mastery over the Egyptian gods and the Egyptian people. It is his mighty hand that will compel Pharaoh to let his people go. It is his judgment plagues that will demonstrate the utter powerlessness of the Egyptian pantheon and Yahweh’s identity as the one true God. It is his actions that will ultimately lead to the Israelites voluntarily plundering the Egyptians before they leave. The point here is that the whole of the Exodus is for the glory of God.

Pointing to the Greater Redemption

So we’ve seen this pattern emerge throughout Exodus 3 about what it is going to look like as God redeems his people. To the Jews, the story of the Exodus is the Story. It’s the one they remember on Passover, it’s an integral part of their heritage. It defines who they are as a people. The way that God is remembered throughout the Old Testament is as the one who brought them out of slavery in Egypt with a mighty hand. To them, the Exodus is the pinnacle of God’s redemptive work to date, the evidence that he has chosen them as his people.

But the story of the Exodus is pointing to something so much more. The pattern of redemption that we see in Exodus is just the beginning of numerous patterns of redemption throughout the history of Israel. We’ve seen some parallels in the story of Gideon in Judges, which goes to show that this is not just some once-off way that God is working. But the biggest and most important parallel of all comes at the end of the inter-testamental period, some 400 years after Yahweh last spoke to his prophets, when he remembers and acts upon his promise to bless the nations of the earth through the offspring of Abraham. As the author of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews 1.1-4:

Hebrews 1:1–4 ESV

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

God has revealed himself most perfectly and most completely in the person of Jesus Christ. God himself came down, not just to see the affliction of his people but to partake in our humanity. As the apostle John says in John 1.14-18:

John 1:14–18 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

All previous revelations of God were incomplete. They were powerful and glorious, but they were also limited. In Jesus, God has made himself known to us. He has revealed himself to the uttermost. He has tabernacled with us and represented himself that we might see his glory.

Friends, can we see how the incarnation and the life and death and resurrection are superior in every way to the wonderful redemption that God wrought when he redeemed his people from Egypt? For in Exodus he remembered a promise to his people to bring them into a good land out of slavery in Egypt - but in Christ he has remembered a promise that he will bless the world through Abraham’s offspring and will redeem us from slavery to sin and bring us into his wonderful presence forever! At the burning bush he gave the people his name - at the incarnation, he gave the people himself. In the wilderness of Sinai he gave the people a prophet (Moses), but in the town of Bethlehem he gave the people his Son. In Egypt he smote the most powerful nation in the world with his outstretched arm and demonstrated his mastery of the Egyptian gods so that he might be recognized and glorified, but on Calvary his wrath fell on his Son so that our sins might be atoned for and that he might be glorified by the redemption of those from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. He brought his people out of the metaphorical waters of death in the Red Sea, but he brought his Son out of true death when he raised him to live and secured our redemption.

Friends, think about what that means for us. The redemption of Israel from Egypt was all for God’s glory. He is glorified by saving his people. They are his joy and they glorify him. And so it is with you and I, with all who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. The church assembled brings him glory. We bring him glory as we rejoice in his redemption, as we do our best to live out his commands, and as we spread his gospel to the far corners of the earth. May we make much of Jesus day in and day out that he might be glorified all the more, and that the whole earth may rejoice and worship the one who is worthy.

Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you for your Word, and we thank you that you are the same yesterday, the same today, and the same forever. We need never worry if you will change, if you will turn your back on those that you have redeemed, because you cannot and you will not. We thank you that you have revealed to us in your scriptures the incredible love that you have for us, even when it is undeserved. We thank you that you see our circumstances, that you hear our prayers, and that you act to bring about your purposes. We pray that you would be glorified in each of our lives, and that as we consider our salvation that we would orient our lives in such a way as to bring you glory. Thank you for your grace and your mercy, and thank you above all for your Son. Amen.

Communion

What better way to stop and consider the patterns of redemption than for us to spend the next few minutes taking the Lord’s Supper together. This ordinance reminds us of God’s faithfulness to his people - how he did not leave us to wallow in our sin and despair but instead came down from heaven and sought us out that we might be restored into his new and perfect kingdom through the broken body and shed blood of his son, Jesus. In the bread and the wine we see the terrible price that was paid for our redemption, but we also experience the glory of God. As the men come around and pass out the elements, if you are a baptized believer we welcome you to join us in communion, but if you are not we ask that you allow the elements to pass by. As we wait for everyone to receive them, let’s take a few moments to reflect in our hearts about how God is faithful to his promises, how he has revealed himself to us through Jesus, and how our redemption ultimately brings him glory.

On the night he was betrayed our Lord took bread. And after giving thanks he broke it, saying “Take, eat; this is my body broken for you.” Let’s take the bread.

He also took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Let’s pray

Final Prayer

Gracious God, thank you for the body and blood of Jesus. Thank you for seeking and saving the lost, and thank you that we might be counted among the number of your redeemed. Father, as we go our separate ways this morning, we pray that we will remember that our lives are meant to bring you glory, and we pray that we would glory in the work that you have done to bring about our redemption. May our hearts be quick to praise you, may our mouths be quick to share you with others, and may our actions towards all men and women reflect the great compassion and kindness that you have lavished on us through your Son. Amen.