Untitled Sermon

I Am Series/ Week 1

The term I Am in relation to God is used over 300 times in the Bible. The first one being in Genesis amd the last in Revelation. It's only 3 letters but within these three letters is the very nature of God's relationship with man and His omnipresent attributes. Meaning the word I is personal and the word Am is present tense so God is a personal ever present God. It doesn't say I will be or I have been He says I Am meaning I'm all you can possibly imagine I Am and infantly more than that. God is eternally present. When the phrase I Am is used as a stand alone statement it is the ultimate statement of self-sufficiency, self-existence, and immediate presence. God's existence is not contingent on anyone else. His plans are not contingent on any circumstances. When He uses these three letters He's saying He will be what He will be, He is ever present and unchangeable, completely sufficient in Himself to do what He wills to do and to accomplish what He wills to accomplish. God saying I Am means no matter when or where He is there. I Am the Alpha, I Am the Omega,the one who is who was and is to come, I Am what I Am is all of these things and infinitely more. There are 7 I Am statements that Jesus makes in the book of John that we are going to be studying but I first wanted to help us understand how much depth there is in the statement alone and I also want to touch on the I Am who IAm statement in Exodus when Moses asks God who he was that sent him to free the children of Israel from pharos dictatorship.ButFirst if you view the Bible as Old Testament and New Testament, if you see it as God of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament your looking at it all wrong. The entire Bible is about Jesus! Genesis through Malachi, Jesus is Coming. Matthew through John , Jesus is here and Acts through Revelation Jesus is coming back. So we have to understand that yes it's written over 1500 years with 40 something author's but it's one Holy Book and I think we can all agree that only God could put a book together in this way. So keep that in mind as we are talking about the I Am in the old testament speaking to Moses and then as we move into the New Testament and we see Jesus using the same terminology and continually making statements beginning with I Am just remember that Jesus is not just a New Testament character. Exodus 3:1-16) So let's walk through this experience Moses had with the Great I Am and look at a few things that stuck out to me as I was studying this group of scriptures. So Moses sees this bush that's on fire but not being burned up or consumed. So just like anyone else it intrigues Moses and it gets hos attention and verse 4 says " When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, Moses , Moses. When God calls your name twice you better get ready. God saying it twice means whatever He's about to tell you is of great importance, but before we get into what God says to Moses let's look at vese 4 again. It jumped out to me as I was reading this that God waited until He had Moses's attention before He called him. God has to get our attention before He can call you. When I got saved at 15 God called me to preach and I knew that He had called me but I never heard God mention that call again until about 15 years later when He had my attention again. Does God have your attention? Are you seeing God move all around you and sitting still or are you seeing God move and going to see what it's all about because God waits until He has our attention but having our attention is one part the other part is when Moses said to himself "I must go over" we've got to go over to the move of God and then God will call us. After God calls Moses He says don't come any closer, remove the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground! Moses was standing on a 1/4 inch of sandal but it didn't matter because he needed to humble himself in the presence of our Holy God! Once Moses was humbled then God proceeded to reveal himself! See until God has our attention and we have gone over to where He is and He's called us by name and we've humbled ourselves before Him it's then and only then that God will reveal Himself to you. In chapter 7 we learn that God See's and hears the cry of His people and God knows about our suffering and God knows about our oppression as well as the ones oppressing us! And God says He's come down to rescue His people from the sorrow of Egypt to the promised land flowing with milk and honey! Then God tells Moses to GO! Moses is like hold on Who Am I to do this? You see we don't know who we are until we know who God is! We don't know who am I until we know the I Am! As children of God our identity is in God, As children of God our purpose is in God so Moses is asking the Great I Am who am I amd God tells him everything he needs to know in verse 12 He tells him I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign that I Am the one who semt you that when you bring the people out of Egypt you will all worship God at this mountain. See when Moses asked who am I he didn't need self confidence he needed Godfindence or God-confidence. It's not always about how strong we are but how strong God is. Then God reveals His plan. He didn't just rescue the Israelites so they could be free and lazy He rescued them so that they could do what they jad been created to do which was worship God! So wrapping this up we get to verses 14-16 where Moses says who should I say semt me amd God says I Am who I Am tell them I Am semt you! If you were to translate the Hebrew way God said I Am to English it would say "to be" By describing himself this way God was saying that He is the personal, eternal,self-existing and self-sufficient creator and sustainer of all. See many claim to believe in a generic God but Moses was to tell the Israelites that he had been sent by the one and only true God The Lord He alone is the God of Abraham, issac, and Jacob He is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ and He is responsible for all that exist, and He sovereignly directs all things to accomplish His purposes though the world is ever changing He Is and we know Him as the Great I Am!!