Encountering the God who sends!
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Encountering the God who sends his people!
Last Sunday I argued that our world was a dark, suffering, painful place.
Yes, at times it is beautiful… and it contains promises of glory.
A beach scene, mountain lakes and crystal clear rivers;
a young couple vowing to love, honour and obey each other as long as they both shall live, new life in spring…
but in the end, without Jesus death makes a mockery of all our momentary achievements.
In one sense Ex 2 has just confirmed our suspicions.
We had the indications that God was at work… there was a fine child was born and miraculously rescued and raised as prince in the superpower nation of the day.
But when we left him he had been 80 years on living under a death threat from the king, rejected by his people, shepherding - sheep herding! and lamenting being an alien in a foreign land.
It is dire.
YET… the narrator gives us an important glimpse in the last two verses.
Exodus 2:23–25 (NIV84)
23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about (“knew”) them.
BUT… is that any help?
Try telling a non-church person who’s just lost the person that mattered most to them in the world that God hears your cries and looks upon your suffering and knows what you’re going through.
Say it with the most love and empathy you can muster… but it’s still liable to be thrown right back in your face!
“Fat lot of good that is. They’re still gone. Why doesn’t God do something!”
Well today we begin a long journey where we will see God has, is and will do something. Something unexpected; something amazing; something very good for suffering people.
as Ex 3 opens up, Moses’ day begins the same as every other.
He’s in the wilderness trying to find grass for his father-in-laws sheep.
He doesn’t know that today he will have an encounter that will change his life forever.
Nor does he know he will be back to this place in a few months with God’s newly redeemed people to receive the 10 commandments from God.
All he’s sees this time is something a bit unusual… A bush that is on fire, but not burning up.
He figures he might go and check it out.
He walks over, and God calls to him from out of the burning bush… “Moses; Moses”
“Here I am” Moses replies.
“Don’t come any closer, take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground”
Ex 3:6 “6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”
So, at least in one sense… this is not something new… this has been going on since at least the time of Abraham.
Moses seems to know already, or sense there and then (or both) that God’s holiness is very important.
That’s a fear that many people, certainly outside the church but also sometimes within the church, unfortunately don’t share.
Many people either maximise their own holiness and think that God owes them at least a relatively pain free and comfortable life because they are good people…
Or… they they like to think that God is not really that much different to themselves.
Ah… yes your “holiness”! What is holiness anyway? And who cares. God just should…
God is entirely, perfectly holy. High, set apart; He alone is Creator, totally, permanently, fully independent within Himself, without spot or blemish. Everyone and everything else is dependent creation.
He can know more unholy himself that we can clean up our gross unholiness by ourselves.
AW Tozer had it right, He says, “I tell you this: I want God to be what God is: the impeccably holy, unapproachable Holy Thing, the All-Holy One. I want Him to be and remain THE HOLY. I want His heaven to be holy and His throne to be holy. I don’t want Him to change or modify His requirements. Even if it shuts me out, I want something holy left in the universe.”
I want something left holy in the universe!
In a world where not just us and the people we love are suffering and dying, but the whole creation groans; the animals and trees and pot plants… even the sun and the stars have a long, but limited lifespan, comes the holy, infinite and eternal God.
Moses, Moses… Here I am… Don’t come too close Moses.
Take off your sandals Moses.
You will learn Moses how fraught it really is for human beings when pure holiness comes to live in your midst!
Well, why are you here then?
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
The narrator mentioned something about this in 2:24-25. But here we have it from the mouth of God himself.
Well, this could be very good news!
God indeed sees the misery of his people, he hears their crying and (knows)/is concerned about their suffering.
What is it that makes this special for Moses?
Why will this information (eventually) make such a transformation in Moses life?
It’s because Moses is not simply gaining new information about God;
Moses is having a personal encounter with the Living God.
The self-existent, high and eternal, glorious God of the highest heaven who dwells in unimaginable holiness…
has come down to meet this hot-tempered moral failure/murderer who’s shepherding his father-in-laws sheep in the back blocks of no where!
Just sit with that for a moment.
Have you had that personal encounter… the one with God that changed your life?
What is church for you? Information… or encounter that leads to transformation?
That’s the difference between useless theory about suffering… and truth that comforts in suffering!
So, Moses might have said, What do you intend to do about it?
Exodus 3:8–9 (NIV84)
8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.
I have come down… to bring them up.
I have come down to rescue them and bring them up into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
The land God is promising for his people is a land where there is so much grass that the cows, sheep and goats give so much milk that their young can’t consume it so as they walk around their udders just ooze milk… and the bees are so prolific there is honey also freely available to anyone who wants it.
This land not only provides the basic necessities for life but it oozes with the niceties, the luxuries of life!
WOW! What a transformation that would be.
From groaning in slavery in Egypt to so many luxuries that you can’t consume them in a good and spacious land.
These verses also ooze with gospel truth.
I’m not sure how people here read the OT… but let me just share a little of my understanding with you.
Moses lived 15C before the life, death and resurrection of Jesus… and we live 21C after.
In Jn 5 Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees about Jesus’ claim to be the resurrection and the life. Jesus said Jn 5:39-40
39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
The OT Scriptures teach us a lot about the nature and character of God and human beings and why the world is such a mess.
But the OT Scriptures testify about Jesus… to whom we come to have life.
How do these OT Scriptures testify about Jesus so we might come to him to have eternal life?
Well, some would have noticed that last week we read about the birth of a fine/good child that was supernaturally protected from the rampages of the anti-god who hates God’s plan and purposes and wants to stop God at any cost.
I entitled the sermon: A Saviour is Born… because in so many ways it reminded us of Herod’s murderous rampage when our Lord Jesus was young.
Ex 3, as we have already seen, has set the scene by showing us how salvation is God’s initiative.
Moses didn’t go out that day to pray and pray until God showed up. After 40 years in the land God manifests in a burning bush and calls to Moses (who God knows by name).
We were also reminded that God is holy… and Moses wasn’t when God stopped Moses getting too close.
That may prompt us to ask, “How then will a holy God ever meet with unholy man?”
Sinful man meeting the holy God is like a fly meeting an electocuter! Get too close and you get zapped!
In v7 we see God’s concern for his people and, in v8 God comes down to rescue his people from slavery and take them up out of that land that flows with luxuries!
But there are so many unresolvable problems.
The people who God wants to rescue are enslaved to the king of the superpower of the day.
And the land they are going to is already inhabited by people who have been there a long time
but whose judgement day is finally right on their doorstep!
I find it very interesting that way back in Gen 15 God told Abraham that his descendants would be persecuted in a land not their own for 400 years, but God would come and punish the nation they served as slaves and they would come out with great wealth, but God would not do it until the sin of the land inhabitants “had reached its full measure” (Gen 15:16).
So for the Hebrews, God sends his fine child and now has come down to rescue them from slavery to Pharaoh and take them up to a wonderful land of promise, where luxuries abound.
For us today, God has sent his fine child, his One and only Son, who came to rescue us from our slavery to sin and take us to a good and productive land of promise.
Where is this land of promise?
As the kids in the car say, “Are we there yet?”
We’ve been rescued from our captors… sin and Satan and eternal damnation/death.
Why can’t we enter into the Promised Land filled with not simply with every necessity, but also every luxury that our hearts desire?
Well, the sin of the Amorites… for us the earth’s inhabitants… haven’t yet reached the full measure.
Today is the day of gospel grace.
We don’t go and find the land’s inhabitants with swords and guns and arguments to take them down…
Our Moses, our Saviour, Jesus, has given us the gospel good news!
This is the day of grace! Our friends and enemies. Jew and Gentile, neighbour and politician. Businessman and policeman; young and old, male and female, transexual and murderer, today is the day of grace.
We invite them to come and meet our God.
Because if you don’t, when he comes back he will cleanse the earth of all rebellion and you will perish forever.
Because this planet is the land of promise, it’s the land flowing with milk and honey where God will dwell in the midst of his people forever.
You see Jesus knew what he was talking about in the sermon on the Mount.
When he said Mt 5:5 “5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” He wasn’t exaggerating or kidding!
If we come back to Ex 3… we can imagine that up until the end of v9 Moses would have been nodding vigorously.
You’ve seen our misery; heard our cries; know our suffering.
Awesome! Yes God… Thank you God.
You have come down to rescue them and take them up to a land flowing with milk and honey.
Yes God! Amen! Do it God!
I see the way the Egyptians are oppressing my people.
O they are Lord! They are in a terrible state.
10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
You what? Sending me… to Pharaoh… you’re out of your mind God!
Don’t you know God… I shepherd Jethro’s sheep!
I tried that rescue people stuff once before!
The result was my people rejected me and Pharaoh wants to kill me.
No God… not gonna happen… who am I?
God’s promise… “I will be with you.”
That’s the difference… 5 words… from the all-powerful God of the universe who says what he means and means what he says.
I… WILL… BE… WITH… YOU…
Is that enough? Enough for me… for you?
Well what happened for Moses?
Well, those of you who have read ahead to the rest of Exodus and Numbers know that Moses would confront Pharaoh and lead God’s people through the sea. He would see the superpower army wiped out.
He would again climb this mountain to meet God and receive the 10 commandments inscribed by the finger of God.
He would confront rebellion and the threat of being stoned… by the people he lead.
He would see water come from rocks and more quail that the nation could eat… supplied in the desert.
He would see the tabernacle built and God come to dwell in glory among his people.
You can imagine that at the end of his life he would have marvelled at how foolish he was to argue with God.
O it made sense at the time… but now… looking… back… What was I thinking?
And so what about us?
Have you personally met God? Even here today… are you getting information to add to your head about God… or are you meeting with God?
And God’s still saying the same thing to his people.
No… we’re not Moses… Jesus is our Moses… and in one sense we’re just called to follow him.
He’s the one that confronted the great anti-God one at the cross for our liberation… and demonstrated his victory in the resurrection.
But he still calls his people to follow him and sends his people to carry out his plan and purpose on earth.
Now we are God’s people liberated from our sin but called to go and confront the Canaanites and Hittites… and Egyptians… and Muslims… and our neighbours over the back fence… not with rifles and hatred and violence… but with the Good News of salvation… and peace with God… and the invite to come to the land flowing with milk and honey that comes by grace to God’s people.
And there is bad news for those who refuse.
This God won’t be stopped. It’s his world. He has made promises to Abraham, they are fulfilled in his eternal king.
God gave Moses two things: His promise to be with him… and a sign, v12.
That sign won’t come to fruition except Moses goes. If he doesn’t go he won’t see the sign.
And so for us.
Those that belong to God get sent (Mt 28:18-20)… and we get his promise to be with us… and maybe the sign won’t come until after we’ve obeyed his voice.