[Only One God] Exodus 3:1-22 | "I Will Be With You"
[Exodus] Only One God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 106 viewsSunday, March 13, 2022. Exodus 3:1-22 | "I Will Be With You" The short biography of Moses' early years in Exodus chapter 2 conveyed a significant experience when Moses was rejected. So substantial was it that it is preserved in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. But God takes Moses' rejection in Exodus chapter 3 and sends Moses back into a similar predicament, but this time with God's call, God's name, and God's presence! This message preaches from Exodus 3:1-22. The title of this sermon: "I Will Be With You."
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I. The Reading
I. The Reading
Having read verses 1-12 already in our service of worship, I will now read the remainder of Exodus, Chapter 3, beginning again with verse 10.
This is a reading from Exodus 3:10-22, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.
This is God’s Word:
10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 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.”
13 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?”
14 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.’ ”
15 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.
16 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,
17 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.” ’
18 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.’
19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.
20 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.
21 And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty,
22 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.”
[ Scripture Reading ~5 min ]
Say Amen
Say Amen
If you receive this word by faith, as the word of God and not the word of man, would you Say Amen? Amen!
II. The Exhortation
II. The Exhortation
I want us to think for a moment about what it means to be rejected.
Rejection. Repudiation. The refusal to be followed.
Have you ever been rejected?
Can you remember being rejected? Rejection often hurts so badly it is never forgotten. I’m sure you can remember a time you were rejected in vivid detail.
I’m sure you can remember exactly what happened, what was said to you, how it was said, and how it made you feel - Rejection is lingering and powerful.
No one likes to be rejected.
Rejection comes in many forms and it is always a discouragement and disappointment.
No one likes to be rejected, and it is often because of the failure of rejection, or of a fear of rejection, that we simply don’t act or attempt great things - or even obey God.
This man who we have been reading about, Moses, was a man who understood rejection.
His rejection by his own people was a prominent feature included in the short biography of his early life as told in the second chapter of Exodus.
11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.
12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?”
14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”
The Hebrews denied Moses as a leader over them, even over one skirmish - Hebrew to Hebrew. They rejected his deliverance on that day: “You are not a prince, you are not a judge over us...”
But God —
God did not reject Moses.
God later appeared to Moses. God called to Moses. God sent this same Moses back to Egypt, as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush (Acts 7:35).
Church -
It is one thing to reject a man. It is another thing to reject God’s man.
What God would have us to learn in Exodus Chapter 3 — what we would miss if Exodus Chapter 3 were not in the Scriptures — is that this Moses was God’s man, God’s chosen instrument, God’s sent one, God’s vessel for ruling and redeeming God’s people.
We might ask, What did Moses do to earn the position of leadership he would be entrusted with?
The wisdom of the world says “leadership has to be earned.”
What did Moses do to earn this leadership?
Did he birth himself? Did he make himself a fine child? Did he hide himself in a basket made of bulrushes? Did he draw himself up out of the water? Did he negotiate with Pharaoh’s daughter for a nurse from the Hebrew women which would be his own mother?
Did Moses earn this leadership by killing an Egyptian, being rejected, becoming afraid and fleeing from Pharoah to Midian?
What did Moses do to earn or deserve this calling of God?
Nothing. God did it all.
God was acting the entire time, behind the scenes, unknown to the people, through midwives fearing God, through a man and woman of faith — to raise up a boy, and preserve alive a boy, who would become a man, and in the appointed time, would become God’s man for a work God had prepared beforehand for Moses to do.
Time would fail us to tell of the numerous examples in human history of men and women who have accomplished much after having been rejected much.
Human rejection does not equate to divine rejection.
Moses experienced meaningful, human rejection, so that he didn’t know what to make of God appeared to him with an assignment for him. We might say that Moses “rejected” God’s assignment in a way?
And while God could have used someone else, God chose to use Moses, and that’s what Exodus Chapter 3 wants us to see.
Church — we are encouraged to pay attention to God’s calling and commissioning of this rejected man named Moses, for while Moses’ brothers rejected him, God did not reject him. Instead, God used him mightily. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s choices are not to be dismissed.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
27 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;
28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
...
31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
We are to see from this text, that God calls according to God’s purpose, and God’s presence accompanies God’s purpose, and God’s authority accompanies God’s presence, so that God’s choices and God’s callings are not about the people God chooses, but about God!
This calling of Moses is not about Moses, but it is all about GOD!
God says to Moses: “But I will be with you.” God is with Moses in all of this! There is no separating God, from God’s calling or assignment.
So let us turn our attention now, not to Moses, not to our leaders, certainly not to ourselves, but to the wondrous workings of God and learn of His ways even for us, the Church, today.
III. The Teaching
III. The Teaching
Acts 7:23 tells us that Moses was 40 years old when he struck down the Egyptian. He fled and became an exile in the land of Midian where he became the father of two sons.
Another forty years then passed (Acts 7:30).
Moses is now 80 years old. He is a shepherd, tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, when the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” (3:4).
“This is the first revelation of the glory of the LORD in the book of Exodus” (Ross, RHG, 158).
Moses responds “Here I am.”
And look at what the Lord said to him, verse 5 —
5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
The ground where Moses was standing is holy — Why?
Because God is there with him, and God is holy.
By taking off his sandals in obedience, Moses is humbling himself in acknowledgement of God’s holy presence in the bush (Ross, RHG, 158).
This is important for understanding Moses’ call. Moses is not calling himself. Moses is not strutting into a position of leadership himself. Moses is not taking something holy for himself.
Whatever Moses will be given by way of leadership, or calling, or assignment is holy, and belongs to holy God. It is a stewardship. It is an entrustment.
Moses was told by the LORD — “Do not come near - the place on where you are standing is holy ground.”
And by extension, Moses - you are not holy. And Moses recognized this! He hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (v.6).
Moses calling begins with God. The glorious God. The holy God. The miraculous God!
Think of it! The God who appears in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush that is not consumed — does not need human vessels to accomplish His purposes! God does not need Moses! God is not limited in power to deliver His people!
Which makes the words of verse 10 so mysterious.
Look with me at verse 10. The LORD says to Moses —
10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
God doesn’t need to send Moses, but God wills to send Moses.
Perhaps it is at this word, that Moses remembers how he was rejected before?
We might expect Moses to fear rejection by Pharaoh, but as we’ll see in Moses’ questioning, that Moses is not afraid of Pharaoh — Moses is afraid of the people. His people.
Surely his experience of rejection in the past is still very present with him.
“LORD, do you not remember when I killed the Egyptian? Do you not remember the two Hebrews fighting? How they said ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us?’ That phrase is on repeat in my mind.
I left Egypt 40 years ago, LORD. I’m a shepherd for my father in law now. Choose someone else. Choose anyone else!”
But the LORD says “Come, I will send you…that you may bring my people…out of Egypt”
In other words (Acts 7) — go back to Egypt, rule this people, and redeem this people. Be to them, what they rejected of you, but this time not on your own, but with my presence.
Church - If you have ever been rejected, that rejection, that weakness may be the very thing that God desires to show His power in you through, because whatever is done won’t be done this time, by YOU!
And look at how Moses responds. Verse 11:
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
“Who am I?”
Moses is obviously concerned about his own qualifications for the task.
And this is a perfectly right response when in the presence of the holy God. Who am I?
David thought the same thing when he looked at the heavens as a reflection of the glory of God and said:
4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Who am I? Moses is reluctant. He’s tried this before. He was rejected. But God says — try again — this time, with my sending. This time, with my leading. This time, with my presence.
Look at verse 12 —
12 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.”
There is a promise buried in this commissioning.
God speaks not with a question mark, but with an exclamation mark.
Moses — I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you — you shall serve God on this mountain.
You shall serve God on this very mountain! You will return to this same mountain with my people, for worship. It will happen.
And what is the guarantee?
God’s Word and God’s Presence. God is the guarantee.
“But I will be with you....”
And Church, what a promise! Such a promise that God does not repeat it this way again in Exodus. One time is good enough, because one time is all that is required. God said it, and it will be. “But I will be with you...”
And if God says He will be with you, God will be with you.
If you forget God is with you, God is still with you.
If you fail God, God is still with you. It is His promise.
Hebrews 13:5 (ESV)
5 ...for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Moses - you will serve God on this mountain with my people. But Moses - you will have to trust me and obey me by faith.
Because that day will happen in the future, but there is a lot of work to be done until then. And this work is work that I am giving and calling and sending YOU to do — but I will be with you.
Look at verses 13-14 —
13 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?”
14 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.’ ”
These verses reflect Moses’ fear. Moses fears the people of Israel, what if they reject him as they did before?
Exodus 3:13 (ESV)
13 ...“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?”
Someone pointed out, that nowhere in the Scriptures is it recorded that God’s people actually ask Moses this question.
Moses, out of fear, still wounded by his rejection, begins asking questions that will not be asked of him. He’s worried about something that isn’t worth worrying about. Don’t you know that God is not worried? God knows how His people will respond.
Yet God still, graciously answers Moses’ question and gives Moses a name. But God is not giving His name for the people of Israel who will not ask the question - He gives Moses His name for Moses, to answer His fear.
14 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.’ ”
In the Hebrew language, this phrase “I AM WHO I AM” is a play on the verb “to be.” It can be translated a number of different ways.
Victor Hamilton says “I AM WHO I AM” may legitimately be translated as:
(1) “I am who I am”; (2) “I am who I was”; (3) “I am who I shall be”; (4) “I was who I am”; (5) “I was who I was”; (6) “I was who I shall be”; (7) “I shall be who I am”; (8) “I shall be who I was”; (9) “I shall be who I shall be.”
\What’s the point? God is saying to Moses - whatever you have needed, I was. Whatever you need now, I am. Whatever you will need, I will be.
Past, present and future - God, the only God, the holy God, is present in all of it.
And by answering Moses in this way, God is answering Moses’ first question in verse 11 where Moses asked — WHO AM I?
And God answers with “I AM.”
Moses asked “Who am I?” with a question mark.
God answers “I AM WHO I AM” with no question mark.
Church, God is certainly promising that His eternal presence will accompany His electing purpose for His chosen people and his chosen vessel to lead them —
- but God is also sending the message to Moses, loud and clear, to Moses’ failures, to Moses’ fears, to Moses’ questions —
— MOSES! MOSES! You are questioning who you are, but I AM NOT QUESTIONING WHO I AM! I AM WHO I AM. I do not change! I do not fail.
God is calling Moses to a specific work, while at the same time calling Moses to trust Him, his God!
God answers Moses’ question of “Who Am I” by turning Moses’ attention to WHO I AM! God IS “I AM.”
It’s not about you, Moses. It’s about Me.
This is a message that will follow Moses for the rest of His life.
“It’s not about you, Moses, it’s about Me.”
When later the people murmur and grumble about him.
“It’s not about you, Moses, it’s about Me.”
When the people build a golden calf.
“It’s not about you, Moses, it’s about Me.”
When later the people want to return to Egypt.
“It’s not about you, Moses, it’s about Me.”
The message that God gave to Moses, the promise of God’s presence, the assurance of God’s calling for this task, was born out of the rejection Moses once experienced by the mouth of God’s people.
And now, BECAUSE of God’s presence, BECAUSE of God’s call, when Moses would experience rejection again, it wouldn’t be Moses bearing the rejection. God would bear the rejection, because God was with Moses.
And so we see God, the only God, as God who is SO present that He bears our burdens, our failures, our rejections, our pain WITH us.
It is one thing to reject a man. It is another thing to reject God’s man.
For in rejecting God’s man, one rejects God who is present with that man.
And this brings us now to —
The [Christ] Conclusion
The [Christ] Conclusion
For Moses is a primer. Moses is meant to prepare us for a better Moses to come.
1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,
2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.
3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,
6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
Jesus understood rejection.
24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.
[…]
28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.
Jesus was rejected.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus was rejected.
Just look at the cross! You can’t get more despised and rejected than death on a Roman cross!
Jesus was totally rejected!
He is the stone that the builders rejected [that] has become the cornerstone (Mt 21:42; Ps 118:22).
BUT GOD —
God sent Jesus into the world to be rejected because of His abundant love for us.
And God does some rejecting of His own —
God told the tomb to reject Christ on the third day.
God told death to reject Christ on the third day.
God raised Jesus to life again by His ever present power!
And this same power dwells with us, and in us, through His Holy Spirit for all who believe (Rom 8:11).
The promise God made to Moses, God makes to us in Christ.
“I will be with you.”
“I am with you.”
And like Moses, we are now called by God to a specific purpose. To lead people out of death into life. To lead people to Jesus.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Will they reject you?
Not if Christ is with you. They aren’t rejecting you, they are rejecting Him. Because Christ bears that burden for us now.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
16 “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
Moses was God’s man. But Christ is the God-man.
And Christ is eternally present with all who by faith, believe in His holy name. Amen.