The Gospel According to Exodus
fire God

Exodus 3.1-15

10.01.06

Exodus 3:1-15:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."  
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" 
   And Moses said, "Here I am."  
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 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.  
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. 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. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."  
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"  
And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."  
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"  
God said 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 to the Israelites, '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, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation."

This is God's life-giving word to us, his holy and inerrant word to us; thanks be to God.

This morning we're looking at one of the most famous passages in the Bible, a passage that people who don't know anything about church and Christianity still may be familiar with: this whole idea of a burning bush that doesn't burn up and God showing up in fire. I was thinking about fire this week because one of the Woodard family's favorite activities is going out to the fire pit in the backyard when the weather starts to get cool. A fire pit, if you don't know what that is, is what it sounds like: it's a pit with fire in it. And I like to take my pipe out there and smoke it and feel intellectual. But, we always have s'mores, because we have children under the age of 7 who aren't interested in the fire so much as they're interested in the s'mores. It's a wonderful time for us -- nothing earth shattering, but just a good time. My older two daughters look forward to it at this time of year and in the spring when it's not so cold. But for Christian, our 15-month-old, who hasn't been walking for too terribly long, this is all new experience to him.

This past week on Wednesday night we had a fire in the fire pit, and since Christian is only about two feet tall it's at eye level for him, and I can only imagine what it looks like from his perspective. He was standing on the ground as they stand at that age, not too stable, and his eyes were huge. Looking up, really, at this fire. Some of you are like me, you can look at a fire for hours, and that's what he was doing. He had kind of a smile on his face and he would reach out like he wanted to touch the fire (don't worry, we wouldn't let that happen)...but he would reach up as though he wanted to touch it, and then pull back. He was realizing that there was something there that, while it was pretty cool for any age, and while it was attractive, could also be dangerous. That gives us a glimpse of what it looks like when God reveals himself to his people in fire. (That's not the only way he reveals himself in the Bible -- he reveals himself in a lot of ways -- but one of the ways he often reveals himself is in fire.)

Think about when they came out of Egypt, and there were a million-plus people walking through the desert, and there was this huge column of fire going up in the night...what an awesome sight that must have been! And here is this bush that is on fire. We understand that fire has this character to both draw and repel at the same time; there is an awesome character to fire. There is an X-Men mutant, one of the coolest mutants in the X-Men world, who can use fire, and you think, "Cool!" you know? So I may have a little more of a pyromaniac streak than some other folks do. But here's God showing himself as fire, and what does that mean?

Who is this God that shows up to Moses, to us, and how do we meet with him? These are the two questions we are going to look at today. Right off the bat you see this kind of dangerous yet magnetic personality to God -- two things going on at the same time. Look at verse 3, for example: "So Moses thought, 'I will go over and see this strange sight -- why the bush does not burn up.' When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said, 'Here I am.' " And here's Moses, like a bee to the flower, you know? Like iron to a magnet, he's drawn to this sight, to this strange thing, and yet it's dangerous.

Look at verse 5: " 'Do not come any closer,' God said. 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.' 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." Now, there's both of these things going on at the same time -- this wow!...and this [gasp]. This gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to meet the real God. There is, on one hand, this holy character to God -- what the old theologian Martin Luther called "the holy terror" before God, that God is not one to be trifled with, that he's not like us. And that he's not one to be taken lightly; he is holy. Now, what does that mean for us? One commentator said this about his holiness: "You can mold clay, you can carve wood, and you can shape stone, but fire molds you." Fire molds you. You don't come close to a real God without him shaping you.

In 1991 there was a movie that came out called Backdraft. Ron Howard was the director, and it was a great movie. It was about firefighters, but really the main character was fire. Ron Howard did a great job of enacting fire, if you will. You'd have these firefighters that would come into the building -- they'd be watching the fire and it would move, and groan, and it was like it was alive and it had these strange qualities to it. You would see these firefighters walking up and they were mesmerized by the power of this fire. But the moment they tried to manipulate the fire, people died. The moment you try to manipulate the holy God, dangerous things happen. Fire shapes us, not the other way around.

Here's what this means. There is an old saying in some circles that "God made man in his image, and ever since then, man has been returning the favor." We've been making God in our image, created to look just like us. And here's what this means: if you've ever said, as I have, "My God would never do ___" or "I could never believe in a God who does ___," you don't have a real God. You have a god created in your image, one that we have created. And if you want a god who never contradicts you, who can be manipulated to be whoever you want it to be, you don't want a god; you want a cocker spaniel. That's what you want. Ok? They both use the same letters, d-o-g, but it's not the same thing. This God says, "You may come to me, but you come, in a sense, on my terms." And there is fear and some intimidation in actually meeting God, and yet we're drawn in. We keep coming; we keep wanting this. Here's what you have to understand: to stand before this God is to be exposed. To be stripped bare. And there's something in our souls that says, That's exactly what I want. It's what I'm scared of the most, and it's what I need the most. And it's the thing that I want the most, and this God is at the same time terrifying and captivating.

What makes him captivating? What is unique about this God? I think one of the keys is found in the fact that he comes to his people. Look at verse 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. [That really means, I know their suffering.] So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. . . .' " Now, you and I read that, and we don't get struck by it like we should. But the people who would have been reading this...Moses would have said, "Hang on a second; you come down to us?" This is not like any other god; this is certainly not like the gods of the Egyptians or the Amorites, or any of the other "-ites" that are surrounding them. For all of those other deities we have to do all the right things and maybe we can come up, but probably not. You can never get close to Ra. And here is the holy God saying, "I come down and enter into..." What? "Your misery. Your slavery. I hear you. And I don't just hear you from a distance; I know it intimately and I enter into it." Does that make you think of anything?

Here's what it ought to make you think of. It ought to make you think of a little stable, outside of a hotel, in a village called Bethlehem several thousand years later, where God enters into time and space to rescue his people. When he says, "I have come down to rescue you," you ought to see that as a movie preview for the real thing, for Jesus coming. And here's what God is saying: "I'm no less holy than I was a minute ago. This is still holy ground. I'm no more safe and able to be manipulated than I was a moment ago, but I'm so good that I will enter right smack into the middle of your slavery and misery." This is so different from every other religion. It's different from you and me. Think about it for a second: how do you react to needy people? You know, you have needy people in your life. You have 'em? Come on, quit being polite; you know you have them. And there's a sense in which we kind of do our duty sometimes with needy people, but if we're all honest, we might sometimes want to avoid needy people. There's that homeless person you might give $10 to, but boy, you don't want to have lunch with him, right? You don't want to go to the hospital because there are sick people there and it smells funny. And you certainly don't want to go to the nursing home because it smells even funnier there.

Think about the way we show mercy. Even when we show mercy, on the few occasions that we do, it's so tainted and our motives are so mixed. Yet when God shows mercy, it's pure. It's holy mercy. It's not tainted with selfishness like ours. I really believe this is one of the arguments in favor of Christianity, for those here who are skeptical about whether or not this stuff is true. I don't think you'd make this stuff up. Here's what one commentator said: "One of the facts about the Christian way that commends it to thoughtful people is its uninventability, which simply means that, rightly understood, it is so different from a religion invented by man, it is so completely contrary to the way man does things, that it must come from God. Only God could have thought of Christmas. When a human invents a superbeing he comes up with Superman. God gives the world a baby." And in that baby is tied up the whole destiny of the world, mankind, and history itself. And it's different. Here is this holy God entering into slavery and misery; he comes right into it.

What does that mean for us? Look at verse 7 and personalize this a little bit: "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 know about their suffering.' " Do you know that he knows about your suffering? Do you? Or is that just wishful thinking? Is that a figment of some preacher's imagination? Is that a fiction that we make up to make ourselves feel better, or does he indeed know about your sufferings and enter right smack into the middle of them, whatever they may be? You see, that's good news. Some here, you have a good handle on the holiness of God. You believe in the holiness of God. You believe that God is not one to be taken lightly. You hear him say, "Take off your sandals; you're on holy ground," but you don't hear him say, "I'm coming to you. Come closer. I'm entering into your life." And you need to hear him say both. Some of you, you have the nearness of God down. Yeah, God is near. You need to consider for a moment that he is also holy. And we begin to understand that God enters into the lives of his people.

What does it mean? What difference does it make? How do we meet with this God? Let's take a look at that. The first thing is that if you are going to meet with this God, you have to turn aside. Look at verse 2: "There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, 'I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.' " This is a great example, it's a great description of what it looks like if you're going to meet God. You've got to turn aside. You've got to go over and look. You've got to cease from the way you've been doing life, and you've got to do a little detour and say, "Hang on a second; here's something that doesn't make sense to me! This is something that doesn't fit my view of reality. A bush that's on fire, but it doesn't burn up?" It means not just turning aside, but looking into things that may seem strange to you. There are those here today who believe that all this Christianity and Jesus thing is strange to them, that it doesn't fit. That's the point.

There will come times in your life -- you know it's true, if you're honest with your own soul -- there will come times in your life when your view of reality begins to break down. Something comes along that doesn't fit in your paradigm of how things ought to be. The Bible is just confident enough in its own truth that it says you will come to these places where you're just minding your own business, tending sheep one day, and you look over and say, "Now, that's strange. Well, I'll just go on with the way things used to be." If you're going to meet God you've got to turn aside and you've got to look. And that means something for us; it means something for those who consider themselves to be in the Christian world and those who don't. You may consider yourself a follower of Jesus, a religious person, although that's a bad word these days. Here's something that happens a lot of times -- you get to a point in your life when you say, "I was raised in the church, but I'm at the age when it's becoming clear to me that there's no reality. I can sit when they say sit, I can stand when they say stand, I can even answer some of the questions, but when you tear the bow off, and pull the wrapping off, and look inside the box, I realize nothing's there. And it's not because God doesn't exist; it's because I've never met his reality. There are things coming into my life that don't fit anymore." And you know what that is? That's God throwing a little hand grenade in your paradigm and blowing it up, and that's the best thing that could ever happen to you because you, and everyone around you, know you don't really believe it.

Or your paradigm of following Jesus was "Good people follow Jesus. That's what it means to be a Christian -- it means you're good and that's why you follow him." But then you start being honest with your own soul and go, "Wait a second; I'm not particularly good sometimes. How do I fit that in?" God says, "You don't. You need to blow up your view of things." If you're really going to meet God -- if you're really going to meet him -- and if you're going to continue to meet him, you've got to lead an examined life. And all of the things that we talk about, week after week after week, have to be more than "Hmm, isn't that interesting? I think I'll just go on herding sheep like I always have for 40 years." There has to be a turning aside and saying to the Lord, Look inside my life. Look at the contradictions: that I sit on Sunday morning in a pew, and yet my heart is so full of all sorts of things, the sorts of things that if the people sitting next to me knew the thoughts that I have, they'd scoot over.

How do I make sense of that? How do I make sense of my belief that Jesus is for good people, but when I'm honest with myself I'm not good in a lot of ways that he says I need to be. Oh, yeah, the culture says it's good. How do I make sense of that? How do I make sense of the fact that I get excited about things that are self-destructive and I get bored by things that are good? This is God blowing up the boxes that you're putting him in. And the reality is that you may never have known Jesus, not the real one that we see here. How can I look at myself in the mirror when I know about me? And here's the answer: because he still comes to people in slavery. But you have to admit that you have some chains hanging around, the chains of apathy. He still comes to that. You have to admit that there's misery in your own soul, and he comes to that. A friend of mine said, "When you see the good, the bad, and the ugly in your own soul, here's what you need to remember: his fingerprints are all over you." What that means is that the public Toby can step back, and by God's grace, I can look at my own soul in all of its ugliness and contradictions because, when I look at myself, I see God's fingerprints of grace all over me. And so you don't have to be afraid of what you see there, but you have to turn aside and look and examine.

Now, that's for those of us who might consider ourselves Christians, followers of Jesus. For many of you here, you're not. You don't know where you are, maybe. You don't know what you think about all of this Jesus stuff. But you know what? There are things sooner or later, and probably sooner, that will come into your life that are contradictions. You can't make sense of them in the world in which you live, your view of things. You may believe, for example, that there's a scientific explanation to everything. "I don't believe in this spiritual stuff because I believe in science." But sooner or later, you're going to realize that science doesn't even believe in science, that the more that scientists know the more they have to create a myth that stands above and beyond. What is string theory? It's a myth, created by science, to make sense of what they cannot make sense of. And sooner or later you have to say, "You know, there are things in the world I cannot make sense of."

Some of you are saying, "I believe in spiritual stuff. I believe in the One." Some vague, undefined god. That sounds so good and sophisticated, doesn't it? Until you're in misery, and the One doesn't do you a whole lot of good. Where's the One when you need him? This God enters into your misery, into your soul. Some of you say, "I believe in living and letting live. I don't really believe in 'right' and 'wrong.' Whenever I use those terms I say [quotes] 'right' and [quotes]'wrong' because I don't really believe in right and wrong." And that too sounds so good, doesn't it? It sounds so tolerant. Except this: things were done to you that you can only explain as being wrong. They were horrible, they were evil, and things have been done to your friends that are horrible and evil, and maybe you've even done those things that are wrong. And even though it doesn't fit your system, you're just halfway tempted to say it was bad. And maybe that means there's something that's good, and maybe there's someone who stands behind that. And maybe you would be willing to examine the paradigms that you live in. You have to turn aside and look if you're going to meet this real God.

Second, he's going to send you on a mission. That doesn't mean what you think it does, by the way. Look at verse 9: "And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." You know, I love this. "I'm going to deliver them! Through you. And they will not be delivered, Moses, until you go." Here's one of the great things: God doesn't just call to his people; he calls his people. He calls his people to go. You look at yourself and say, "How can I go?" But make no mistake that the call to come to Jesus is to feel good about ourselves: "Isn't it great that I'm forgiven for my sins? Isn't it great that God loves me?" God says, "Go! To work. To class. To whatever it is that I've called you to do, and take me with you." Is that how you view life? That Monday through Saturday you are on a mission from God? Is that how you view God? If you don't, you haven't met him or haven't understood what it means to meet him. The one thing you can't do when you meet this God is nothing. You will either sign on for his agenda for the universe or you will hate him, but you won't do "nothing." And if you have done nothing, you can be sure that you have not met him. Do you understand that? He sends his people out.

Let me give you one small application, because that sounds kind of vague. Let me give you one a little closer to home: meet somebody and say "hello" to them. "But I'm so insecure; what if I say something stupid? How can I get outside of myself?" Look, if Moses was content to be a shepherd for the rest of his life, and God called him to bring a million-plus people out of the most powerful nation in the world, I think you can say "hello" to somebody. I think the power is there to overcome whatever insecurities you might have. And maybe that's just the small mission that he gives you this morning.

Three: worship. Look at verse 12: "And God said, 'I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.' " I want to have a family talk for a second. Those of you who aren't followers of Jesus, you can tune out right now; I'll bring you back in just a second. Maybe you're just fringe at Redeemer -- that's fine too; I'll call you back. This is a family discussion. I want to ask us a question. What do you think about when you think about worshipping God? How high is it on your radar screen, how bright is it, what is your attitude, what's in your mind? Let me tell you why I'm asking. Can I be frank with us, family? It's a little hard for me to believe that we think highly of corporate worship when we come in so flippantly so often. We think nothing of showing up 30 minutes late. Now listen, I have three kids, and I understand that sometimes there are things that are unavoidable. But what does it tell you? What does it tell you about the way we come into corporate worship? That we are very flippant, very casual.

Hal Outen -- some of you know Hal -- he gave me permission to tell this story. He's a cyclist and last year he won this chance to go ride with George Hincappie for three hours. Now, if you don't know who George Hincappie is, this is going to be lost on you a little bit. George Hincappie is probably one of the greatest cyclists in the world. He's the only cyclist to ride with Lance Armstrong on all seven Tours de France, and if that doesn't mean much to you just know that that's really good. And George lives right here in Greenville and Hal won a chance to go on a ride with him. When Hal was telling me this story I thought, "That's really cool! You get to go ride with George Hincappie; you get to go stare at George Hincappie's butt for three hours." Look, I was really excited, and I don't even care about cycling. Here's what Hal said: "Oh, that I was one-tenth as excited about coming and meeting with the holy God." What do we think about coming to worship? Week after week after week after week we saunter in, and we are more interested in what other people have on and who came in after us. Is there a person in this room, myself included, when we come to a confession of sin in a minute, is there anyone who doesn't need to confess their coldness of heart, our insolence before the King of kings, the fact that we have brought him down to our level and think he's just like us? Is there anybody that doesn't need to confess that? Listen, you can confess it, because he already knows it anyway! And let this morning be an opportunity to turn from it, to bring it to him and let him change you.

Ok, those of you who've tuned out can come back in. The fourth thing, if you want to meet God, you have to ask, "Who am I?" What does this encounter bring out in Moses? Did you notice? Every one of us in this room wants a burning bush. We say, "If I could have a sign, then I'd believe. Then I'd be a spiritual giant!" Is that what happened to Moses? Was he suddenly a superhero for Jesus? Every single one of his insecurities begins to come out. Look at verse 11: "But Moses said to God, 'Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?' " And this begins one of the most embarrassing whining sessions in the entire Bible, probably the most embarrassing one. Excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse. "God, what I'd really like to do is just hang out here in the desert for the rest of my life. I've got my sheep and we can just hang out here and I can die in peace. And I can't speak"... and he makes all of these excuses up through chapter 4. So he comes down, finally, and just asks God to send somebody else.

In verse 11 he says, "Who am I?" And you know what? That's the right question to ask. Who am I? When I come before God, my insecurities pour out of me, because I see him and I begin to see myself. And this is one way that you can know that you've really met him. Look, you don't feel inadequate among other inadequate people. In fact, we spend a lot of our time finding people who are more inadequate than ourselves and being friends with them. So we can feel good about ourselves. All right? But when you stand before God, suddenly your inadequacies start pouring out. Listen, God doesn't deal with us the way we deal. If you have a good mom and you feel inadequate you say, "Mom, I can't do this!" and she says, "Come on, honey! Yeah you can. Buck up, little soldier; come on, you can do it!" That's what parents do, right, if they're good parents? God doesn't do that. God doesn't prop up Moses' fragile self-esteem, and he doesn't punish Moses either. You know what he does? Moses says, "Who am I?" And God says, "Wrong question. Who am I? I'm the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Before you were, I was." "Who should I say sent me, God?" And God says, "I AM." And we go, "Not sure what that means, but it sounds pretty impressive." "Before you ever were, Moses, I was. Long after you will ever be, I will be, and my promises last. Yes, Moses, you aren't, but I am."

Part of this gets to the heart of why some of you struggle so much with what faith really is. What is faith? Some of you have been in church for 40 years and you don't know what faith is. Is it positive regard for God? "I feel warm, positive vibes for God." Is faith never having any doubts? Apparently not; Moses had a few. Is faith closing your eyes and jumping into the darkness? Look, let me give you one definition of faith: it is to see his adequacy in light of your inadequacy. That's just one definition -- to hear you say, "I am not," and to hear God say, "Yes, but I AM." Until you've discovered that, I think you might not have discovered biblical faith. Some of you have thought your inadequacies disqualify you from following God, when really the opposite is true. "But God..." I'm with you. "But God..." I AM. "But God..." I'll give you this. "But God..." I'll provide for you.

To some degree, if you say, "But God...," you're in good company with Moses. But God, at some point, says, "Enough. I AM and that's enough. My name is enough." Is it? Is it for you? Or are you like the woman I talked to this week (not in our church or this town)? She went through her Christian phase where she "got her life together." Sound familiar? And she was "following God" until she came up to things in her life that didn't go away magically -- doubts that she couldn't get rid of, sin in her own soul that her willpower could not even touch. And she looks back on this "Christian phase" with sadness, and regret, and a little anger. What I said to her, as gently as I possibly could, is "You never had it. You went through a religious phase, but you never understood what being a Christian really is. It is to bring your inadequacies, in all their fullness and ugliness, before God and hear him say, 'I will give you my name, and that's enough. I will place my name upon you, and that's enough.' "

Again, this is one of those projectors to the future. A couple of thousand years later, there's going to be this crazy religious leader going around saying all of these things that people don't understand, that don't fit into their box, their system, their paradigm. They're going to say to him, "Hey! Do you think you're greater than our father Abraham?" (John 8). And Jesus will say to them, "Before Abraham was, I AM." You have to understand that Jesus met Moses that day. In his inadequacy. Moses worshipped him, he was sent on a mission, he turned aside to look, and he met this God. So as we come to the Lord's supper in just a couple of minutes, turn aside, turn aside and look.