Exodus 3:11-17: The Great I Am

Theological Proposition/Focus: God is the one and only eternally existent being.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: The existence of God should drive us to regularly take time each week to gaze, search, worship, surrender, examine, confess, cry-out, and celebrate.

Introduction:

Fundamental to our faith is the doctrine of God. We are going to spend several weeks on the doctrine of God. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 Article 2 states

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all-powerful and all-knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

Setting the Stage:

Image: Talking about remodeling Emily will quickly tell people not to trust in my carpentry.

A few weeks ago Emily and I were talking with another family that had just put on offer on a house. The family was talking about some of the home improvements they wanted to do. Now understand, I don't mind plumbing, electrical or drywall, but I am terrible with a saw. I cannot do carpentry. So when the family mentioned putting in a wood floor, Emily was quick to remind everyone in the room not to place their confidence in my help. She reminded me that the handles on the cabinets at her mom's house are distinctly not straight in line 20 years later... You see, if you are planning to tackle something new and challenging and someone offers to help, you probably want to make sure they are qualified to help and won't just be a liability.

Body

We serve and worship the eternally immutable self-existent God (Exodus 3:11-17)

Before Exodus 3:11-17 God calls on Moses to undertake an impossible task.

God asks Moses to go against the mighty Egyptian empire and lead the people of Israel out of slavery. The task must have seemed impossible. The question that Moses asks in verse 11 is a natural question to the impossible task that God has presented. Moses asks God Who am I? This is not a statement of no self-confidence but rather a statement of accepting a great honor and an invitation for God to explain that he will be with Moses. You see, fundamentally we serve and worship the eternally immutable self-existent God. Let's break this down further. First notice carefully verses 11-12.

Unlike a genie, God does not serve us, we serve God (11-12).

Notice what has happened. God has called on Moses to perform a task. Up to this point, Moses is not trying to get out of the task. This is a request by the God of the universe.

God gives his servant Moses two key elements.

A promise to be with him.

God's promise to be with Moses is significant, first notice that it is not that God tells Moses, go do whatever you want and if you get yourself into trouble just rub the map and poof I will be there. No God tells Moses go and serve me in this particular way and know that I will be with you.

A promise of a fulfillment sign, not tangible touchable insurance, but an expectation.

God did not just promise Moses that he would go with Moses but also promised Moses success. A fulfillment sign is an interesting promise because it requires a great deal of faith. God did not give Moses a tangible touchable guarantee but he did give him a guarantee. The proof was going to follow. Moses was asked to act in faith. We must understand that God is the God of the universe. He does not serve us and is not bound by our desire for evidence. Rather we serve God and are bound by his provision.

Unlike anything we know, God is pure actuality (13-14).

We must understand culture to fully understand what is happening in verses 13 and 14.

The people of Israel lived in a polytheistic, pantheistic, and syncretistic (an amalgamation of multiple religions) culture.

The universal view everywhere was that there were multiple gods and all religions had some validity.

Moses is asking a perfectly reasonable question. Which God am I speaking with?

If you are calling on me to trust you then tell me who you are. the label God of your fathers may have only narrowed it down so far in the eyes of Moses. After all, after living in pagan culture for their entire life many Israelites had probably adopted some of the foreign Gods. Certainly, based on the events of Exodus, some failed to understand the true nature of God.

In Verse 14 God responds אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה (Hi-yah Asher Hi-yah) (I am who I am).

The verb Hi-yah is a the first person common singular of "to be." That is God states "I am, I will be."

God declares “I AM who I AM,” a declaration that highlights his eternality, uncreated, and self-sufficiency.

Actuality contrasts with potentiality (Aristotelian notions), potentiality is that something could exist. Pure actuality means there is no way something could not exist.

God simply exists.

In fact, God's very name reveals his existence.

[God's name יהוה] apparently comes from the root hawa, which signifies either existence (as of a tree trunk where it falls, Eccles. 11:3) or development (as in Neh. 6:6). Perhaps both ideas can be combined in the significance of God’s name by saying that it denotes Him as the active, self-existent One.

In fact the proper name of God is only used once in the entire book of Genesis after Genesis 39, Jacob uses it in Gen 49:18 on his death bed.

The point is that God simply exists!

Change is essentially the only thing we know. Clothes get old, skin gets old, everything gets old. Everything we know changes. However, God does not change.

Unlike anything we have experienced, God is immutable (15-17).

After having established his eternal existence God seems to next tell Moses something like and you should know that I am the same God of your ancestors.

MTR: Identify your biggest struggle. Do you struggle to accept that you serve God instead of God serving you? Do you struggle to accept that God truly exists? Do you struggle to accept that the God of miracles is your God?

So, the existence of God should impact us, but more than just God's existence, his majesty.

God, the most formidable word ever spoken (Psalm 8)..

God's majesty is beyond comprehension (1-2).

Psalm 8 has been described as a description of man in the created order.

However, it doesn't start by talking about man. Rather the psalm starts by recognizing that man's place is one that is solely based on God.

The Psalm begins יהוה אדנינו (Yahweh our Adonai(master))

What follows is a statement about the majesty of God's name. Remember the last point where we talked about God's name. God's name is tied with his self-existence. David, in Psalm 8, now connects this with God's majesty. Part of God's majesty is his existence. Thank about that for a second. A famous question is "why is there something instead of nothing?" The answer is, God!

God's name is majestic but it gets better. God is our master.

Think about that for a second, you serve the God of the universe, that is special.

Image: Being the president's chief of staff.=

Seriously, if you were the president's chief of staff, you wouldn't be embarrassed that you were serving someone, you would take pride that you were serving the president. If you were Tom Brady's personal chauffeur you would probably brag about the places you had driven or the people you had seen. In reality, we each serve someone, isn't it amazing that the person you serve is the majestic God of the universe.

God's creation is just the tip of the iceberg (3-4).

Now in verse three David begins to explore the marvel that God would entrust some of his majesty to mere man. David describes the heavens as the work of God's fingers.

Image: the scale of Creation

Consider

Object	Radius
Earth	3,959mi
Jupiter	43,441mi
Orbit of the Moon	239,000mi
Sun	432,690 mi
Sirius	1.711 Solar radius
Aldebaran	45.1 Solar radius
Orbit of Earth	214 Solar Radius
Betelgeuse	764 Solar radius
Orbit of Jupiter	1,114.5 Solar Radius
VY Canis Majoris	1,420 Solar Radius

Man's significance is only through God (5-8).

We could dig into some deep exegetical and translation items with verses 5-8 but that is not the point of the sermon today. The main point I want to share with you today is that our significance is only through God. You see people all over are searching for significance. I came out of a university culture where the phrase publish or perish was central. My colleagues found their significance in their list of publications. Others find their significance in their children. How many people are living vicariously through their children? Sports are great, but too many parents are living their athletic dreams through their children at the expense of their families. Others find their significance through their job and some search for significance at the bottom of a bottle. In Psalm 8 we see that our significance comes through God. God places us as the pinnacle of creation and calls on us to steward creation. Significance comes from stewarding what God has given you.

People sometimes talk about the self-made man, or the person who made a name for themselves. I am going to tell you right now, there is no such thing. God gives each of us everything we have. We don't make ourselves, rather God places us in the position he desires for us to serve him.

Psalm 8 ends back with a repeat of the majesty in God's name. We need to remember that it is God who is majestic, it is God who deserves the credit.

Genuine belief in the Great I Am will change you

There are four responses to God's Existence.

We usually think of two: either God exists or he does not exist, but this is too simple.

Four Categories let us have more nuance, they allow us to grow.

Category 1: Deny the existence of God (Psalm 14:1 calls this person a fool).

I realize this is harsh language, this is not my word, it is God's word. If you don't like it either take it up with God or don't worry about it, you don't believe in God so why do you care what he thinks about you? In fact, my personal belief is that this group of people is actually very small. Romans 1 tells us that God has made himself clearly visible.

Category 2: Believe in the concept of god but have no desire for a relationship with God.

I want to be clear here, these people do not believe in God! Yes, they believe in a concept but that is not the God we serve. Many, many people fall into this category. Again, Romans 1 tells us that God is undeniable. For many of these people they see God at work, but don't like who God is so they live and act in a way that rejects the true God in exchange for some concept to which they have no accountability. These are people that I would label as practical agnostics.

Category 3: Believe in the God of the Bible and have come to understand their need for God's salvation.

Notice that I don't have a category for people who believe in the God of the Bible but not his salvation. Why, because these people don't exist. If you truly believe in the God of the Bible then you will come to understand salvation because the God of the Bible is the Savior. These individuals do allow God to change them and their perspectives.

Category 4: Believe in the God of the Bible and make this God the center of their life (but not always).

Why not always? Because individuals in this category are still sinners. This is the individual who can boldly sing the Lyrics to Come Tou Fount

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it Prone to leave the God I love Here's my heart, oh take and seal it Seal it for Thy courts above

Knowing that we are prone to wonder but God can take our hearts and seal them for himself.

There are at least nine actions we should take in light of God's existence (daily tuning).

Gaze

Take time to simply stand in awe of God. Just as if you were looking at a sunset or a mountain.

Gaze on God. This might be reflectively looking at what God has done, or silently considering who God is. The idea here is that God is worthy of are awe so take time to just gaze at God.

Search

Read your Bible, but don't just read your Bible.

Study your Bible. As you study search for God. The Bible is not just a collection of fables aimed at improving your life. The Bible is God's special revelation of himself to you.

Worship

Our hearts are idolatrous and if the only worship you do is 30 minutes Sunday morning then your heart is going to be stolen away by other idols. We need to practice worshiping daily.

Surrender

This is a hard one. To practice surrender, we must consciously give our heart to God.

This means we must give back to God our personality, mentality, emotions, spirituality, physicality, sexuality, dreams, desires, time, and possessions.

We must trust God with each of these. I venture to say that most of our struggles with sin stem from a lack of surrender.

Confess

Tell God who you really are. Each of us covers ourselves, hides ourselves. We know that if others in the room knew our deepest hidden thoughts they would be appalled at some of the things that we bury deep inside. God knows, so tell him. The act of confession brings healing!

Cry-out

Remember that God is our Savior cry out to him for salvation.

Celebrate

Celebrate, not because you are worth celebrating but because God is worth celebrating and he restores.

Celebrate the restoration that God provides.

Repeat

Do it again and again, remember the lyrics to Come Thou Fount. We are prone to wonder.