Moses

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0:00 The rest of us, we are going to do the same story. We are working through this book, this synopsis, this like excerpted version of the Bible. It takes excerpts of the New Testament and places them in chronological order. And so we are on chapter four in the story where it talks about deliverance and the thing that I like about going through this whole story of the Bible this quickly is that it

0:33 puts the whole story in context for us. And it reminds us that the scriptures are a story of what God is doing with humanity in the world, not an encyclopedia of doctrine, not a set of rules to follow, but a story of God's work in the world. And we remember that we set the beginning, the creation is really the three main characters, God, humanity and earth in like kind of the symbiotic relationship together and that the problem enters the world when humanity tries to take from creation in order to usurp God.

1:08 They upset all of the relationship dynamics and the thing spins out and death enters the world, greed, fear, anxiety, doubt, guilt enter the world leading towards death. And the question that's driving the story of scripture is how will the equilibrium be restored. And we looked at a couple of weeks ago that when God calls Abraham conspicuously his promise has land and then fill the earth and subdue it.

1:42 Land offspring and blessing so that the idea for the God is always humanity, God, earth all in right relationship with one another and that this is how creation and humanity was intended to thrive. So he started with Abraham, but Abraham doesn't get it. He gets the cave. And last week we told the story of Joseph, which this is what got me reading it this way. I hadn't really noticed it before, but something different has happened with Joseph by the

2:14 time of Joseph, which is obviously generations removed from Abraham. But Joseph has this crazy kind of circuitous life where God uses him to save Israel, to bring him out of the famine and protect them in the plenty of Egypt. But God never speaks to Joseph directly. That is kind of interesting. Like God in the story of scripture by now, you know, in creation, like it says that God

2:48 formed humanity from the dust of the earth and he breathed the breath of life into them. With Abraham, several generations later, it still says that he like walked with Abraham. Remember the fire pot? He goes out and he speaks to Abraham directly. By the time of Joseph, he's like retreated back. He's like a director organizing events. What's happening? We can see in retrospect his hand, but Joseph had no assurance other than his confidence

3:18 that God was good. Joseph had no assurance from God himself that he would come through. He just was living. And we can only see God's hand in retrospect, looking back at the story. And so one of the themes of this section of the story of scripture, Moses, Egypt, Red Sea, is God's reintroducing himself to humanity again. So like look at Exodus chapter three.

3:55 Look at Exodus chapter three. Maybe around verse 14. Or starting at verse 15. 13. Start at verse 13. Exodus chapter three, verse 13. If you're punching it in to your phone.

4:26 Moses by now, remember he got saved miraculously from the Nile. The Egyptians were kind of genociding all the Israelite baby boys. And Moses got saved miraculously. He grows up in the house of the Pharaoh. He realizes he's an Israelite. He has this like identity crisis with MI one of the enslaved or MI one of the enslavers. And then he sees Israelite being mistreated and kills the Egyptian who's mistreating

4:56 the Israelite, buries him in the sand. And then he gets this reputation as a murderer. Now he's not appreciated by his people or by the Egyptians. So he leaves, goes across the desert and joins up with another tribe of people. Jethro, his father-in-law, gives him a daughter. He starts making a family. He lives with Jethro and the family for 40 years as a shepherd. So Moses was 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian. And he's out leading the shepherd herds.

5:29 And he is up on the side of a mountain kind of far away. And he sees a bush that's like burning, but it's not burning out. And he's confused and he's like, let's go over and check it out. And he gets over there to check it out. And it turns out that God is in the bush. He's like, the voice of God calls out to Moses. We haven't heard the voice of God speak to anyone since like Abraham.

6:01 Jacob has visions, but he doesn't get a conversation with God. Moses is generations that have gone between Abraham and Moses. And God speaks to Moses from the bush. And he's like, Moses, take off the sandals. The ground on which you are standing is holy ground. And Moses is kind of freaking out. I don't know what it feels like to walk into the presence of God, but this burning bush is one of the first times, not the first time, but one of the most significant times that

6:34 we have give you another big word, a theophany in the story of Scripture. Theophany. Great word, Danny Miller. Theophany. So when God comes in something you can see, feel, taste, touch, when God fails, comes into something, a thing. We have this theophany in the burning bush is the presence of God.

7:04 What we're going to learn about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of creation, his life is that he loves to come in theophany. He loves to come in things that you can see, feel, taste, and touch. He wants to break into space. And he realizes with Moses he's got to do something. And so he comes down out of wherever he dwells infinitely. I don't know what kind of work he has to do to squeeze himself into this little bush and flame, but he does it in order to call out to Moses.

7:35 And he tells Moses, hey, Moses, I've seen and heard the cries of my people in Egypt, and I'm going to deliver them from Pharaoh, and I'm going to do it through you. Now if you're Moses, you're like, dude, I've been there. I've seen the space. I'm like, glad you're going to do some stuff for them, but I've got a good situation here. You see the herds down there? You see Zapura, Jethro, I can set, man. Like, I don't...

8:05 And Pharaoh knows him and doesn't like him. So he doesn't really want to do it, but also I don't know what it feels like to have the observable presence of God command you something. So if you read the whole encounter with Moses and God at the burning bush, you can tell Moses would rather not have to take on this job, but also would rather not tell the observable

8:39 presence of God, no. So he's like coming up with stuff. And the one I want you to read here in Exodus chapter 3, starting at verse 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?

9:10 What shall I say to them? He's concerned that they don't know who God is anymore. And Moses, you get the feeling here, can observe, can know physically and intellectually by what's happening in front of him that he's in the presence of the God, but does not know who the God is.

9:42 If they send me, who shall I say sent me? Are you coming behind me with this burning bush thing in order that I could point to him and go that? Burning bush thing sent me. And it's interesting when you think about the history where we've come as humanity formed with his hands out of the dust, the breath of life, walking with him in the evening where he shows us the stars of the sky and says, your children will be as numerous as these to now who are you again?

10:16 And he has been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob earlier in the conversation. He actually says that, Moses, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Moses says, great, but who is that? Now you get the sense that he knows who Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are. It's not that Moses is saying he doesn't know who Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are, but in the culture when you give something a name, it says something about who they are.

10:54 Remember the one that's coming to mind right now is when they named Isaac, Isaac. It was because when Sarah heard that she was going to have a baby in her old age, she laughed and Isaac means something about laughter. And so Moses is saying to the bush that's burning, who's claiming to be the God of his forefathers, what sort of God are you? In Egypt, they had gods of fertility, gods of life, gods of crops, gods of war, gods

11:28 of sun, gods of Nile. You're the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Cool. What sort of God are you that I would suppose to go against all the gods which report to the Pharaoh? And here God gives something that we're grateful Moses remembered. I don't know how he could forget. God gives Moses his name.

12:00 So God said to Moses, what's the name? What shall I say to them? And 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. God also said to Moses, say to the people of Israel, the Lord, what's happened now? When you have the NIV, if they put the Lord in all caps, this is the proper name of God.

12:33 So God gives Moses the proper name and it's like you would normally have a word that refers to something else. And this word in Hebrew is like four letters. Another big word, we call it the tetragrammaton, the four letters that the closest is about to be. So the closest translation of this name, like if Isaac, the translation of that name is like

13:04 laughter, the closest translation of this name that God in the burning bush gives to Moses on Mount Sinai is I am who I am. I will be who I will be or I will be who I have been or who I was. So God is giving Moses this name, Yod He, Vav He, these four consonants and he says this

13:35 is and it's referring to nothing else. He's like if you want my name, I can only refer to myself and this points out what I've been trying to tell us that in the story of Scripture, we don't have like a third person omniscient story. We don't know the mind of the narrator or the creator. So all we can know about God is what God has done. And this is what He's saying to Moses, look, I am who I am, I will be who I will be. I made the earth if you want to know who's in charge.

14:08 I rescued you from eternity of depression, fear, guilt, anxiety in the garden. I preserved you from the flood. I set you apart after the Tower of Babel and I promised to make humanity whole again with creation to Abraham and so here I've come now to you Moses, I will be who I will be, buddy. I will be who I was.

14:38 I am who I am. The closest way we can say it right is Yahweh but it's a name that people don't say a lot and so they often translate it as Lord in the story of Scripture. Moses gets this name, I am who I am and it's conspicuous that we're reintroducing. If you go forward in Exodus to chapter 5, Moses, I mean Pharaoh has a similar reaction.

15:10 Moses then goes back to Israel, brings Aaron with them and they go in front of Pharaoh and they're like, hey Pharaoh. God says that you should let the Israelites go worship him on Sinai and chapter 5 starting at verse 1. I say that you should let the Israelites go and say that you should let the Israelites go and say that you should let the Israelites go.

15:41 I say that you should let the Israelites go and say that you should let the Israelites go and let the Israelites go. I say that you should let the Israelites go and let the Israelites go. Those created and rescued by the flood by the time he's built his own empire has no interest or time for the God. He's like, I've got lots of gods I consult.

16:12 Yours is not one of them. He does not know who the God of Israel is, the Yahweh, the God who is, right? The God who is who he will be, the creator and sustainer of life. Pharaoh doesn't know him. And so God works a series of signs and it took me a while to learn that each of these plagues, the Nile, the frogs, the locusts, the killing of the livestock, the blotting

16:47 out of the sun, each of these plagues correspond with one of Egypt's gods. And so as God is moving toward Egypt to rescue Israel, the earth is responding and he's demonstrating his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt using the physical things of the earth, manifesting frogs, more frogs than they can deal with and then releasing

17:17 and moving the frogs out of the way. ! So the whole storm of locusts coming in and then dismissing the locusts, right? And all the while the Israelites are spared from each of the plagues. So God is trying to introduce himself to humanity again. Go, you have forgotten who I am. Let me remind you. First, here's my name. I am who I am. I will be who I will be and I will be who I was.

17:50 I know that you have found things that you think are in control. Let me demonstrate my control over each of them on your behalf. And Israel, like when they start, Israel's like, Pharaoh cracks down. He's like, these people think that they are better or stronger. Let's show them they're not, right? So he makes, he says, you can't have, hey, straw. You got to go find your own straw.

18:21 Then he's like, make bricks without straw. And they're just making their life harder. So they're like, Moses, go away. They try and tell Moses to go away. Meanwhile, God keeps moving towards him. Finally, after they do the Passover, you know, where the angel of death comes and God's like, I'm going to take the firstborn of everybody who doesn't do the Passover the right way. All the Israelites get together, huddle in your house, mark the doorposts with the

18:51 blood, all of it so physical, so connected to earth, to body, to reality. God's trying to communicate, to introduce himself to Israel, to go, I am not separate or other, though I am separate, but I'm caught up in what you're doing. The reality of your life is tied to the provision and protection of God. He's like, it feels like you have this under control. You need me to get the life you were made for.

19:24 Do these things exactly the way I say them. Kill the animal this way. Eat it this way. Spread the blood this way, right? And when they do, then the Egyptians are like freaked out. They tell the Israelites, get out of here, oh, and take stuff with you. So they get to plunder the Egyptians. They take the wealth of the Egyptians. This is when I didn't catch until I was reading the story. We won't look there specifically, but they get out from Egypt and they've got all the

19:57 plunder and they're leaving. And God is directing Moses where to go. And then they're like moving, like the distance between Egypt and Mount Sinai is not far. It shouldn't take them long, right? They were going to do three days, go out and worship God of Sinai and come back. So it doesn't take them that long. So they're on the way there. And then God directs Moses, hey, go position yourself in between the Egyptians that are coming and the Red Sea.

20:28 So it's not as though, I always read it as though they got caught. Like, oh no. And like they had gotten directed and made a wrong turn so that they were sandwiched and they had nowhere to go. Like the Red Sea and Egypt was coming. But when you read the story, they were walking and God says, hey, turn back and go position yourself in between the Red Sea and the army coming. And that's why then when Moses, the people freak out and they're like, Moses, why did

20:59 you bring us out here to die? There's no way we can handle this enemy. There's no way we can defeat this thing. Moses, logically we cannot see a way around. Their fear is legitimate and real. They should be afraid. Egypt, the big thing about Egypt was they had chariots. Most people didn't have chariots. And when you've got chariots with horses in front of them, you can just run over people. And they would do that, you know? They would just run over. So he's coming with these chariots and the horsemen.

21:30 It's realistic for the people who have been enslaved for 200 years to be afraid. They're not warriors and serious warriors are coming after them. They're just not a way out. I'm saying. Legitimately. And then so Moses is like, God, what are we going to do? And God's like, dude, why are you worried? When you read the story, he's like, Moses, why are you worried, man? Well, it's logical. But he told me to go back there. He's like, just go up and raise your staff and walk through the Red Sea.

22:06 That is absurd. An absurd, unseen solution to a legitimate, real problem. Unexpected, unbidden, unimaginable solution to a very imaginable problem. God says, when you come with me, go do this thing. This is why it's so, like, so identity forming. God is revealing to humanity for all time who he is.

22:43 What he does. The God of the Scriptures, the God of creation in life, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Yalweh. Not only creates, he delivers. He protects. He provides for whom? This is the interesting thing, for whom?

23:16 Well, he routed Egypt, you know? I mean, he wiped them out. But when you go back and read when they're leaving, it says that some of the Egyptians went with them. So, it's not as though the Israelite march across the Red Sea was a closed party. It's not as though it was like, show us your card as you're entering the Red Sea.

23:49 It's like anybody who wants to go into the Red Sea, protected by the God, is welcome. Go. So, God is the God who delivers all who are interested in his deliverance. That means he can deliver you.

24:19 Your God can deliver you. Protect you. Provide for you. And his deliverance protection provision neededn't be merely some esoteric or spiritual deliverance.

24:49 It might be tangible, practical, observable. This is the conspicuous thing when you start to realize the pattern of the God of creation, who imagines whole, real, physical, enduring worlds out of his imagination and speaks him into existence with his words, and then makes physical promises for land, offspring, and blessing. And then when he needs to introduce himself comes in real observable theophany, burning

25:25 bushes, pillar of cloud and fire, right? Plagues, Red Sea's split, it makes sense that this God would come in a real physical person. Somehow, the ultimate theophany embodied, enlivened, enfleshed for real. It makes sense also that when he goes through the cross and the grave and comes out that it wouldn't be some apparition or ghost, some spiritual esoteric life, but grounded and

25:59 physical, eating fish, hugging, embracing, crying, alive. This means you will get little deliverance now. You'll get a job. You'll get a relationship restored. You'll get your car working. You'll get little pieces of deliverance now.

26:31 But the day will come when you will cross into something altogether new, not esoteric and spiritual, but physical, real life forever with the great theophany Christ. In character with the God of the Red Sea and the plagues. It's in keeping with the God of the story of scriptures.

27:02 This God is yours, the one who delivers, the one who protects, the one who provides. Let's pray that we could walk through our little Red Seas just as faithfully as Israel did. Lord, thank you for this room and these people and this story. May it awaken faith in our hearts and minds. For the sake of your son Jesus, that his sacrifice would not be wasted, but that we would apprehend

27:32 life eternal with him in the day that you call us home. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.