The Burning Bush – Exodus 3: 1-22

All right. Good morning, everyone. How are we this morning? Awesome. You get the pleasure of hearing from me back to back?

If you're as excited as I am.

All right, well, it is my honor and I'm humbled to bring the word to everyone again this morning.

His story begins in captivity. George Castriotti, known across the Europe as Skanderbeg, was stolen from his Albanian family. As a child and trained Turks to be a Janissary. A Christian slave remade into a Muslim warrior. He rose to become one of their finest generals.

The Turks gave him wealth, prestige and and power. And he gave it all back. When the opportunity came, he fled. He returned to his homeland openly, reclaimed his Christian faith and proclaimed himself the avenger of his family, country and God. For 25 years he fought Ottoman armies came each larger than the last.

Finally, in 1450, Sultan Murad II had enough. He led 160,000 men straight for Skanderbeg's stronghold, the White Castle of Against this force, Skanderbeg could barely muster 18,000 defenders. He evacuated the women and children and garrisoned the fortress with only only 1500 men and took the rest into the mountains to harass Ottoman supply lines. Before the siege closed in. Fear gripped Albania and the crowded churches reverberated with prayer.

Priests preached of celestial signs assuring victory. Skanderbeg himself had a vision of St. George who placed a flaming sword in his hands. These were not the prayers of men with options. These were the prayers of men with none. For eight months, the 1500 held.

Day after day, the Ottoman cannons rocked the White Castle. Well from the mountains, Skanderbeg lit to tell those inside when there was need,. He would be there. They could not win by strength. They watched the signal fires and they prayed.

The Ottoman chronicles recorded simply. Murad had struck Croya with cannons and to a graveyard. He hoped that they would surrender, but they did not. Winter arrived, and having lost 20,000 men,. Murad lifted the siege and withdrew.

By every human calculation, Croya was lost. All should have fallen. The garrison should have been broken. But the 1500 prayed, and the most powerful sultan in the world went home. Skanderbeg's 1500 did not know how the story would end.

They only knew the story in his hands. And that is precisely where we left off last week. As chapter two ended, Israel cried out to God, verse 23. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned slavery and cried out for help. And where did that cry go?

Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning. And God remembered his covenant with Abraham,. With Isaac, with Jacob, God, the people of Israel. And God knew.

This morning we turn to chapter three, and we get God's answer. But not only do we get his. Answer, we get a revelation of who this God is.

And if you would turn to the. Book of Exodus, chapter three, I'm going. To read the text in its entirety, and then we'll get into it together. Exodus, chapter three.

Now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire. Out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that, he turned aside to see. God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not come near.

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and. And to bring them and to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me. And I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians come.

I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children. Of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am. I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, 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.

Then Moses said to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your father, they may ask me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, surely, say this to the people of Israel. I am.

Has sent me to you. 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. Go and gather the elders together and say to them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and of Jacob has appeared to me, saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt? And I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites,. The Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.

A land flowing with milk and honey. 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 into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to. The Lord our God.

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 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.

People favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And when you go, you shall not go empty. But each woman shall ask of her neighbor and any woman who lives in her house, for gold and silver jewelry and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons. And on your daughters.

So you shall. The Egyptians. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word, Father. May it dwell richly within us. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts this morning be presence. And Father, long after my words are quickly forgotten, I pray that your word would be remembered.

Pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

40 Years have passed since the end of chapter two. 40. Silent.

He fled Egypt around 40. And Acts 7:30 tells us that he was 80 years old when he stood before the burning bush. The Pharaoh who wanted him dead has died and a new Pharaoh sits on the throne. The Israelites still groan under the brickyard. Nothing from a human vantage point has changed.

And Moses. Moses is no longer the Prince of Egypt. Mighty in word and deed. He is an 80 year old shepherd with a foreign wife and his oldest son named Sojourner. He visible respect finished.

An old man keeping someone else's sheep. At the geographic end of Nowhere. And that of course, is precisely where God meets him. The mountain Moses approaches is called Horeb. Here that will later be called Sinai,.

Where the law will be given. Horeb means waste or desolation. The mountain where God will reveal himself. To his people is before that day a mountain named Wasteland. Exodus 3 is one of the great sycophanies, a physical manifestation of God of the Old Testament, right alongside Sinai itself.

Isaiah's vision in chapter six and Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel. It is the formal commissioning of Moses as deliverer. And and it is the first sustained self revelation of the God who heard, remembered, saw and knew. At the end of chapter two, now speaks. The verbs will become a voice literarily.

The chapter is a dialogue. God speaks.

First with attention and then worship, then objection. And God answers each objection. The pattern will continue into chapter four, where Moses will offer five objections in. Total before he finally goes. The God who calls is also the God who patiently answers.

The burning bush is first of all, believe it or not, not a story about Moses. Primarily, it is a self portrait of God. In fact, the entire book of Exodus is not primarily life of Moses. Two thirds of Moses's life is covered in the first two chapters. There are 38 chapters still to come.

Exodus is a book whose main character is God. The story of his revelation of who to his people. As the text unfolds this morning, the Lord unveils one facet of his character after another until by the end of the chapter, Moses. And we have been given as full of a disclosure of who God is as any testament. So this morning I'm going to structure this text a little bit differently than I normally would.

We're going to follow it verse by verse. But at each stop we're going to ask not merely what happened, but what is God revealing to us about himself. So I've broken the passage into 10 attributes, which thankfully I will go through rather quickly. Verse 1 God is a worker and. Calls us in our work.

Verse 2 God is self sustaining. Verse God is personal. Verse 5 God is holy. Verse 6 God is a covenant keeper. Verses 7 to 9 God sees, he.

Hears and he descends. Verses 10 to 12 God glorifies Himself through his people. Verses 13 and 14 God is the I am who gives himself to be known. Verses 15 to 20 God is eternal and sovereignty. In verses 22 God is a giver of gifts.

Verse 1 God is a worker and calls us in our work. Now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law, Jethro, the priest of Midian and he led his side. Of the wilderness and came to Horeb,. The mountain of God.

Moses is not in a temple. He is not sitting on a mountainside meditating. He's at work, doing the same unremarkable thing he had done for 40 years,. Tending to another man's sheep. The call of God breaks in not on a holy day, but on an.

Ordinary one in the middle of a shift. This is fitting for the God who calls himself is a worker, the God. Of Genesis 1 labors six days and is not ashamed to call it work. He does not despise the wilderness or the flock. He meets the shepherd in the field.

And turns his work into the doorway for his calling. The application on us. We tend to wait for God in the dramatic and miss him in the daily but the Lord has a habit of finding men at their posts, Gideon at the wine press, shepherds in their fields, fishermen mending nets. Your is not a holding pattern until real life begins. It's the very ground on which God.

Means to meet you.

2 God is self sustaining verse 2. And the angel to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush he looked and behold the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed first let's take a quick step back to address who is the angel of the Lord. Most all commentators have understood Lord in passages like this to be the pre incarnate Christ. The reason is in the text itself. The angel of the Lord speaks as God in the first person.

This is not an ordinary messenger. This is God himself form visible to mortal eyes. The one Moses meets at the bush. Is the same one the disciples meet on the shores of Galilee.

Here the wonder that arrests Moses attention is fire without fuel. Every flame Moses had ever seen devours what it fed on. This one did not. The bush gives the fire nothing and the fire takes nothing from the bush. It needs no external supply.

And note where the fire goes to burn. In a common desert bramble, a thorn. Bush no worth the self sufficient God stoops to dwell in the lowly without being diminished by it. This is a parable of the divine. Itself, what theologians called God's aseity, His self existence.

God is not sustained by anything outside himself. He he is life in himself. John 5:26 tells us he that needs. No fuel the spring fed by no stream. The one who depends on nothing and on whom everything depends.

Aw tozer in his book the knowledge of the Holy in chapter six has. This prayer on God's self sufficient.

Teach us, O God, that nothing is necessary to thee. Were anything necessary to thee, that thing would be the measure of thine imperfection. And how could we worship one who is imperfect if nothing is necessary to thee? Necessary. And if no one, then not we?

Thou dost seek us, though thou does not need us. We seek thee because we need thee. For in thee we live and move and have our being.

God is.

Verses 3 and 4.

And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight. Why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that, he turned God called to him out of the bush. Moses. Moses.

And he said, here I am.

The fire is not an impersonal force. Out of it comes a voice, and the voice speaks a name tenderly, the way you call someone you love. The God of the bush is not a principle to be discovered, but a. Person who addresses us. He knows Moses by name before Moses knows him at all.

The double name Moses is the speech of intimacy. This is a pattern throughout all of Scripture. Abraham, Abraham. Samuel. Samuel, Saul.

Saul. And our Lord's Martha. Martha. The infinite God is not to be personal. JI Packer, in knowing God, says the following.

What matters supremely, therefore, is not in the last analysis the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it. The fact that he knows I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me and continues to know me.

He knows me as one who loves me. And there is no moment when his eye is off me or his attention distracted from me. And no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

Verse 5.

Is holy. And then he said, do not come near. Take the sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

Here we must slow down, for this is the hinge of the holy Moses, curious, begins to step closer and is stopped. The first thing the personal God says to the man he has just called by name is not come, but keep back. Before God commissions Moses, he must first establish the proper between creator and creation. What is holiness? The Hebrew kadash means set apart, separate, other.

To say God is holy is to say he is in a category entirely his own, utterly distinct from the creature transcendent in his purity and majesty. R.C. Sproul observed that Scripture never stammers love, love, love or mercy, mercy, mercy. But only of holiness does it lift the degree. Holy.

Holy. Holy is the Lord of hosts. It is the only attribute raised to the superlative. The adjective that most defines who this God is.

The sandal carried, the dust, the marketplace, the dung of the flock, the grime of the ordinary. To remove it was to say, nothing common may be carried into this presence. The same command would come to Joshua before Jericho, the God who had just drawn near. Now he is approachable, but never on our terms. Holiness both invites and warns in the.

Same breath,.

And so Moses must keep back. The God who comes down to deliver is the God before whom asymmetry and his holiness is not a coldness, it is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:29, which is why the next verse finds Moses hiding his face, afraid to look at God. In verse 6, the proper response to holiness is not casualty, but the reverence of dread. Spurgeon captures this so well.

The most spiritual and sanctified minds, when they are fully perceived the majesty and holiness of God, so greatly conscious of the great disproportion between themselves and the Lord, that they are humbled and filled with holy awe, and even with dread. And alarm,.

That is the burning bush. The nearer the saint comes to the holiness of God, the smaller he becomes in his own eyes. Isaiah, granted the same vision, cries, woe is me, for I am ruined. Job having heard repented in dust, Peter falls at Jesus knees. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.

Holiness does not flatter us, it floors us. And Spurgeon again reminds us that this dread is not the terror of slave, but the awe of a child. To have a holy awe of our most holy, just, righteous and tender parent. Is a privilege, not a bondage.

A holy God and people is the problem the rest of the Bible exists to solve. Moses must keep his distance. But the Gospel is that the holy God himself provides the way. In the same fire that warns from the book from a pillar will descend on Sinai and will finally come to rest on the heads of the disciples at Pentecost. At the cross, the consuming fire fell on a substitute, and the veil that guarded the holy place was torn to bottom.

So now we are bidden to draw near with confidence, yet never to forget. Whose ground we stand on.

The proper response to such a God is captured in John Webster in his book.

Christian Theology can never escape from the. Sober realization that we talk in the terrifying presence of the God from whom we cannot flee.

Verse 6. God is a covenant keeper.

And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he. Was afraid to look at God. Before God says anything about Moses, he roots himself in the past. He introduces himself not as a new deity, but as the God who made promises to the patriarchs centuries before, promises.

That have been waiting through 400 years of Egyptian silence.

This is the covenant. God's faithfulness does not expire when his people forget. The God who binds himself to Abraham binds himself forever. Death cannot break the covenant he keeps what he he now stirs to fulfill in Exodus. He is the God who remembers.

When you read promises in Scripture, you can rest assured that God will keep it always. Spurgeon God says, God has given no. Pledge that he will not redeem.

And. No encouragement and no hope that he will not fulfill.

Verses 7 through 9 God sees, hears, sends. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a. Land flowing and honey. Now verse nine and now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me.

And I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Notice the verbs and notice how they pile up. God has seen the affliction, heard the crying, the suffering, and now he has come down.

Verse 6 told us who God has been, the God of the patriarchs, the. Covenant keeping God of history. Now verses 7 to 9 show us what God does.

His faithfulness is not passive sentiment. It descends, it acts, it delivers to the slave in Egypt it has looked for generations as though heaven was deaf. It was not. The cry had been heard. The silence was not absence, but timing.

And when God finally moves, he does not send help from a distance. He comes down. The whole story of redemption is in that phrase. The faithful God is a God who closes, who descends into the affliction of his people. He would come down again finally in a manger, quoting Tozer later on.

The tempted, the anxious, the fearful discouraged may all find new hope and good cheer in the knowledge that our heavenly Father is faithful. He will ever be true to his pledged word. The hard pressed sons of the covenant may be sure that he will never remove his loving kindness, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail.

Verses 10 to 12 God glorifies Himself through his people. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the. Children of Israel, out. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh. And bring the children out of Egypt?

He said, but I will be with you. And this shall be a sign for. You that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out. Of Egypt, you shall serve God on this.

Having declared that he has come down to deliver, God says in the same breath, come, I will send you. The God who needs no one chooses to work through and frankly not an impressive someone. An 80 year old fugitive shepherd with a price on his head and failure in his past. And we shouldn't judge Moses too harshly, for his objection is frankly the right. Who am I?

And God refuses to answer the question entirely. He doesn't say, you are more capable than you think. He says, I will be with you. The qualification for serving for the strength of the servant, but the strength of the master. God is not surprised by our weakness.

He chose it deliberately. As I said last week, God uses sinful people for it's the only kind he has to work with. He uses broken instruments because it's his strength, his wisdom, his his power. And it's for his glory. And the promised sign is you shall serve God on this mountain.

The proof Moses will get is worship. The goal of the Exodus is not merely freedom from Egypt, but freedom for God. A people mountain to glorify the One who delivered them. God saves his people for himself and for his praise.

Spurgeon talks about this so beautifully.

High of self go with low thoughts of Christ. And well they may, for they are birds of a feather. But low thoughts of self should always be associated with high thoughts of Christ, for they are both products of God and they help each other. Our unworthiness is a foil to the brightness of our Lord's infinite grace. We sink deep in humility, but soar.

High in assurance as we decrease Christ.

Verses 13 and 14. God is the I am who gives. Himself to be known. Then Moses said to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your Father to you. And they asked me, what is his name?

What shall I say to them? 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. Moses asked for a name.

And the staggering thing is that God answers. He does not remain anonymous. The holy self existent God of the bush condescends to be known to give his people a name. They call him a name that is for relationship. You give your name to those you intend to be known by.

Here the transcendent God stoops like a father bending to a child, telling them. What to call him.

Itself. I am who I am declares his self existence.

The eternal independent God ties his unchanging. Name to a band of slaves and says in effect, this is who I will be for you.

The God who is utterly self sufficient. Does not need Israel, and yet he gives them his name. He binds himself to them and tells them to call.

That is fatherly love, not need, but free and condescending grace.

Verses 15 to 20 God is eternal and sovereign.

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. Verse 18 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. But I know that the King of. Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty so I will. Stretch out my hand and strike Egypt.

With all the wonders of that I will do in it. After that he will let you go.

Now the personal name I Am is sealed with the covenant name Yahweh forever. Thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. This is the name above every name,.

The four letters before which Israel would bow. And see how God speaks of the with total mastery. He knows in advance that Pharaoh will refuse. He is not anxious about it. Not improvising, he declares the outcome before the contest begins.

I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt. And after that he will let you go. Here is absolute Pharaoh imagines he is the great power of the age. God treats him as a foreknown instrument. In a plan already settled.

This is what it means that God is God. He is alone. He alone is self existent. His name is forever, and he governs even the resistance of kings toward his appointed ends. There is no rival he is God, and there is no other.

The puritan Stephen Charnock puts it down since nothing but God is eternal, nothing. But God is worthy of loving.

Verses 21 and 22 God is a. Giver of gifts, giveth this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And when you go, you shall not go empty. But each woman shall ask 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.

Ends not just with deliverance, but with overflow. God's people will not creep out of Egypt empty handed and impoverished. They will leave laden with silver, gold and clothing, their former captors pressing gifts upon them. The God who redeems also gives extra his love. This is the divine pattern from beginning to end.

God is not a grudging deliverer, but a lavish giver. He brings his people out and sends them out full. The plunder of Egypt anticipates the spoils of a in which Christ, having led the captivity captive, gave gifts to men. Ephesians 4:8 the God of the bush gives himself first his his name, his presence, his salvation, and then gives more besides. Every good and perfect comes down from.

The father of lights. James 1:17.

Read together. Exodus 3 is a self portrait of God. He is the holy worker who meets us in the ordinary the self existence needs no fuel the personal God who calls us by name the covenant keeping God who descends into our affliction the Sovereign I am, who governs the resistance of kings. And at the center stands Verse five, the holy ground. Other attribute flows from his holiness.

He is a holy worker, a holy father, a holy giver.

And revelation always presses towards response. What does Exodus 3 demand of us? This morning I have two thoughts to close 1. Take off your shoes. The first thing God says to Moses at the bush is not come before commission comes consecration before God uses him.

He humbles him. The sandals must be removed.

We live in an age where we have lost.

We are casual where Moses hid his face. We come to worship as we come. To a coffee shop, comfortable, undisturbed, ready to leave if it goes poorly. Out of Exodus 3 is not that God? He is the consuming fire, and the only fitting posture before him is reverent awe.

Oswald Chambers perhaps said it best if. We have never experience of taking our. Commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious. Feet and getting rid of all the. Undue familiarity with which we approach God.

It is questionable whether we have ever stood in his presence. The people who are flipping familiar are. Those who have never yet been introduced to Jesus Christ.

Where have you grown casual with God in your prayers? Hurried, perfunctory, more habit than encounter in your reading of Scripture, dutiful but not trembling in your worship, present in body, somewhere else in mind.

I ask these to you as frankly I ask these to myself.

The burning bush calls us back. Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.

2. Trust the great I am not.

Moses. First objection is frankly the right one. Who am I? It is the question every honest servant asked when faced with A task beyond them. And God's answer is the most liberating thing in the passage.

He does not answer, he redirects it. He does not say, oh, son, you are so capable. No, no, he says, I will be with you. This is the deepest application of the passage. The question the text asks us is never, it is always, who is he?

Your inadequacy is not the obstacle, it is the precondition. We have this treasure in jars of clay, Paul says, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not it was never about us. We are not the main character. The same God who called Moses knows. Your name, each and every one of you.

He has graven you on the palms.

He has given you the greatest gift he could give, the gift of himself in the form of his son, Jesus Christ, who alone covers your sinfulness and makes you acceptable before a holy God.

Many of us are living like Moses in Midian, convinced perhaps that our best. Days, our strong days may be behind us, certain that our failures have disqualified us for service.

Moses at 80 he is not done with you. What he requires is not your resume, but your obedience, whatever it is you are facing.

God's answer is not a plan or a strategy. It is a name. I am the self existent, eternal covenant. Keeping, personally attentive, sovereignly undefeatable. God says to you what he said to me.

I will be with you.

That is the burning bush, the fire. That needs no fuel, the voice that knows your name, the ground that is holy. And the God who descended into into Bethlehem, into death itself and rose again,. Still proclaiming, I am. Let's pray.

Father God, we are humbled by your word. And Lord, when we search inside of ourselves and we see our unworthiness, we are so grateful that it's not up to us, but it's up to you. That you take us in our broken, fallen state and you rise us up to yourself. That you are the hound of heaven who tracks us down. Because we may run away, but you can run faster and you can outlast our weariness.

Lord, thank you that you keep your covenants with us. Thank you that you love us so much, that you would send your son to be the propitiation of our sins. That you would tear the veil in two so that we could come to you through your son.

Father, I pray that your word would be pressed into our hearts, that we would have a fullness of who you are as we leave here today.

Jesus name. Amen.