I don’t know if you’ve heard about the time that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney were walking through an airport when they saw someone who looked just like Moses. President Bush walked up to him and said, “Excuse me, sir, but are you Moses?” The man didn’t respond, just stared off into space. The President asked him again, “Excuse me, but are you Moses?” And again, the man said nothing, just stared off into space. Finally, Vice-President Cheney walked up to him and said, “Excuse me, but the President asked you if you are Moses. Are you?” The man looked at Cheney and said, “Yes, I am.” Frustrated, the Vice-President said, “Well, why didn’t you answer President Bush when He asked you?” Moses said, “Hey, give me a break- the last time I talked with a bush, I was stuck in the dessert for 40 years!”
Turn with me, if you would, to the second book of the Bible, Exodus. In God’s Word we read of several ways that the Lord chose to speak to people. In speaking to many of the prophets He chose to work through visions. In speaking to Balaam He used a donkey. And here in Exodus 3 He chose to speak to Moses through a bush. It’s quite an interesting story and I want us to read part of it together this morning. Ex. 3:1-15… pg. 45.
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy 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 upon God. And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
This is quite an amazing story that we’ve read here in Exodus 3, isn’t it? We read of Moses, a man who had been raised in the finest palaces of Egypt; who had eaten the best foods and attended the best schools; but who had fled Egypt when he learned that the Pharaoh was seeking his head because he had killed an Egyptian. And now Moses is an inhabitant of Midian. He has married a woman named Zipporah, they have had a son, and he has been working for his father-in-law tending sheep for the past forty years.
In our text, this morning, Moses, an 80 year old man, was leading his sheep through the desert and they came upon Mt. Horeb, or the mountain of God. Another name for this mountain was Mt. Sinai, a place where we read of God’s presence coming several times. A place where we later find Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Moses was tending to his sheep when he noticed something very strange. He saw a bush; but it wasn’t just any bush, it was a burning bush. But that wasn’t the strange part. The thing that was so out of the ordinary about this burning bush was the fact that it wasn’t being consumed by the fire. It was on fire, but it wasn’t burning up, it wasn’t being destroyed.
So Moses decided to check it out, and when he did God called out to him from the bush. He said, “Moses, don’t come any closer. Take your shoes off, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I have seen the oppression of my people who are in slavery in Egypt. And I am going to deliver them now, and you are going to be my deliverer.” Wow. Wouldn’t that be an amazing experience? God talking to you through a burning bush telling you that you were going to be the one who would lead the entire Hebrew nation to freedom. What would you be thinking?
Well, we see what Moses was thinking. He immediately begins making excuses for why he isn’t the man for the job. “God, who am I that I should be the one who goes to Pharaoh and demands the freedom of the Israelites? The people won’t believe me when I tell them You have sent me. What am I supposed to say to them when they demand to know what Your name is? I can’t speak well. Please send someone else.” The discussion is long. The excuses are many. But eventually the Lord is able to help Moses to understand that he is the man for the job and that he would have the power and the presence of God with him.
It’s quite a conversation we read about in the 3rd and 4th chapters of Exodus. It’s an interesting conversation and one that we could, no doubt, draw many lessons from. But this morning I just want us to take some time to look at two words from our text. In verse 13 Moses asks God the question, “What if the people ask me the name of the One who sent me… what shall I tell them?” Vs. 14 says, And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
I want to talk with you this morning about those two words that God chooses to use in identifying Himself, I AM. What does God mean when He calls Himself, “I AM?” Isn’t that sort of a strange way to identify Himself? What was God trying to say when He said, I AM? What do those two words signify? Well, let me share with you what I believe God means when He says, “I AM.”
I. “I AM” Means “I Exist”
First of all, when God says “I AM,” it means “I exist.” At the very basis of every type of religion is the premise that there is a higher being, a god. No matter what kind of faith you can think of; whether Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, or Hinduism, or some other that is less known; no matter which religion you are talking about, all faiths begin with the basic, fundamental concept of the existence of God.
Some have made their god a fat man sitting Indian style in front of a temple. Others’ theology is based upon the belief that there are many gods. Still others claim that we are gods. But no matter what the faith, before any other part of theology and doctrine can even be discussed the doctrine of God must be established. In Christianity, before we can even think about stating our faith about heaven and hell, salvation and forgiveness, the deity of Christ, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, or the resurrection and imminent return of Jesus to this earth we must first confirm in our minds whether or not we believe that there is a God in the first place. If there is no God then what else is there to discuss? If there is no God then there is no reason for us to believe that there is a heaven or a hell. If there is no God then there is no need for or way of salvation. If there is no God then it’s impossible for Jesus to claim to be the Son of God and there is no Spirit with which to be filled. If there is no God then Jesus is still dead and there is no return to look forward to. The existence of God is the fundamental concept of our faith.
Over the years men have tried to persuade us to believe that perhaps there is no God after all. Religion is a deception. Theology is a lie. In 1859 a man by the name of Charles Darwin published a book called On the Origin of Species. In this book he stated that man had not been specifically created by God, but was, in fact, the product of biological evolution. He said that, “Man is descended from a hairy quadru-ped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears.” Simply put, man is the descendant of an ape which is the descendant of nothing in particular. We were not created, we have just simply evolved over millions and billions of years. Random, accidental atomic collisions resulted in the formation of some simple form of life which eventually became us. There were no six days of creation; there was no Creator. We just happened.
But how can we look at creation and claim there was no Creator? After all, people don’t ever question whether or not a computer came into being by the design of an intelligent builder. You don’t look at a car or a jet and think that it just happened. So how can we even think about wondering if there is a Creator? I mean, look at our earth. If the earth was just a little bit smaller than it is our livable atmosphere would be impossible. Earth would be like Mercury or the moon. If it were a little larger than it is it would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter or Saturn. Basically, our planet would be unlivable if it were just a little bigger or smaller than it is. The earth’s distance to the sun is very precise. If we were a matter of degrees closer to the sun we would disintegrate. A few degrees further from the sun and we would freeze. Our earth is tilted on its axis. If this were not so there would be no such thing as the seasons. Numerous other findings about our universe point to an Intelligent Creator.
Take the human body. You can’t get anything more complex than the human body. For instance, let’s think about the part of the eye called the retina. The retina lines the back of your eye and it acts as a sort of film. It is thinner than paper but its surface, which is about one inch square, contains 137 million light sensitive cells. Each of those cells are separately connected to the optic nerve which transmits the pictures to your brain at about 300 mph. Your eye can analyze 1 million messages a second. Does that sound accidental?
What about the miracle of birth? Believe me, I’m gaining more and more knowledge about birth every day. This past Monday Cora and I attended our first birthing class. We’ve got to attend these classes that help us to know what’s going on in Cora’s body right now, what to expect in the next couple of months, how to breath correctly during labor, and how to deal with the changes that are headed our way very soon. I’ve learned a lot in that class already. Did you know that men can carry the baby for their wives? And I’m not talking about after the baby’s born. I’m talking about now. Yeah, we really can. All we have to do is stand behind our wives, reach around and pull her belly up and hold it. I’m telling you, it’s quite the class.
Well, we were watching a video about how the baby gets ready for birth inside the womb. Right now our little girl is laying from side to side. But 97% of the time babies will move their way around inside their mother’s tummy as birth nears so that their head is down. And as the time to be born gets closer they will make their way down until their head is set inside the pelvis. When it’s time to enter this world they begin making their way through the birth canal rotating the entire way to make sure that the smallest parts of their head and shoulders are fitting through the small opening of the pelvis. It’s kind of hard to explain unless you see it, and it really is amazing how it all works. When we watched it I leaned over to Cora and said, “And they tell us that happens by accident.”
As we look at all the intricacies of our universe and those of the human body how in the world can we have any thoughts that it happened by accident? You know how likely it is that it’s happened by accident? If you were to cover the entire North American continent 239,000 miles deep in dimes, which would extend all the way to the moon, and then pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the size of North America, and then paint one dime red and mix it into the multiple piles of dimes and blindfold someone and have them choose just one dime, the odds that he would pick the one red dime are the same as if everything we see has just happened by accident. How can we believe in anything but an intelligent, supreme Creator? How can we not believe that there is a God?
Men have tried to tell us otherwise, but my Bible says that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Ps. 33 says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” He exists folks. He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. He alone is God. There is no other. Before time began He was. When time stops He will be. He is. He always has been. And He always will be. When He says “I AM” He is saying “I exist.”
II. “I AM” Means “I Do Not Change”
Secondly, when God says “I AM,” it means “I do not change.” On my sixteenth birthday my family and I happened to be on vacation at Yellowstone National Park. Some of you have probably been there. Probably one of the biggest attractions at Yellowstone is a geyser called Old Faithful. Now, when you’ve heard of Old Faithful you’ve probably heard things like it erupts every hour on the hour. You’ve probably even heard that it is so predictable that you can set your watch by it. I mean, after all, that’s why they call it Old Faithful in the first place, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you what’s actually true about Old Faithful. The average time between eruptions is actually closer to 94 minutes. Each eruption lasts somewhere between 1 ½ and 5 minutes. But all of that actually varies from day to day and from year to year. So much for being Old Faithful, huh? If you can’t count on that trusty old geyser in Yellowstone, what can you count on?
Someone once remarked that there is nothing permanent except change. Today we live in a constantly changing society. Towns are changing. Prices are changing. Fears are changing. War is changing. Tastes and fads are changing. Moods are always changing. Churches are changing. Things change. People change. Relationships change. Maybe you’ve heard about the older couple that was sitting at a red light one day. The wife looked over at the next car and saw a young couple, obviously very deeply in love, who were sitting very close. You know, the girl was slid way over next to her boyfriend. The lady looked at her husband and said, “I remember the days when we used to sit that close to each other.” Her husband just kind of grunted and said, “Well, I didn’t move.”
Things change. Some changes are small, some are not so small. Some changes are for the better, some are not. Some changes come because we choose to be different, some come whether we want them to or not. A lot of people don’t really like change. But change happens. It’s just a part of life. We live in a changing world. It seems like the moment we get used to something, before we know it, it’s different. And sometimes it can be frustrating. It can be stressful to be constantly dealing with changes.
That’s why it is so good to know that while so many things around us, and maybe even we ourselves, are changing so much, we are serving a God who never changes. We’re serving a God who says in Mal. 3:6, “I am the Lord, I change not.” We are serving a God who the writer of Hebrews tells us is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” We are serving a God in whom James said “there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
There is something in this world besides change that is permanent. There is something that we can take to the bank. There is something/Someone that we can count on. That Someone is the unchanging God of the Bible. The same God who existed before time began is the God who lives in our hearts today. The same God who had the power to speak the worlds into existence has the power to hold them in place today. The same God who had the authority to write the Commandments has the authority to direct nations today. The same God who had the love to send His only Son to die in your place has the same compassion for you today. The God of the past is the God of today. He has not changed. He has not lost his power. His wisdom has not diminished. His love has not burned out. He was, and is, and always will be the same.
When Lloyd Douglas, author of The Robe, was a university student, he lived in a boarding house. Downstairs lived an elderly, retired music teacher, who was unable to leave his apartment. Douglas said that every morning they had a ritual they would go through together. He would come down the steps, open the old man’s door, and ask, “Well, what’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but that, my friend, is middle C!”
One word that is used to describe God is the word, “immutable.” Immutable is defined as “not capable of, or susceptible to, change.” And it’s good to know when we are having to deal with the changes of life, when we are having to work with all the ups and downs, that our God is not susceptible to change. He was God yesterday. He is God today. And He will be God a thousand years from now. Time has not worked against Him. Neither has it needed to work for Him. His power has not decreased. Neither has it had a reason to grow. He has not lost any of His wisdom. Neither has He had need to gain any. His mind has not deteriorated. Neither has He had occasion for learning. His holiness has not diminished. Neither has He become more holy.
He has always been perfect. There has been no need or room for improvement. He does not develop, grow, weaken, or decline. He has always had and always will have all power. He has always had and always will have all wisdom and knowledge. He has always been and always will be holy. He has always been and always will be God. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
God looked at Moses and said, “I AM. I am the God of your fathers. And I’m the same now that I was then.” You know, it’s good to know that God never changes. Because that means we can trust Him. That means we can always count on Him. And even when we can’t trust Old Faithful to always be the same, we can trust the One who said, “I am the Lord. I change not.”
III. “I AM” Means “I Will Be Everything You Need”
Lastly, when God says “I AM,” it means “I will be everything you need.” Hannah Smith wrote, “I AM implies that we may ask for what is not complete. This apparently unfinished name is the most comforting name the heart of man could devise, because it allows us to add to it without any limitations.”
Each of us has our own sets of needs. Some of us have financial needs. Some of us have physical needs. Some of us have relational needs. Some of us have spiritual needs. But all of us have our own, unique needs. And so what better way is there for God to describe Himself to people with various needs than “I AM”? What better name for the One who can meet all of our needs than “I AM”? He can speak to the one who is facing financial difficulties and say, “I AM the Great Provider.” He can speak to the one with physical needs and say, “I AM the Great Physician.” He can speak to the one dealing with relationship problems and say, “I AM the Wonderful Counselor.”
To the one who needs salvation He is the Savior. To the one who needs a listening ear He is the best Friend you could hope for. To the one who needs direction He is the Pilot. To the one who needs instruction He is the Teacher. To the one who needs strength He is the Almighty. To the one who needs direction He is the Shepherd. To the one who needs a place of refuge He is your Rock and Fortress. To the one who needs encouragement He is the Comforter. Whatever it is that you need Him to be in your life, He is I AM. Whatever you need, He is.
What an encouragement it is to know that He can meet every need we have. We can depend completely upon Him to supply our every necessity. Paul says in Phil. 4:19, My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He says in 2 Cor. 9, God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. David says in that beloved 23rd Psalm, The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
God had asked Moses to be the deliverer for His people. But Moses couldn’t understand how God could use him. He was wanted by the Egyptians and forgotten by the Hebrews. He had settled into his shepherding lifestyle. He wasn’t all that great of a speaker. How could God use him? But God said, “Moses, I AM that I AM. I will be everything you need to do what I have asked you to do. I will be the One who protects you from Pharaoh. I will be the One who touches your lips. I will be the One who convinces the people that you are the chosen one. I will be the One whose power frees the Israelite nation. I AM.”
And finally Moses obeyed and allowed the statement to be proved true that says, “When you have nothing left but God, then you become aware that God is enough.” He became aware of the sufficiency of God. He finally understood that God was all He needed.
What is it that you need, this morning? The Great I AM wants you to know that He can meet your every need. You don’t need to look elsewhere, He is the I AM. You don’t need to depend upon anyone or anything else, because He alone is the I AM. He’ll be everything that you need Him to be.
There are many names for God; many wonderful names. But the one that covers them all is I AM. That name lets us know that He exists, He never changes, and He will be all that we need. He is the Great I AM.
