He Will Reveal Himself (Pastor Vann Trapp)

We're in the beginning of a new series.

We're in the beginning of a new series.

We're going to be looking at Exodus 6,

the first several verses, as is usual in the Old Testament.

Israel is in trouble and they cry out to God

and Exodus 6 is God's answer to them.

Now, there are times that I would say

that we feel stuck, right?

There are times that we feel stuck.

We feel stuck in our career or in our job

and in some failing relationship or floundering relationship

or we feel stuck because of our financial situation

or things are internal and they don't seem to change.

Or habits or addictions or whatever it is and we just feel stuck.

And there are times that we feel like, you know,

are we stuck in the deepest kind of stuckness you can be

because that's what it always feels like.

But can you imagine being stuck in a place

where you are not even, you're going through life

but people around you, they don't even see you as,

it's like you don't even exist.

It's like you're not even seen as a human being

because that's where Israel was in Exodus 6.

In Exodus 6, they were possessions

of this empire called Egypt.

And Egypt was like one of the greatest empires

on the face of the earth at the time

and they were at the height and the Israelites,

they were just possessions, they were expendable.

They were nameless, they were faceless.

The only value that they had to anybody

was what they could do for those who owned them.

That was the only thing that they existed for.

And no matter, I want you to think about this,

no matter how far they looked up, their heritage,

that's all they could remember,

the position that they had been in.

As far as they looked down, their lineage,

that's the only thing that they could imagine

for those who came after them.

That's how deeply they were stuck.

They resigned themselves to the fact this is how it is,

this is how it always will be.

But then we find these words in Exodus.

It says, but then God, right?

You know, anytime you come across that kind of phrasing

in the Bible, you have to pay attention

because God, when it says that, it changes everything.

But then God, right?

Then God came alongside.

Then God came to Israel.

Then God made four promises.

These are what we find in Exodus 6.

God made four promises,

promises that he made by his own name

and promises that he would change their situation.

Promises that he would change

and he would bring them into the blessing

that he had intended for them

and intended them for from the beginning.

We need to hear that, don't we?

Regularly, because we get stuck regularly,

but that's a word that we need to hear as well.

So we're gonna look at Exodus 6.

Stand with me if you would.

And we're gonna be looking at the same passage over and over.

So if you wanna, you know, Exodus 6, 2 through 8,

this is what we're looking at,

but this is where we find these promises.

It says, God continued speaking to Moses.

He said, I am Yahweh.

Now a lot of you guys might have in your versions

of the Bible, if you open them up

and they have the word Lord

and it's L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

And so it looks kinda odd and they do that on purpose

because it's not actually the word Hebrew word for Lord.

It said they would just say Lord there,

but what's spelled out is this word, this name.

It's God's name, Yahweh.

And in this passage, he doesn't just say, I'm Lord,

I'm king, I'm like the sovereign over you.

He's saying, I am Yahweh.

It's like me coming up and saying, I am Van.

I'm not just pastor, I'm not just, I'm Van.

And he's telling himself about himself

and he's telling them about himself.

He said, when I made myself known,

listen to this, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

I made myself known to them as El Shaddai,

the God Almighty, the greatest God you can imagine,

but not as I am making myself known now by my name, Yahweh.

However, I did establish my covenant with them.

I promised them that I would give them the land of Canaan

where they were living as foreigners.

And now I have heard the groanings

of the descendants of that last one, Jacob,

who he had changed to the name Israel, right?

So God had renamed Jacob Israel,

but I hear his descendants

because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage

and I have not forgotten my covenant.

So say to the sons of Israel,

say to the sons of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac

and Jacob, I am Yahweh.

I will bring you out from under the burden

of the Egyptians.

I will suddenly release you from their bondage.

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm

and great judgments.

And then I will take you to myself as my people

and I will be to you as your God.

And you will know that I am Yahweh, your God,

the one who brought you out

from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

And I will bring you into the land

which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

and I will give it to you as a possession.

I am Yahweh.

That's pretty strong promises, right?

I'm gonna get you out.

I swear it by my name.

Father, this morning, I know that we come into this place

and oftentimes we come into this place stuck ourselves.

And sometimes we're the things that are stuck

that are outside that are obvious

and everybody sees them.

But sometimes they're also the things

that are stuck on the inside.

And they're not so obvious.

And just a few, if any, see them.

But we know them and you know them.

And we are listening because we need to hear

the same word from you

that you have arrived that you have shown up

and you have said, this is who I am

and I will get you out.

So Father, this morning I pray that through your spirit

that you would be speaking to each one of us

and reminding us that you are the God who gets us unstuck.

It's not like you're just doing it

because that's what we want.

It's because you're doing this

because this is what you have always wanted for us.

You wanted us to walk in freedom.

You want us to understand who we are.

You want us to find out what we're made for.

You want us to be released to do your work

and your will and your good in this earth.

And so Father, this morning we asked

that you would come and that we would be open

and we would open our hearts and our eyes and our ears

to hear from you and to see you

and to see where you're leading us to understand

so that we might be changed by you this morning.

Even this morning,

seems like we just showed up

but it just seems like normal time

but God, you take normal time

and you make it your time.

You take a normal place and you make it your place.

You set it apart as holy ground

and it's holy time.

It's opportunity time.

And Father, that's what we want you

to bring us into this morning.

To change your lives and our hearts.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen, have a seat.

So I want you guys to think, as we're getting started,

I want you to think about your favorite movie

and I want you to think about that moment

because it always happens.

That moment where the main character,

they get into some kind of a jam, right?

They get into some kind of a crisis.

And they're sitting there and it always happens.

And by that point, you know,

you're really connected with this character

and so you're going, oh no, right?

And usually it shows itself the type of movies I watch anyway.

It's usually in a car chase, you know, all of a sudden

or else they're in some kind of a chase

or some, you know, monsters about to eat them

or else they're hiding from the bad guys

or else they're just, you know,

I know that when I watch movies with Carrie often

it's just, you know, relational crisis.

And I, okay.

But, you know, but there you are

and they're in this crisis.

And so all of a sudden this character starts freaking out,

right?

They're just like, what do I do?

And they're looking everywhere

and in walks this other character.

You know, they're so distraught.

They're about to, you know, turn themselves

into corrupt cops or else.

They're about to run into the high grass

where the dinosaurs are gonna, you know,

that's how distraught they are.

But then in walks this other character

and they're the calm, cool, collected character

and you're going, you know,

I need to be more like that.

And, but in they walk and what do they do?

They come in and they grab the face

of this freaking out character

and they say, look at me.

Look at me.

Look at my eyes.

I will get you out of here.

Just follow me.

Listen to what I say.

Do what I tell you.

Just follow me.

We'll get out.

And so the freaking out character,

they go, okay.

And they, you know, they calm down

and they follow their instructions

and they get out and they save the world

on the way out, right?

Typical kind of movie arc, you know,

and that's those are the movies we love.

Well, tell me this though.

How many times have you been freaking out in your life

because of the situation, the circumstances

that are pressing in on you

and you're just freaking out?

How many times is there anybody who could

or who does, you know, they may try,

but who you even, you look at them

and they come in, they could even grab your face

and say, look at me, you know,

I'll get you out of here

and you'd actually believe them.

Let alone follow them.

I mean, think about it.

God, how many times has God grabbed your face

and he says, look at me, I'll get you out

and you're looking at him

and you're amazed by his power and his ability

and you see the kindness and the resolve

in his eyes to save you.

And you look at him and you go,

anybody else help, right?

I mean, immediately we don't sticker even for God.

So here we are in these movies.

What is that moment?

That moment in the movies is called, is a God moment.

Why?

Because they know there's no human being

that could pull that off.

So they insert instead this character

who really takes on this role of God

who comes in and he says, look at me, I can get you out.

The only one who could make that promise

and keep it is God.

We know that.

But we suspend our reality

and we let this character take on the form of God

because we know if somebody doesn't intervene,

the whole thing is gonna end in disaster.

That's what stuck places feel like, doesn't it?

Right?

That's what our lies feel like when we get stuck in.

So into those places,

we know that God needs to step in.

That's where Israel was in Exodus six.

They were in a place where God had stepped in

and he says, look at me, I will get you out.

Just pay attention to what I say, follow my lead.

That's where God speaks to us also in our stuck places.

Now, as always, if we're gonna understand

the message of this passage,

we gotta understand some of the setting,

some of the details, what do we need to know about this?

Well, by this time we need to know Israel was so stuck.

They were in this position.

They had been enslaved for like two to 400 years

by this point.

That is enough time.

That is enough generations that have gone by

that they've been in this situation

that they began to wonder whether there ever was

this guy named Joseph that started this whole thing off.

This guy that was actually free,

that was a co-regent with the Pharaoh himself.

One of their forebears that had actually saved Egypt.

They heard these stories, but you start to wonder,

man, did that ever really even happen?

They start to forget the fact that at that time

they were a free people that were loved

and governed and led by this amazing God of creation

who made them, not only blessed them

every time they turned around,

but made them a blessing to everyone

that they came into contact with.

They began to lose sight of that identity.

By this time, they were only seen as a threat to Egypt.

Egypt saw how powerful and great they had become

and so they started beating them down

with this heavy labor.

They even had commanded them,

you gotta get rid of the strength of your progeny.

We need you to throw them into the river

and let the crocodiles eat them

or let the river take them

because we can't have you this strong.

By this time also in the story,

you need to know that Moses had already come to them

and said, you know what, God wants to deliver you.

And they had a great party, they celebrated,

they fell down, they rejoiced and worshipped

and said, God's gonna save us.

And then Moses had gone to the pharaoh

and said, let my people go.

And he said, okay, I'm taking the straw away.

Now it's gonna be harder.

And they're going, this plan's not working, Moses, right?

So not only are they kind of resigned themselves

to where they are, but they're in further despair

because now it's even been made worse.

That's where we are in the story.

By this time also, Egypt was at the height of their power.

I mean, they had this massive and mighty army.

They were trading with all the important trade partners

around the world, their monuments

and their tombs and their palaces.

They were the wonders of the ancient world.

And a large piece of what made this massive machine work

was this nameless, faceless slave.

This labor that came from these free places

of just people being used and ground up and thrown away.

That's where it came from.

That's what made them great.

That's what built their cities.

That's what harvested their food.

That's what took care of and managed their homes.

That's what trained their own children

and created so much of the stuff

that made them rich and made them great.

So Egypt in this position,

they had every reason not to bring the Israelites

out of slavery and the Israelites had every reason

not to believe that they were ever gonna get out of it.

When we get in stuck places,

in the worst places that we get stuck,

it's usually not just because we got ourselves

into a bad place.

It's also because there are either people

or there are institutions or there are chemicals

or there are principalities and spiritual powers

that have some kind of vested interest in keeping us there.

Stuckness usually isn't just that I got stuck

and I can't get myself out.

It's that we get stuck and there's someone

with a vested interest to keep us in that place.

You need to know that you're not just fighting

against yourself, often you're fighting against yourself

and many, many enemies.

And Exodus says, but then God.

And man, if we didn't have those words,

where would we be?

But then God, then God steps in.

How many of you know that when God shows up,

everything changes, right?

Everything changes.

Your whole perspective changes.

Mountains become movable, become molehills.

Principalities and powers, even spiritual ones,

become poppers and become those who are subject to another.

Worldly threats are eclipsed by God's power

but the power of God, by the power of the one

who has the ability to speak a word

and call everything into alignment and into obedience.

You know, one of the things that happened

when I was in Greece and we went to this island

of Santorini and some of you guys have been there.

And I had seen pictures of Santorini.

You see Santorini's this little island

that had been a volcano and then it blew up

and now it's just a ring of kind of islands.

And you see this quaint little place

with these white houses and blue, you know,

blue roofs and it has these like,

it looks like in the pictures,

it looks like little sand dunes

that go down to the water.

And it's really a nice looking place.

And then you float up there in this huge ship, right?

And you're just going, I didn't see this coming

because those little sand dunes, they're 1,000 foot tall.

They're 10 story building worth.

I mean, these are massive, no, 10 story, 1,000 feet tall.

That's like a hundred story.

They're massive cliffs going down

because this was a massive island.

You can't possibly catch it in a picture.

And this volcano blew the center

right out of the middle of it.

So it's gone.

And all this left are these 1,000 foot cliffs

that now the towns kind of sit on the edge of.

And you see that there are five other

massive cruise liners in the middle

and you didn't even see them

because of the scale of everything else that's going on.

There's some things that when you come into perspective

it changes everything.

You go, oh, wow.

All of a sudden you're going, we're in danger here

because we're sitting on top of the same volcano.

It's still down there, right?

And now if it went off, we'd just have a front row seat

and that'd be the end, right?

When God steps in, everything changes.

Everything changes.

What seemed like impossibility of stuckness

becomes a possibility of movement and of freedom.

Everything changes.

So these words are powerful.

Then God, God came to the Israelites

and he came to them in Exodus six and he said this.

He said, I am Yahweh.

When Jesus came 2,000 years ago, what did he say?

I am Jesus.

I am the Savior.

When the Holy Spirit shows up on a Sunday morning

and he wants to talk to us, what does he say?

He says, you know what, I am the same God

and I'm here right now

because the things that seem impossible to you

in the same way that they seem impossible to them,

I can change these things.

And not only can I, but I desire to.

I desire to see you let into freedom.

I am here because he wants us to know

that when he shows up, everything,

when we begin to see that everything changes, right?

It seems to change.

It begins to change.

We realize it has changed

because we see that he is in it with us.

And that's everything.

You know, have you ever,

have you guys ever competed like in a trivia night

or played trivial pursuit or any of those games?

You know, and you're playing these games

and you're going along and have you ever had that person

on your team that you're going, oh, now we win, right?

Cause they're just like this walking vault

of everything trivial that mankind has ever known.

You know, and they just have it in their head

and you don't know why.

Nobody knows why.

Kerry has a brother like this, you know, every time

he's like this, this Jeopardy winner

that's just walking around waiting to happen, you know.

And so every time we come to a trivial kind of a challenge,

you're always thinking, you know,

it'd be great to have Todd here, wouldn't it?

And you know, if he can be there

that everything will be better

because Todd's in it with you, right?

Now think about God.

God's not a trivial pursuit champion.

He could be.

But he's more than that, right?

He's not just a movie star that's taking on

the role of the God person.

And speaking some impossible words

that we know humans can never carry out.

He's God.

And we need to know that everything changes.

Everything becomes better.

Everything becomes possible.

Everything becomes hopeful when we see,

when we finally understand that he's in it with us.

That's why in Exodus six he begins and he says,

he says, I want you to know who it is with you.

Did you notice how many times that he said, I am Yahweh?

I mean, he starts his promise section.

He starts with it, he ends with it.

He says, I am Yahweh in the middle of it.

What do you find?

He says, I want you, you're gonna find out that,

you're gonna remember that I am Yahweh.

And then at the beginning he spends the first three verses

just saying, you know what,

I didn't even tell other people my name.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you think those are so,

such important people to me and they were,

I made covenant with them and everything.

But I didn't tell them my name.

I just told them I was the greatest God

they had ever known and they went with it.

But I want you to know that when it comes to saving people

out of these stuck and possible places,

I will stake my name on it.

When it comes to getting you out of your brokenness

and out of your stuck places,

whether it be sin or there'd be bad decision

or whether it be bad thinking

or whether it be just that you have this inherited stuff

that got passed down to you,

whether it be generations that have trained you

to be and to think how you are,

no matter what it is, he says, I will get you out

and I will stake my name on it.

I am Yahweh.

And that's what he did.

That's what he did here.

That's what he also though did with Jesus, didn't he?

When Jesus came, he said, you know what?

I want you to know, he will be called Jesus

because he will be the one saving you.

I guarantee it.

I'm gonna put his name out there.

Every time you call on him,

you know that you're calling out Jesus.

Literally means save your salvation.

Says I will, I stake my name on this

when we are in places that we are stuck,

when we are enslaved, when we are captive,

when we are consumed by the consequences

even of our own decisions.

When these things are true, when we're by our mistakes

and we're paying the price for them,

where we need someone to save us from something impossible,

God says, I will do this.

Look at me.

I am Yahweh.

I am your savior and I will get you out of this.

So why does he start with his name?

We say, why does he start with his name?

Well, he does it, I think for two reasons.

One, he wants us to know him.

He wants us to know him.

He wants us to, when we go into,

when we see how he saves us,

he wants us to see how different that is

from how these other things, these pretend saviors,

how their salvation goes, right?

We trust in all kinds of things to save us at times.

We trust in money, we trust in politics, right?

That's coming up.

We trust in our connections.

We trust in our careers.

We trust in the things that will distract us.

We trust in our addictions.

We trust in our entertainment to save us

from the things that we face.

And God says, I am Yahweh and I want you to pay attention

to how differently I save you

from how these other false things save you.

I want you to know me, so you remember me

and you remember to call on me instead of those things.

I'm Yahweh, but why else?

Not just as he wants us to know him,

he wants us to know him personally.

He gives us his name.

He doesn't just say, I'm a great God.

He says, I'm Yahweh.

I am, he wants us to know him as our father,

who loves us.

He doesn't do these things to show how great he is.

He does these things because of how great his love is for us.

He wants us to know him as our savior, as our friend.

He doesn't need more subjects that are wowed by him.

He has rocks and trees, those are his subjects.

He has stars that bow and obey his commands.

He's looking for family.

He's looking for children.

He's looking for those who will walk with him

and talk with him and listen to him

and have relationship with him.

He wants us to know him,

but he wants us to know him personally.

He wants us to know him.

And so he gives us his name.

He has, the question is, is that the God you know?

Is that the God that you know?

Is that the God that you know personally?

Do you know him like that?

Because it's not, he's probably here

trying to get your attention.

He's grabbing your cheeks and he's saying, look at me.

Just look in my eyes.

Don't you see what I'm about?

I want to bring you into the blessing

that I intended for you, I intended you for.

There's nothing I want more than that.

Look at me.

I want you to know me.

So over the next four weeks,

we're going to be looking at these four promises

that God made to his people on Exodus six.

He said, you know what?

I'm going to rescue you.

I'm going to bring you out of stuff

and I'm going to bring you into stuff, right?

Read Exodus six.

He says, I'm going to bring you out,

but I'm going to bring you in.

I'm going to also, I'm going to change your whole perception

of who you think you are.

I'm going to rename you.

I'm going to rename you.

I'm going to reclaim you.

I'm going to reshuffle the stuff inside

so that you see who you are

instead of who everyone has said that you are

or who this world has tried to shape you into being.

I'm going to show you who you are,

who I made you to be.

I'm going to redeem you.

You're going to see me fight for you.

You're going to see me tear down things

that you can't possibly touch

so that not only do you have the freedom,

but you find this open door

into walking into the thing that I've called you,

that person I've called you to be, that purpose,

and I'm going to receive you because you're my own.

You're mine.

You're my child.

Not like this oppressive ownership,

but this claim that we all hope

that God loves us enough to claim us as his own,

says, I'm going to do that.

You're going to know that there's no greater God

to have than me.

There's no greater father to have than me.

And we need to know.

We need to know that these promises,

what we need to know is that they promises

this process of growing into that.

It all starts when God first not only redeems,

not only reclaims, not only renews,

but he reveals himself to us.

And how do we respond to that when he says look at me?

Will you trust me?

Will you follow me?

Will you walk with me?

Will you let your life be shaped by what I've spoken

instead of by what all these other voices have spoken?

Will you let, will you trust me to lead you out

instead of being drawn and just scattered by your fears

and by your worries and your anxieties

and everything you look around in it?

Will you look at me and follow me?

So what do we do with this?

Well, I think there's three things we can do with this.

One is this.

You guys, we need to learn.

We need to learn how to look at Jesus, don't we?

We need to learn how to look at Jesus when we feel stuck

and when we don't know that we're stuck.

Which is all the time.

In Hebrews 12-2, it says we got to fix our eyes on Jesus.

Fix them.

Lock them in.

Because just like the Israelites,

there are sometimes that we're so deep into our broken

stuckness that we don't even know we're there.

We just say, but I guess this is just who I am.

This is just how I am.

This is just what I am now.

This is now.

No, I need you to, I need you to fix your eyes on me

even when you don't know you're stuck.

Let him be the one that tells you,

these are the things that are breaking you

that are messing with your life.

Get out of those, let's get you out of those

so we can get you into the things that you were meant for,

that you were intended for,

places you find freedom and purpose and meaning,

places that you find the life that I intend you to for.

So fix our eyes on Jesus, right?

All those things that we think are just our,

they can be our prison cells.

They can be the very chains,

the things that we call our freedom sometimes.

They can be the very chains that are holding us

because we're not following him.

So we need to fix our eyes on Jesus.

We need to know the one who stakes his reputation,

his very name on his intention and his promise

that he will get us out of this

and bring us into the freedom he intended.

Second, we need to get to know him, right?

God doesn't just want us to know about him.

He doesn't want us to know all the theological facts

and all the equations of how all these things work

and have the Venn diagrams and the flow charts.

See, he doesn't want us,

that's not what his purpose is.

His purpose is that we would know him,

that we'd walk with him,

that we would know his love,

we would experience his rescue in our lives.

Not just know that he is the guy that rescues,

but that we would experience him doing that for us.

That's his intention.

A lot of times we go through life thinking,

oh, God wouldn't do that for me.

He does that for everyone else, but no.

His intention is that he would,

you would know it because you have walked through it with him,

that you would know that he is the guy who comes to you

and says, I am Yahweh and I'm here to look at pain, right?

I'm here, I will get you out.

The third thing is this,

and I think sometimes we lose this,

but we need to be letting others know

about the God who can save them

because we are surrounded in our lives

by other people that are just as stuck

or sometimes even more stuck in things

than we are or were, right?

God doesn't save us, rescue us,

so that we can just sit and be safe and fat and happy,

just kinda enjoy the blessings until we get to heaven.

He doesn't do that.

He rescues us like he did Israel

so that we might be that light,

so that we might be the ones that say

there is a God who will do this for you.

And some of you guys, you're intimidated by that,

you're like, ah, I don't know how to say those things.

You don't have to often say much more

than just tell a story about what God's done for you.

We all like talking about ourselves,

so just do that.

Just tell about what God's done for you.

Tell about how he has rescued you,

because in that, and then, but let people know,

there's a God, Yahweh,

who he has come for one purpose

and that is to rescue us

and to remake us and rename us

and to put us in this place

where also we recognize, clear the path

so that we can find that purposes in our callings

and that we can go out and join him in his work.

So yes, fix your eyes on Jesus.

Don't lose sight of him.

To yes, get to know God,

but tell people about him also.

Tell people about this God who everything gets better.

You know that everything gets better

because they need to see this God,

that everything gets better.

Everything, you know that it's hopeful,

that it's possible when he shows up.

Amen?