Exodus 3:13-22 - God, Are You Faithful? “I AM” - Wyatt Allen

Good morning.

Today we ask the question, God, are you faithful?

To which we will see he responds, I am.

Reputation influences who we trust.

People buy Toyotas because they're really reliable.

We all go to Kroger because they have really good produce.

We go to someone we trust to share our secrets.

I'm not sure why, but a lot of you root for the Browns despite their reputation.

What if these things fail?

What if the Toyota breaks down?

What if the food at Kroger is moldy?

What if somebody tells our secret?

When people and things let us down, how can we know God will be faithful?

The main point that we see in God's Word today is that God's word, his name, and his power exemplify that he is faithful.

A little context before we get into the passage itself.

The people of Israel are slaves in Egypt right now.

They have been here for 400 years under the oppression of the Egyptians.

And that oppression is increasing.

Pharaoh is now asking that the baby boys be killed because the Israelites are growing and being blessed by God too much in their eyes.

Amongst all this, Moses is born.

He's placed in the river, found by Pharaoh's daughter, raised by Pharaoh's daughter.

And then one day, Moses sees an Egyptian beating an Israelite.

Moses kills that Egyptian, has to flee to Midian because Pharaoh is seeking his life.

He gets married, he starts shepherding.

One day when he's out working, he comes to a burning bush at Mount Horeb, which is also known as Mount Sinai.

God tells Moses his plan here to deliver the people out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them to a good and broad land flowing with milk and honey.

In the passage this morning, Moses anticipates the Israelites wanting to know who is this God that sent you to bring us this message?

And why should we trust him?

Why should we put our faith in him?

What about us?

Do we know the name of our God?

Can we put our faith and our trust in him?

So now we turn to our text.

I'll read it in a second, but the three points will be God's word assures us of his faithfulness, God's name assures us of his faithfulness, and God's power assures us of his faithfulness.

So if you'll read with me together, starting in verse 13, Exodus chapter 3, verse 13.

Exodus 3:13

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 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.

God also said, The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

Oh, sorry, the Lord.

That's very important.

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.

This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Go and gather the elders of Israel, and together, 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 out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebuzites, 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 three days' journey 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.

And I will give this 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 asks of and any woman who lives in her house sorry, in and I will give this 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 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.

Let's go ahead and pray.

God, I ask that you would show us your faithfulness today.

Reveal to us your name as you intended it to be revealed.

Speak through me.

Lord, remove me from the pulpit.

May you be honored and glorified by the faithful exposition of your word.

Lord, if I say anything that is not true to your word, help these people to forget it.

But all of the truths here, Lord, help us to remember and to take into our weeks moving ahead.

I pray these things in God's holy and faithful name.

Amen.

So, point number one, God's word assures us of his faithfulness.

Exodus 3.13.

Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say, say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name?

What shall I say to them?

Moses is anticipating the Israelites will want to know who is this God that sent you and why should we trust him?

So they're thinking, we've been slaves for 400 years, and all of a sudden God's coming here and he's saying, through this guy, who, not to mention, Moses left after murdering somebody.

He's been gone for 40 years.

If Rick, Jimmy, or Ron murdered somebody and left for 40 years, and then they came back and said, Hey, I'm going to preach to you, there's going to be some questions.

So what does God say?

He says, I am who I am.

We're going to look at this more in our second point.

Um, but right now I want us to look at something else that exemplifies God and his faithfulness.

In Exodus 3.15, if you look, God also said to Moses, Say this to the people of Israel.

In verse 16, go and gather the elders together and say to them, sorry, I missed one.

In verse 14 also it says, say this to the people of Israel.

These are God's words.

Hear that.

These are God's words, not Moses' words.

It is not a mere man coming and saying, hey, I had this feeling in my heart that I wanted to share this stuff with you guys, so you should listen to me.

No, this is direct words from the God of the universe that he is telling Moses to say to the Israelites.

God's words are different than any other words.

This book that we have, the Bible, has power to make our hearts burn and to change us.

And verse 18, and they will listen to your voice.

This is a great assurance for Moses because he's scared.

He doesn't trust his voice.

Do you guys listen to God's voice?

Do you have faith in God's revealed word in his scripture?

Isaiah 55, 11, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

But we might ask, how do we know today if someone's someone is presenting a message from God?

Is it because they speak confidently?

And they're just a great joy to listen to.

They have a lot of charisma.

Again, Moses couldn't.

He said, God, my mouth, I can't speak well.

So God provided Aaron for him.

But it wasn't Moses' voice that was going to make the difference.

Was it because Moses was morally outstanding?

Remember, Moses is right where he's at right now because he murdered somebody.

We might say that about Moses.

God's word tells us this great truth that if we put our faith in Jesus Christ, the sins in our past are forgiven.

That's a bonus.

So we know someone is presenting a message from God because God's holy word is proclaimed.

God has told us what he wants us to know.

He has revealed that to us in his word so we can know and be sure and have faith in what we hear because of God's word.

Do you believe that?

Do you trust this word?

Do you believe this is the revealed word of the God that created everything?

It is important that we ask ourselves that.

If God's word is not trustworthy, then nothing we say or do here today matters.

Do not forget God's promises, Christian, that we know about through the scriptures.

Do not forsake this book.

Those of you who do not know Christ, the truth that you are looking for is in this book.

It will make your heart burn like nothing else.

The answers are in this book, which brings us to point number two.

God's name assures us of his faithfulness.

His name assures us of his faithfulness.

So I'm sure many of you have heard messages from this passage where they faithfully expound meaning, different meanings from God's name.

And I say faithfully, there are lots of different meanings that God's name conveys.

If you have a good study Bible, it will tell you several of those.

The SV study Bible is very helpful.

It's got a few here all list out.

God is self-existent.

He exists.

He says, I exist, is essentially what this name convey, one thing that this name conveys.

He is the sustainer and creator of all that exists.

If he is the uh the peak, the the origin origin of everything, because he exists.

He is the only thing that exists.

Nothing else just exists.

Everything else flows out from him.

God is immutable in his being and character.

He does not change.

And this one's close to, I think, what this passage is saying, but a little bit different.

And he is eternal, like the Psalms say, He is from everlasting to everlasting.

All of these are glorious truths.

Praise God that he is all of these things and that his name revealed to us.

Don't forget that this is revealed to us.

These things are true.

But like I said, the main point of this passage is that God is exemplifying his faithfulness by his word, his name, and his power.

And we're looking right now at how his name exemplifies his faithfulness.

But where am I getting that idea that his name exemplifies his faithfulness?

Because there are those other good things.

But what does this passage say?

We want to know what God is speaking here to Moses.

There are two reasons I'd like to point out, I think, that lends to this idea that God's revealing primarily his faithfulness by his name.

So point number one, both time God says his name in verse 14, it means I am or I will be.

Both are accurate.

The word in Hebrew is ehy.

If we look at the latter, I will be, we might ask, what will God be?

What is he saying that he will be?

If we look at our context a little bit, and we go back to verse 12, it says, He said, But I will be with you, and this shall be a sign for you that I have sent you.

And there's more, but what I want to focus on is right at the beginning, he said, But I will be.

It is the exact same word as God's revealed name, Eh.

So what is God trying to convey in that information there?

The I will be here is saying that God will be faithful.

The reason for that, oh sorry, I kind of got off a little.

I think I have a key that opens the door here to why that exemplifies his faithfulness, primarily.

If point number two, the God of your fathers.

This phrase we see two times in our passage, and I believe it's at least one more time, but probably two more times before.

I don't remember off the top of my head.

And look at what God says in both verse 15 and verse 16 when he's telling Moses what to say.

So God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, this is a third-person version of Eheh, which would be Yahweh, but it's represented as the Lord.

I'll get into that a little bit more later.

But anyway, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you.

The same phrase is in verse 16.

This should make us look back.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

What did God do with those people?

God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 17, three three different ones kind of building on each other.

That he would make a great nation out of him.

Verses 21 and 22 are actually in our passage towards the end are kind of kind of confusing until you go back and look at some of those covenants, uh, specifically in chapter 15 of Genesis, verses 13 and 14.

I'll read real quick.

Then the Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there.

That sounds familiar.

And they will be afflicted for 400 years.

That sounds familiar.

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with a great possession.

There at the end of our passage here, it starts to make a little more sense.

So anyway, God made a covenant with Abraham, and then God confirmed this covenant with Isaac and Jacob by saying in Genesis 26, 3 and Genesis 31, 3, the same exact phrase, I will be with you.

So God here in our passage is saying, look back to what I have done, to what I have promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I made promises to them, and I will fulfill them.

I will not leave those undone.

Look what it says at the end of verse 15.

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.

It's including the whole phrase.

The Lord, the God of your fathers, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.

This is my name.

God's name is not arbitrary.

It's not Yahweh just because it sounds cool.

God's name is I will be faithful, because I have been faithful to my people throughout all generations, and remember that because I will be faithful throughout all generations.

Every time you see the phrase or the name, the Lord, in all caps, that's the Yahweh one, in all caps in our Bibles, we should stop and think.

We should catch our balance and say, what's going on here?

God's revealed his name here to tell us he is faithful, and we're seeing it all throughout the Old Testament.

More than 6,500 times we see this revealing of God's word.

We should stop, catch our bounds, like you just tripped on another toy on the floor, and ask, what's going on here?

The Lord, though, is not bound to the Old Testament.

In fact, the same Lord comes powerfully into the New Testament.

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

In John eight fifty-eight.

In Matthew twenty-eight, twenty, Jesus speaking again, says, Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always.

To the end of the age.

In John 14, 16, it says, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever.

God is faithful to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He is faithful to Moses, and he is faithful to you and to me through the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ's name is I am.

He will be faithful.

Brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus Christ has given these promises to us.

Remember his name and his faithfulness throughout all generations.

1 John 1.9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Everything Moses did, the murder, the doubting of God, cleansed.

Everything that you have done, if you put your trust in God, cleansed.

If you do not, hear this warning, these promises do not apply to you.

This is serious.

If we think this is truly God's word, that it has bearing on our lives, that is the only truth that makes hearts burn.

And you do not trust him, please.

Put your faith in Jesus Christ.

Because he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.

Now we come to our third and final point.

God's power assures us of his faithfulness.

His power assures us of his faithfulness.

In verse 18, it says, And you and the elders of Israel shall go, shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him.

So I think of someone here that has a crush.

They get so nervous about asking their crush out on a date.

Why?

It is because, from what they've told me, they are unsure if the answer will be yes or no.

I don't want to ask this person.

I don't know if they like me.

God is telling Moses and the elders to go to someone way more important than a crush.

This is one of the most powerful people in the world at this point.

They had the power to accept an entire nation during a famine and house them.

They started enslaving them for 400 years, but at the time they did that.

So this is a very powerful person.

And what does God tell us in verse 19?

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go.

He will not let them go.

So not only is Moses told to go and ask somebody way more important than a crush to let his people go, where he's making massive economical power from these people, free labor.

He's telling him, he's going to say no.

So I don't know, I would be a little scared too if I were Moses.

But he will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

If we look back to verse 8, we haven't read this yet.

But it says, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land.

The Israelites need a mighty hand to deliver them out of the hands of the hand of the Egyptians.

And they do have a pretty powerful hand.

Look at verse 20.

So I will stretch out my hand.

This is God speaking.

God is setting up a grand example here in Exodus.

This is the preface to a lot of stuff that's going to happen.

The power of the hand of the Egyptians versus the power of the hand of Yahweh.

Look at the next verse, or next part of verse 20 with me.

So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it.

Astonishing plagues did strike Egypt.

God's hand crushed the hand of the Egyptians.

An interesting point on that.

Each plague that we see unfold later in Exodus is a direct offense to a God of the Egyptians.

The God of light or the God of the sun, God made darkness, so on.

Even Pharaoh himself was considered an intercessor between the gods, a demigod himself, and God struck his son.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, this powerful and mighty hand in this world had no power.

No power against our God.

The reason I make this point to exemplify God's faithfulness is because if you read to verse 4 or chapter 14 later, please do that.

Please go and read to chapter 14 in Exodus this afternoon with a friend or a family member to see if his promises were fulfilled.

God's promises are not empty.

Not only is he faithful to remember them and to remember them throughout all generations and to apply them, the ones that do apply to you to you, but he has the power to fulfill them.

If God cannot fulfill his promises, then what good are they to us?

And I will tell you, we see throughout the rest, he will fulfill them.

Every single one.

So all of the promises that we see in Scripture for us will be fulfilled in God's power.

We have to faithfully read scripture and understand which promises do apply to us.

But one really important one, John 3.16, for all, or for God so loved the world that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

That is a promise you can take to the bank.

So we see God's faithfulness exemplified in his word, in his name, and in his power.

God's word is always true and faithful.

Read God's word so that you may see his faithfulness.

Don't just leave this book on the shelf.

Read it and see how he is faithful, even when we are not.

God's name has been revealed to us so that every time we see his name, we can be assured of his faithfulness.

The culmination of this in Jesus the great I am.

And God's power makes all of his promises and faithfulness come to pass, so that we may be assured of his faithfulness.

All glory and honor be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, for he is faithful.

Do not forget that, church.

Let's pray.