Names of God: Yahweh (S09, E02)

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason and I am

the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast today, we are continuing to go through an eight-episode series on the names of God.

In the teaching today, we are going to be learning about the personal name of

God, Yahweh, given to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Thanks for joining us as we dive into the discussion on how Yahweh translates

certain attributes about God.

I want you to stop and think about a question,

and that question is, if you only had a short,

sentence or a phrase in order to introduce yourself to somebody,

you only had a very short time, what do you think the most important thing that

you would like that person to know about you?

How would you describe yourself? Is it something that you would say, I have a job?

Is it your career or being a mom or a dad or a spouse?

Is it a hobby that you have that you think is the most important thing from you?

Is it a team that you really root for and you want them to know you belong to that clan?

How would you describe yourself? If you just had a sentence or a phrase,

how would you describe yourself?

In the Bible, people are introduced by names like we have, but our names don't

really reflect much about us.

Sure, our last names can tell us what family group we belong to,

but they don't really have a deeper meaning than that.

For instance, Jacob, his name means deceiver, one who grabs the heel.

And when he came out of the womb, he was grasping the heel of his brother Esau.

And throughout his life, he lived up to this idea because he deceived his brother Esau,

by telling him after Esau came in from a hunting trip that I will give you soup

to sustain your life only if you give me your birthright.

He deceived him out of his birthright. And later, Jacob deceived his father

saying, I am Esau, bless me.

And so his name meant more than just Jacob.

His name meant a characteristic that he bestowed throughout his life.

But an interesting thing happened to Jacob.

God changed his name.

He went from being a deceiver to Israel, which means one who wrestles with God. He says.

And that's a beautiful sentiment because as we go through life and as we process

through what scripture is telling

us and as we are convicted by the Holy Spirit, it's a wrestling match.

It denotes that Jacob and God had an intimacy together.

And so in the Bible, names mean something more than just what we would say,

this is what my name means, or this is how my name came to be.

They actually described the human being.

And as we continue in our series on the names of God, we need to understand

that these names have a deeper meaning than just the surface level word.

These names help us to know God better.

And that's the goal here, to be able to come to know who God is based upon his

characteristics, based upon what he says about himself,

so that we have closer fellowship with him.

Going back to that first scenario, if you're just meeting someone for the first

time and you're describing yourself in a sentence or in a phrase,

then you're getting to know each other.

But if that becomes a paragraph or if that becomes a really long conversation

you have, you're growing closer to that person because you know more about that person.

And when we know the names of God, we're going to be able to know God better

because they describe him.

Last week, we tackled our first name of God, Elohim, which means the strong

one and someone so strong that it kind of makes us scared.

It gives us a little bit of fear.

And we relayed this to like the sun and how the sun is good and it gives us

life and it gives us warmth.

But we have to put protection on. We wear hats. We wear sunglasses.

We put on sunscreen because it's so powerful that it can harm us.

And in the same way, we come to God and we say, all right, God,

this is who you are. You are the strong one. You are Elohim.

And we surrender to you because of your great strength.

And we can see how that word describes him.

Our name today is the personal name of God.

And it's used more than 5,000 times in the Old Testament.

But an interesting thing about

this is that this word was spelled in the Jewish texts without vowels.

They revered this name so much that they didn't spell it out.

And they only wrote the consonants. It's a fascinating concept.

But this was what you could know God by. This is the name that God revealed

to Moses at the burning bush.

This is the name that Israel calls upon God more than 5,000 times throughout the scriptures.

This is God's personal name, and we pronounce it today as Yahweh.

We call out to the personal God when we declare his name Yahweh.

And so as we take a look at what this name means in Exodus chapter 3,

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

we're going to take a look at the encounter at the burning bush,

just a small portion of it.

But just a refresher, Moses is walking, wandering. He's a shepherd and he's

leading sheep through the desert.

And up on this mountain, which we come to know as Mount Sinai,

there is this tree that looks like it's on fire.

And as Moses watches it from afar, nothing's happening. The tree's not getting

charred. It's not breaking down. Limbs aren't falling all over the place. It's not burning up.

And so this intrigues him to the point where he wants to go and he wants to

search what is really happening here.

And as he approaches, he hears a voice call out to him, the voice of God.

And it says, don't come any closer.

Take off your sandals for you're standing on the holy ground.

And so Moses obeys and then God reveals to him, I want you to go to Egypt and

I want you to confront Pharaoh.

And I want you to convince him to have Pharaoh release the children of Israel

from their slavery in Egypt.

And Moses says, yeah, you got the wrong guy. You got to send somebody else. This isn't for me.

And then God says, I will be with you.

I will be right there. I'm not gonna leave you. I'm gonna be right next to you.

And that's where we pick up in scripture. But before we begin, let me pray.

Lord God Almighty, may your word be a, let your word ignite our hearts on fire

for your word and give it light so that it can illuminate our path.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name. Amen.

All right, so we're in Exodus chapter three, and we're going to start in verse 13.

But Moses protested, if I go to the people of Israel and tell them that God,

and this is the word we learned last week, Elohim, this is the strong one.

So the strong one of your ancestors has sent me to you.

They will ask me, what is his name?

Then what should I tell them? And so Moses is coming before God and he knows

that Egypt has a polytheistic view of religion. So there are multiple deities.

All of the sacrifices are going to hundreds of different deities.

There's the one that comes to my mind that I remember is Ra.

He's the sun god. And so they bow down and they worship this Ra.

But there are a multitude of other deities. There are a multitude of other people

that these Egyptians are worshiping.

And Israel has been in this context for what the New Testament calls 430 years.

And so they've been there a while.

They've been saturated with all of the religiosity of the Egyptians.

And they've kind of adopted some of these for their own.

And so it would be perfectly normal of them in a polytheistic culture to say which one.

When Moses comes and he says, the strong one of your ancestors,

they're going to be like, which strong one? Because there are hundreds. There are so many.

And so it's not a bad request that Moses is asking here.

And God gives him the answer.

God replied to Moses, I am who I am.

Say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

And so this is the personal name of God. And God declares, I am.

Now, this is a very weird way to announce yourself.

You and I, we would not be able to announce ourselves this way because we are

finite and we rely upon other people.

Just think about how many people have touched the gas before you put it in your tank.

Even if you grow your own food and you think you can be self-sufficient,

think, where did you get your seeds from?

Like, aren't you relying on other people who are packaging these seeds?

Or if you've had these seeds for a number of years and you're using seeds over

again, where did you get them from to begin with?

And if you're growing your own food, you're relying upon water.

And yes, you can do the watering, but do you put the hydrogen,

two hydrogen atoms and the one oxygen atom together to saturate your garden?

My guess is no. And do you make the sun shine so that the plants grow?

We don't do that either. And so even if we're trying to be self-sufficient,

we are relying upon other people.

And so for us to say this, it's kind of nonsense. It's bizarre.

It would be crazy if we really thought this way.

But God is self-reliant. He does not depend on anyone else for anything.

He is the self-sufficient God.

He exists eternally. He will never not exist.

You and I, we are dependent upon him to exist.

And as we live in eternity with him, he is still sustaining us.

We're not existent on our own at that point. He's providing fruit from the tree of life.

He's the one that's allowing us to be in the new heavens and the new earth.

He is the self-existent one, and he's the only one that is.

This is why he can cry out, I am.

I exist. It's what I do. This is my characteristic. This is what you can take to the bank.

I am.

But he's not done yet. In verse 15, we read this.

Elohim, this is the strong one, also said to Moses,

say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors,

the strong one of Abraham, the strong one of Isaac and the strong one of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my eternal name, my name to be, to remember for all generations.

And so if you are really good at Hebrew, you will notice that there are two different words here.

So Yahweh does not mean I am. Yahweh means he will be.

So he's telling Moses to change the pronoun, so to speak, from I to he.

So when Moses says this, he isn't saying I am has sent me to you.

He's saying he is or he will be is the one that sent me to you.

The meaning is the same. It's the self-existent, always around,

never not existing deity.

But he changes it to Yahweh. And this has huge ramifications for our life.

This name and the meaning of it really drives home the point of trust.

A few weeks ago, we had planned to have breakfast for dinner one Saturday night.

And that's kind of my kid's favorite dinner. And so one of my kids asked for

waffles to be made that night.

And I said, yeah, I'll make those. Jillian's going to make the rest.

And then I can just be over the waffle iron, making waffle after waffle after

waffle. But our plans changed.

And we did not have breakfast for dinner that night.

And this child has kept reminding me, hey, you told me you were going to make waffles.

Where are my waffles?

And this is the reason why God's name I am is so important.

Because we are so reliant upon other people, our plans can change.

Prices can go up and we're not able to afford food that for a day or two.

Gas, we're relying upon people who produce gas so that our cars can go.

And when COVID shut everything down like it was obvious there was a supply chain issues.

We don't know how connected we are until something like that happens.

And when plans change and when waffles aren't made, we can feel disappointed. We can feel let down.

But God exists self-sufficiently.

He doesn't rely upon you and upon me to have his plans be done.

He makes sure they happen. So that means we can trust him.

And that's how we're going to end today. Let's start in verse 16.

So now it says, now go and call, this is God speaking again,

now go and call together all the elders of Israel.

Tell them, Yahweh, the strong one of your ancestors, the strong one of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me.

He told me, I have been watching closely and I see how the Egyptians are treating you.

I have promised to rescue you from your oppression in Egypt.

I will lead you to a land flowing with milk and honey, the land where the Canaanites,

Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.

Part of this statement of, I am, I am the eternally existent one,

is that he's not going to forget, and his word is trustworthy and true.

More than 400 years before this, in Genesis chapter 15, we have a scenario where

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

God confirms his covenant with Abraham.

And in this covenant ceremony, this is what God says.

In verse 13 of Genesis 15, we read, Then the Lord said to Abram,

You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land where

they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years, but I will punish the nation

that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.

So more than 400 years before God appears to Moses and says,

Go and rescue the people from Israel, God made this promise to Abraham.

He made this promise. And if you read through the Exodus story,

you're gonna see that God came through on his promise.

And if you read the promises in the book of Leviticus, at the very end,

the last chapter, chapter 24, there are blessings and curses.

If the Israelites follow after God with all of their heart, mind,

strength, and soul, then they will receive blessing upon blessing.

But if they don't, there will be consequences for their misdeeds.

And if you read through the book of Judges, you can see when they follow God,

there are blessings. And when they don't follow God, there are curses.

And then you can read in the book of Isaiah, where Isaiah says that the virgin

shall conceive and give birth to a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

And you can see how Matthew says, oh my goodness, that's what God was talking

about. This birth of Jesus.

Can see the promise in Joel where God will pour out his Holy Spirit upon his

people and the young men and women will dream dreams.

And you can see in Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, where tongues like

Acts 2 · chapter mention

fire came down and rested in

the disciples and they began to speak supernaturally in other languages.

God's words and God's promises are true and accurate.

That is the big takeaway from God declaring himself, I am the eternally existent one.

What I say will happen.

And so when John records Revelation, it's not meant to scare the people who are reading it.

It's meant to give them hope because God is declaring, this will happen if you

obey me, if you follow me, if you have this relationship with me,

everything is going to go well for you in eternity.

Maybe not on this earth. There are consequences on this earth.

There are hardships on this earth. There is grieving, mourning,

there is sickness, there is death on this earth, but God says,

there's something more and that's what we can hold fast to because God is the

eternally existent one because he,

exists that's what he does that is his nature and nothing and no one can change that.

So when you read the word Yahweh in scripture, and we can know what it's like

because it's Lord spelled in all capital letters.

Whenever you run across that, as you're reading through scripture in the Old Testament,

you can know that it's Yahweh and that he is, that he exists and that that is the basis of who he is.

And that allows us to trust all of his words, all of his promises,

because he's not going to be, his plans aren't going to change.

Nothing's going to come up on his calendar that he has to cancel for.

He is eternally existent, and he depends on no one, and he deserves to be praised for that.

So let me pray. Father, we come before you today and we just give you thanks

and praise that you exist and that you will never not exist.

You are so much stronger than we can even possibly imagine. You are so much

bigger than we can even possibly fathom.

And we come before you and we surrender to your greatness.

To your strength, and to your eternally existing self.

You are so good, so big, and so powerful.

There is nothing that you can't do. And I pray, Father, that you will empower.

Thank you again for joining us in the discussion about the personal name of

God, Yahweh, used thousands of times in the Old Testament.

Yahweh shows God's eternal nature. He is who He is. He is unchanging.

He is self-existent. He was not created, but has always existed.

This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God we serve.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week, we continue the series on the different names and titles of God in the Bible.

Each of these descriptors show us something about who God is.

Join us as we look at the title, Adonai.

Have a great week.