Moses: A Journey from Bondage to Freedom | What's In a Name

We pray. This passage that we have before us

is so remarkably famous, known inside and outside

Christian circles or Jewish circles. One of the

great stories of your scriptures. And so Lord,

I pray that this morning we might hear it afresh

and new, that we might love you more, that we

might trust you more, that we might give ourselves

to following you more. having wondered at your

ways. I wonder if I need some new batteries.

I don't know. It seems like it's going out, but

I'm just going to talk and if it goes out, I'll

have to yell maybe. So what's in a name? You

know, I think what I mentioned earlier with Peter's

baptism, the names in some ways do say who we

are. They just identify us, but they often speak

more than that, right? There's some names that

speak especially more than that. I remember when

Usain Bolt kind of shot onto the scene, you know,

his famous like that guy. He was the only sprinter

to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals

in both the 100 meter and the 200 meter. He's

the only one to ever have done that. He broke

world records and then he broke his own world

records. He won a total of eight gold medals

and actually won a lot more of events in the

world championships. Easily he's the most successful.

runner in history and his name is Bolt. Of course

it is. Maybe you know of the artist John Legend.

I imagine you probably do. Maybe you know that

his name was actually John Roger Stevens. But

some friends made fun of his voice. They said,

you sound too much like the old guys. It sounds

like you're mimicking. And he's like, I'm going

to get somewhere. Renamed. Gave himself officially

a new old new last name legend and he's lived

up to it Names sometimes sometimes it's true

names reveal right they reveal They reveal maybe

who we hope to be but maybe who we are. Maybe

who we're living into I mentioned earlier that

Jesus renames Simon Peter, right the rock And

while Peter certainly wasn't terribly solid in

a lot of the gospel accounts, he's one of the

great leaders of the early church. My own children

have middle names that are family names. We want

them to remember where they've come from, what

story they're living into, and live in light

of those stories in many ways. James is James.

Kenneth is my dad's name. Henry is Henry Julius.

which I will say is a remarkably noble name.

But Julius is my father -in -law's name, and

Lily is Lily Catherine, which is Melissa's first

name, and her mom's first name, and her grandmother's

first name, and her great grandmother's first

name. Telling a story. We used to joke some,

I haven't recently, but James is James Kenneth,

and Melissa's... maternal grandfather was an

architect, and my dad was an architect, and I'm

a pastor, so James is bound to design churches.

We'll see if it happens. We'll see. But what

I'm suggesting is, in some ways at least, names

revealed, but they certainly set us up, right?

They give us a story, a background in a way,

and they set us up for a future. Some names,

like Hussein Bolt, just fit. So today we're continuing

this story or this series in the story of the

life of Moses, sort of the narratives of the

Exodus, the Exodus text. And of course, it's

not just about Moses, it's also about the people

of God being brought from slavery, being brought

out to God himself to worship him. But of course,

much more than that, it's not just about Moses,

it's not just about the people of Israel, it's

about God. This is a story about God. And of

course in some ways it begs the question, who's

God? What's going on? Who are we talking about?

Well, we're talking about the God who knows and

who sees, right? Who sees and knows like that

memory verse, the last verse in chapter two.

It's like about a God who acts, who saves, who

redeems, who draws his people out to himself.

And in some ways that's again what we're seeing

this morning. But we're seeing this God who reveals

himself. And I want us to look at this famous

chapter, which is somewhat long, which was nice

to kind of break it up and for you to hear different

parts of it. But I wanna consider it with these

three phrases that we hear in this chapter. The

first one is, here I am. The second one is, who

am I? And the third one is, I am, okay? So here

I am. So Moses is tending the sheep of his father

-in -law. Actually, in chapter two, he's called

Ruel, which means friend of God. So it seems

as though Moses is marrying into a faithful family

in some way, though they're medianites. And then

here is Jethro, but he's tending to somebody

else's flock, and he's leading the flock. He's

gone west from where they live, and he's gone

to Mount Horeb. actually in some ways prefiguring

what's going to happen when Moses leads the flock

of God west out from Egypt to Mount Sinai because

Mount Horbe and Mount Sinai are actually two

names for the same place. But it's in this kind

of situation where he sees this this bush that's

being burned but it's not being consumed. There's

this fire that is present sort of drawing his

attention in and he first he sort of looks at

and he goes this is curious, right? And then

he goes to it and he hears Moses. I love how

Melissa read it because I feel like the second

Moses was even more intense. Moses. Moses. Drawing

him in, right? And his response, here I am. Here's

where I am. And this little introduction... Of

course, we don't just have the location of Moses,

we actually get a couple comments about his story

even there. We have glimpses into where he's

been. He's on Mount Hora because he's shepherding,

right? He's looking for a new place to tend to

the flock. It's picking up after the end of the

last chapter where we read that he was a sojourner.

He named his son Gershon because he was a sojourner.

So he wasn't really with his people. I mean,

Moses is out in a place sort of that's unknown,

not his homeland. We know from elsewhere that

he had lived 40 years, or from other pastors

that he had lived 40 years in Egypt, and now

he'd lived 40 years tending to his father's flock,

or his father -in -law's flock. But in those

little phrases, even in the reality that Moses

is elsewhere, we can actually remember back to

the last chapter, we can think of the affliction

and the burdens and all that were on God's people.

And actually some of Moses's own story, which

was a story of defending the Israelites and then

getting rejected by the Israelites, of killing

an Egyptian and then being sought after to be

killed by Pharaoh, the head Egyptian. What we

can kind of remember in all of this Moses simply

being out in the middle of nowhere is all of

this suffering and all this sin that is in the

past. So when he says here I am, it's not just

here I am present here, but here's this, here's

me and this big story of myself and my people.

Of course another interesting thing here is that

this burning bush speaks and it speaks his name.

So it's his specific name that God knows. The

burning bush, we can say, knows him. The burning

bush knows his story, his past, his pain, his

fears, his doubts. Here I am. You know me. You

see me. Moses, Moses. And again, if we think

back in the last chapter, we know some of the

background here of the naming of Moses, right?

Moses' biological mother. probably with many

tears, put him in that basket that she had daubed

with bitumen and pitch, placed him in that basket,

then placed that basket in the river, which was

the place to which the baby boys were supposed

to be thrown to be killed, and yet she was seeking

to save his life. And then Pharaoh's own daughter

rescues him. And it's in that context that we

read that he was drawn out. And he was called

Moses because he was drawn out of the Nile. It's

kind of interesting. There's some controversy

over this naming of Moses because the Hebrew

name Moshe means to draw out from. It's kind

of like the word Exodus. Exodus means to go out

the way, out the way. Exodus is the Greek words,

the kind of the road out. But in chapter two

verse or chapter two verse 10, what we read is,

she named him Moses because she said, I drew

him out of the water. But the controversy is

who's the she there? What's going on here? I

mean, it seems as though it should be Pharaoh's

daughter, but there's no reason why Pharaoh's

daughter would know Hebrew and also would name

a little boy a Hebrew name. She would have raised

him, of course, in her own, largely in her own

family with the Egyptian customs. And actually

kind of interestingly, the word mess or moshe

means one born or a child that's what the he

so not just the Hebrew mean word means to draw

up but the Egyptian word means child of so it

would have made sense that this this princess

would have said oh my child Mosu, Mesu. But there's

this kind of conflation. Is it Hebrew? Is it

Egyptian? And right there in itself, you're kind

of wondering, oh, this is most the story. He's

kind of a sojourner. What is it? Who's the she?

Is it his sisters? That doesn't really make sense.

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that it's

kind of a tricky thing that invites you into

the story of Moses. His name itself is kind of

inviting you into this conundrum that not only

he finds himself in, but the whole people of

Israel. And actually, beyond this, this is kind

of interesting. So the name, the Egyptian name

Mesu or Mes, this idea of being born of a child,

you can find actually a lot of Hebrew or Egyptian

names. Sorry, I'm confusing this. Let me give

you a couple examples. There's a Pharaoh that

we know who is named Ahmose. That means born

of Ah, which was the moon god of the Egyptians.

There's an Egyptian name that we know, Kahmosa,

which was named after the deified soul in Egyptian

sort of deities, which is the god Kah. So you

guys probably have heard of the pharaoh Tutmos,

right? Mos, that's that same kind of name. Tut

being... one of the Egyptian gods again. So it's

actually a pretty common name in Egypt, this

kind of Moshe, Moses, but it would always have

had a suffix, or sorry, a prefix that said what

god you were born into, and yet Moses doesn't

have it. So there's all this import that his

story is being brought into this Moses, Moses,

but also this idea of there's no prefix, that's

the god who is, right from the beginning. tends

to and takes care of Moses. Anyway, I think it's

an interesting debate. I hope I didn't lose you.

But Moses was drawn out. He was saved. He was

rescued. And then he's brought to this place

in God's providence. He's brought to this very

mountain that God will call him to bring the

Egyptians to later on. Moses was just Moses.

He wasn't the son of Ah, or the son of Ka, or

the son of Tut. But whose was he? Whose was he?

Which people did he belong to? Which God was

caring for him? So he comes to the burning bush

and twice, Moses, Moses. And I think in that

he's saying, I know your story. I know the story

of your people. And I am the one who is your

father intending to you. But who is this one

who's calling him out? Well, we're told in verse

two that it's the angel of the Lord. In verse

four, we're told that it was the Lord who he

turned aside to see. And we know that this idea

of the angel of the Lord is sort of present in

the Bible that sometimes God appears in an angelic

form. Anyway, we know that that's kind of what's

said, but what seems to be pretty clear too is

that Moses isn't really sure what's going on.

He's just kind of checking it out. What's happening

here? What is this that I see? And God is revealing

himself as the fire that burns but is not consumed.

Maybe, I mean, Moses had been raised, remember

by the, or he had been born into a Levite family,

faithful family. Maybe he knew all the great

stories of the Israelites and he knew, he could

think back to Genesis 15 and the great story

of God making his covenant. with Abraham and

how God went through the cut -up animals as fire

and smoke. So we had this sense, maybe there's

something divine going on here. Fire and smoke,

of course, happened a lot more as God's presence

in the book of Exodus alone. Actually there,

Mount Hort, Mount Sinai, Exodus 19, fire and

smoke. You can think of the pillar of fire later

on in this very book, but you could also think

of chapters 33 and 40 as God appearing in smoke.

Anyway, if Moses was in doubt that this voice

that spoke to him was the voice of God, what

seems pretty clear is that it is. He says, come,

you know, take your sandals off because where

you're standing is holy. Where you're standing

is holy. We should say it's set apart. And the

last time that we actually heard that word holy

was all the way back in Genesis chapter one,

about the seventh day. That was the last time.

It's holy, it's set apart for God. So he would

have maybe said, okay, there's something going

on here. Something happening here, this is divine.

And what's happening is God saying, I want you

to stay, right? Take off your sandals, stay,

but also don't come too close away. Understand

that I am separate and yet I'm inviting you in.

What we're seeing in all of this around Moses

saying, here I am, is that God is altogether

other. He's the fire that can burn and not consume

what he's burning. He's the sacred one. He's

the holy one. And yet he knows, invites him to

be present to him. He knows his story. He knows

the story of his people. He's the God who is

altogether distinct and beyond, and yet the God

who is showing up, who is present in the here

and now. He's revealing himself both in the burning

bush, I think even very possibly in Moses' own

name, as the God who exists and who exists outside

of our realities, unlike the Egyptian God, but

who comes into our stories and our realities

and our place and our presence. So God reveals

himself and he says this. I'm the God of your

father, which is very interesting actually, because

the next, the couple times that he also says

something similar later on in the same chapter,

he says, I'm the God of fathers, Abraham, Isaac,

and Jacob, but here it's your father. He's saying,

I know your story specifically, your father.

I know what's happening down in Egypt. He says,

I'm the God of your father, the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He's the

God who is. and who was, right? I'm the one who

was. I'm the God of these other folk. He's the

God of Moses' father, the faithful Levite. He's

the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So anyway,

here's the here I am, right? Moses standing before

God, before the burning bush, and the holy God

being present to Moses, to this world, to this

people. But the second phrase we have that I

want us to consider that kind of keeps this story

going is when Moses says Who am I? So when we

turn to the second paragraph We learn this reality

again that God is present to the world This is

actually kind of interesting. He says he sees

the affliction of his people in Egypt Verse seven,

I've surely seen the affliction of my people

who are in Egypt. I've heard their cry because

of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings.

I've come down, 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. I don't know if you heard those sort of

verbs there. God sees, that's what it says. God

hears. God knows. God comes. God brings, which

is really kind of interesting because there are

some verbs that are in the past tense. I've heard.

There's some that are in the present. There's

some that are future -oriented. God's bringing

his people out. He's the God of their fathers,

but he's also the God of their plight then, and

he will be the God that will be with them. He's

the God of the past, but he's the God of the

present, he's the God of the future. I think

all this actually comes together in verse nine

and 10 more, it says this. And now behold, the

cry of the people of Israel has come to me, has

come to me, and I have also seen the oppression

with which the Egyptians oppressed them, present,

oppressed them. Come, I will send you Pharaoh,

that you may bring my people, the children of

Israel, out of Egypt. The past. the present,

the future, all contained right there. So Moses

asks, well, who am I? He asks, who am I that

you should use me towards this then? But he says,

who am I? And I think, of course, Moses could

have thought back on his story and could have

thought about how he was prepared in a unique

way to be able to do some of this work. Maybe

he could have thought about how he had these

faithful Levite parents that tended to him and

cared for him and that God was divinely caring

for him and all of that and how he was raised

with the finest education in the land, right?

Like the top Egyptian universities, how he learned,

I don't know, the customs of how do you go and

speak to a pharaoh? He was the perfect person

for it in a lot of ways, right? Maybe he's thinking

back as he says, who am I? He's like, well, there's

some ways in which this might fit. But he also

knew, as much as he knew these positive things,

he knew likely all the negative things. He had

killed an Egyptian. Pharaoh had had it out for

him. He thought he sought to kill Moses. The

Israelites themselves, when he sought to care

for them, they rejected him. Of course, I think

this invites us into our own stories where we

can think of both the blessings that we have,

but also all the doubts and all the fears that

we have. We kind of come before God and we're

like, who are we? I know you have a story, maybe

a plan in some ways for my life, but I also look

back and there's so much tragedy. Who am I? I

think it's one of the great old questions that

is as relevant today as it was long ago. It's

one of the great questions on the journey of

our life. There's a lot of times where this seems

most poignant. Let me tell you one of them in

my life. I remember with vivid clarity. when

Melissa and I were leaving from St. Mary's Hospital

in Richmond, Virginia when Lily was just a day

old. And they let you just leave the hospital

with a baby. It's like a remarkable thing. And

I went to go get the car. We were driving Melissa's

CRV. And we went to go get it and pulled it around

and Melissa's there with Lily in a car seat.

And I'm like, who am I? What is ahead of me?

And I know that we had planned and we had certain

stories and certain difficulties in our lives

that set us up for that and lots of doubt. And

we always have, this question seems to come up

all the time with vocational changes and of course

the development of children and engaging with

friends. Who am I? How, what can I do? And frankly,

so often we really don't have a good sense of

our identity and our ability and our own stories,

our past and our present. And so of course we

move into the future with a great deal of fear

of the unknown. Isn't there a good reason why

personality tests are so wildly popular? We're

asking the question almost all the time, who

am I? An ENFJ, seven. Hi, I, whatever it is,

you know, we have all these typing systems because

we'll constantly ask this question, who am I?

But what does God, how does God answer him? I

will be with you. That wasn't exactly the question

that Moses asked. It's not the answer to the

question he asked exactly. But it's actually

the exact answer that he needs. Think about it.

It's the exact answer that that Jesus gave his

disciples right when he was there on The mountain

at the end of Matthew chapter 28 when he said

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

go and make disciples of all nations Baptizing

them in the name of the Father the Son and the

Holy Spirit, and I'm with you Because undoubtedly

their question was but who are we? I Mean we

have these stories with these afflictions with

these doubts with these fears. We have some abilities

But who are we? He says I'm with you Who am I?

God says I'm with you. I will be with you. God's

response is that Moses is the one. Who am I?

You're the one that I will be with. Which I think

leads us to our third phrase about identity in

this text, and that's the I am. Because somewhat

naturally, if Moses is like, who am I? And God's

answer is, I will be with you. The natural next

question is, but who are you? Right? Who are

you? And I think this is what Moses is really

doing, but he does this in an indirect sort of

hypothetical way, right? Because what he says

is, If I come to the people of Israel and 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? He poses this hypothetical

question. And by the way, we also don't ever

hear them asking that question. I think actually

the best way of interpreting that is actually

Moses is himself saying, here I am. And he's

like, I'll be with you. And he goes, well, Can

I get around this question of saying, but who

are you? Somebody else wants to know, and I kind

of want to know too. And we can understand, of

course, why the Israelites might want to know,

right? Moses has been gone 40 years. He's been

totally AWOL, right, for 40 years, and he didn't

exactly leave on good terms. So it makes sense

that somebody would be like, well, why are we

going to listen to you? Who sent you anyway?

But we never hear that that happened. So Moses

is sort of saying, well, who are you? And of

course, we can also think there's a lot of reasons

why people also might go, well, what's going

on here? Who is this God anyway? Because how

many centuries had it been since Abraham and

Isaac and Jacob? How many generations had passed

away in slavery in Egypt? And unquestionably,

one of the great questions that they would be

asking is where is God in all this? Who's God

in all this? What's his name? I've said this

a few times. Name is not just about identity,

but also about character. What's his name, or

who are you, is sort of a way of asking, what

can you do? What can you do? The Hebrew word

for name is shem, which is much more than just

a title. Not just what somebody has called. It

stands for who they are their fame their honor

their reputation. It's kind of like us saying

my name is at stake You know It's like your name

is your track record my track records at stake

a reputation So if it's a question that the Israelites

might ask it's also Moses's question Who am I?

Who are you? What can you do? And what's really

also interesting is that in the, I don't know,

humor in some ways of this text, God in some

ways doesn't really give his name. He does in

a way, but he also doesn't. At first, he gives

more of a sentence. Ah ya, ah share ah ya. I

am who I am, or I will be who I will be. He does

go on to say, you know, his name is Yahweh. We

always have it capitalized. When you see that

capital L -O -R -D, that's the name of God. In

English, we just say Lord, but it's Yahweh. But

that is also actually the verb, I am, I will

be, I will be who I will be. Of course, people

have taken this phrase, this sentence, and even

this name to mean that God is the altogether

transcendent being. He's the self -existent being.

He's the self -sufficient and the eternal one,

and that is all true. But I think there's some

more things that we can say about it. One is

that the Lord, when he reveals himself, he doubles

the verb. So there's only three words, and one

of them is the same word twice. In the Bible,

when you repeat something, you're emphasizing

it. It's kind of like putting it in italics or

bolding, making it bold or underlining it. It's

like saying, hey, listen, this is important.

I will be. So there's that, which in part is

saying that the future will reveal my character,

I am, which is calling for both trust and hope.

Another interesting thing is that the tense of

the verb carries with it both this present and

future, which is why if you read some translations,

sometimes you're gonna read I am who I am, and

sometimes it's I will be who I will be. Because

the tense itself has to do with this idea that

who I am now is the one who will be. I will be

faithful. I am who I am, I was, I am, I will

be. I'm the faithful one. You can hang your hat

on my ability, a consistency. This is the God

who you can know and you can trust. He's the

God who made his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob and it will make good on them. But one

of the things we also, I think is important to

see is this word, ahya, is in some ways what

he's actually already expressed in verse 12 when

he said, I will be. Which is kind of odd because

what he's saying is I already said, I will be

with you. I'm the one who is with you. I will

be with you. That's what he says in verse 12.

And now he says, I will be who I will be. Moses

says, who am I? back then and God says that's

not so much what counts. What counts is that

I am with you. That's the bottom line and I will

be with you. Okay now the text goes on at the

end of the chapter goes on to say that you know

Moses is going to go tell the leaders of Egypt

that God has a promise for them to bring them

out from their affliction that God has a plan

for them you know that he says Pharaoh's not

gonna listen, don't worry, I got this. And then

he also says he has a provision for them, which

interestingly says, you're gonna plunder the

people. I'm gonna provide for you out of their

plunder. Let me say a quick comment about that.

Because that idea of plunder might kind of rub

you wrong. But one of the things that actually

commentators say is here are slaves that have

been mistreated For hundreds of years who have

not been paid for hundreds of years and in some

ways they are getting recompensed I mean they're

getting what they had worked for and actually

you see that exact idea in the Israelite law

in Deuteronomy if somebody had to become a slave

to another for a little while when they were

let go they were to be paid so the story of of

the exodus actually becomes the ethics of the

people of God, which is kind of interesting.

But anyway, we see a promise, a plan, and a provision.

But what I want us to sit in is this idea of

the revealing of God and His name, the revelation

of God. This chapter, this is one of the great

chapters of the sort of turning points in the

story of Israel. God revealing himself. He calls

Moses, but he's also revealing himself. He's

giving his name. And that name actually in the

Hebrew Bible, the rest of this Hebrew Bible appears

some 6 ,000 times. And it's right here. Right

here, God revealing himself as the one who is

and who will be with his people. Then when they're

like, who am I? He says, that's not so much what

counts, but the fact that I am with you. I'm

the God who sees, who hears, who knows, who comes,

who brings. None of it's lost on me and I am

with you. I'm the creator, I'm the savior, I'm

the sustainer. I will be with you. But as this

name is mentioned some 6 ,000 times in the Old

Testament, what's really interesting to me and

I hope to you as people who gather together to

worship Jesus. is that Jesus grabs onto this

idea of the I Am. In fact, specifically, there

are seven times in the Gospel of John 7, the

perfect number in the Bible, where Jesus says,

I am. He says, I am the bread of life and the

light of the world. I'm the good shepherd. I'm

the resurrection and the life. I'm the true vine.

I am the way and the truth. and the life. And

what he's doing is he's taking all of these Old

Testament references, the hope of Israel itself,

the hope of Moses itself, and he's saying, it's

me. I am. All of them find their fulfillment.

All of the hopes of God's people find their fulfillment

in the revelation of God in Jesus, the great

I am. And if this is the revelation of God here

in Exodus 3, and think about this, this is the

revelation of God as the God who sees their affliction,

who brings them out from slavery and brings them

to himself. This is also the revelation of Jesus,

who sees our sin. The fact that we are not, I

mean, many of us aren't slaves like the Israelites

were, but we are all, the Bible says, slave to

sin. And what Jesus does, why, he's given the

name of Jesus because he will save his people

from their sin. God sees affliction. He comes

God takes on flesh and dwells among us and he

says I'm going to bring you to myself that where

I am You also will be all that is contained in

this chapter. We see more fully in our Lord Jesus

himself So Today when you're sitting here and

you're saying here I am Part of what I want you

to know is that God knows your story completely.

He knows your affliction, your sin, He knows

your questions, He knows your doubts, He knows

your fears, He knows your history is completely

known to Him. What I also want you to hear is

when you're sitting here and you're saying, who

am I? Actually, the most important answer you

can receive is God saying, I will be with you.

Because I think for me, a lot of the times when

I'm saying who am I, I'm wondering, what's my

future? Who am I? What do I have to offer? Why

would you call me to do such and such thing and

what God says is I'll be with you in it. And

when we're sitting here and we're asking or we're

saying here I am and who am I what God is saying

is here's who I am. I am the one who is the one

who was who is and will be forever and I am the

one who acts for you. I am with you always, even

to the end of the age. This was God's word for

Moses. This was God's word for his disciples.

And this is the hope of Christians. That God

is with us always, even to the end of the age.

That's his name. That is his character. Let me

pray for us. Lord, a text that is known and it

reveals this fact that you meet us in our wondering

of why us. you see and you know and you act for

your people and you draw us out from slavery

to sin to life with you the great I am God I

know so many people when Jesus was here when

he said such words rejected him and others found

life in him I pray this morning that we would

find life in you They'd meet us in our coming

to you that you draw us into your presence, that

you would assure us with your presence, that

we would know that you are with us always, even

to the end of the age. Amen. Thank you for listening

to Second City Sermons podcast. We hope this

sermon has encouraged you to worship God and

to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please consider

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bless.