The Bush that Wouldn’t Burn (Exo. 3:1-15)

The Bush that Wouldn’t Burn
Exodus 3:10-15

INTRODUCTION:
A little boy was playing baseball by himself. And he was overheard saying, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” He threw the ball up in the air and swung and missed! “Strike one!” He yelled out. He was not discouraged. He picked up the ball, threw it up in the air again and swung again. He missed. “Strike two!” He said, “I am the greatest hitter in the world!” He picked the ball up again and threw it into the air, swung, and missed again! Then he was heard saying, “Wow! Strike three! What a pitcher! I am the greatest pitcher in the world!”

How often do you “suffer” from over-confidence? Rarely? How frequently do you suffer from a lack of confidence? You know, there aren’t very many men and women in the Bible who suffered from overconfidence. Most of the men and women who were overconfident actually turned their backs on God and quit staying faithful to Him. It is those who are under-confident who tend to stay faithful to God but that brings up a challenge. For those of us who doubt our own abilities… how can we find the courage to do what we don’t think we can do?

We are going to look again at a popular event in the OT, the story of Moses talking to God at the burning bush. Exodus 3. It is important to remember that Moses’ people, Israel, have been in slavery in Egypt for 400 years. Moses has been raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter but taught by his own mom that he is a Hebrew. One day, as an adult, Moses saw an Egyptian slave-driver beating a Hebrew and Moses killed the slave-driver. The Pharaoh heard about it and put a price on Moses’ head. Moses had to flee Egypt for his life and he ends up in the desert of Midian, married, and taking care of sheep. That’s where Moses is when God appears to him.

THE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD - 3:1-3:
Mount Horeb is identified as another name for Mount Sinai, the place where God will later give Israel the Law of Moses. The “west side” of the wilderness would have been an out-of-the-way place, a perfect place for Moses to have a conversation with the God of heaven. Referring to the “mountain of God” would hint to the future importance of Mount Sinai as the place for the giving of the law. Or, it could be referred to as the “mountain of God” simply because God Himself is going to appear to Moses.

“Mountain peak” experiences are often life-changing. Is there one experience you have had that really changed the direction of your life? The last “mountain peak” experience Moses had was talking to Jesus face to face in Matthew 17. You and I will experience one last “mountain peak” experience when we, too, see God face to face (Matt. 5:3).

THE GOD OF THE ENCOUNTER - 3:4-6:
The person whom Moses encountered is identified in verse 2 as “the angel of the Lord.” Yet, throughout the rest of the text, the person is identified as Jehovah God, the “Great I Am,” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will not get into an in-depth discussion of who the “angel of the Lord” is here but there is a good argument that it is the Word before He became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. The word “angel” broadly means a “messenger.” It can refer to human messengers of God, the English word is “prophet,” or it could be a spiritual messenger of God, the English word is “angel.” There is good reason to believe this “messenger of the Lord” is the pre-incarnate Word because He is clearly identified with Jehovah God. Just to give a very brief defense of this point, John identifies Jesus as the “Word” or “Message” in John 1:1 and in John 8:58, Jesus alludes to this very passage when He identifies Himself as the “I am.”

This is the first time God has spoken from heaven in several hundred years. The last time God spoke to a person was back in Genesis 46:2, which is only a few chapters earlier but four hundred years before! The first words out of God’s mouth after four centuries is Moses’ name: “Moses, Moses.”

The place where Moses was standing, because it was in the presence of Jehovah God, was now holy. God tells Moses to remove his sandals “because” (and I’m translating literally) “the place where you, yourself, are standing on it a land of holiness it [is].” When you and I come into the presence of God, we are in holy territory. That’s why it is so important for us to respect the beginning and end of worship and all that we do in-between. We are in the presence of God. Our clothing needs to be respectable but even more importantly, our attitude needs to be respectable. I encourage us, especially those of us who have no trouble with our bladder, to stay seated during worship. Use the bathroom before worship. Hold on to your bladder until after worship. Don’t disturb your worship or those around you if it is not necessary. No phone calls but an emergency should distract us from worship. We are in holy territory when we come into worship and we need to respect this hour as being in the holy presence of God. No hour of the week is as significant and as holy as the hour that we come into the presence of God to worship.

God will further identify Himself in the last paragraph we will study this morning but I want to look at His response at this point:

“I am who I am” (3:14) - There is some ambiguity in the Lord’s answer here because when you and I look at that answer, we ask, “What does that mean?” “I am who I am”? But, that ambiguity is clarified as we read through the book of Exodus, as Moses moves forward through His life over the next several months as he interacts with Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s army. Then, in 34:6-7, God will clearly identify Himself, His nature.

“‘I am’ has sent me to you.” That was Moses’ response when the Israelites asked who sent Moses. What is the God’s name who sent Moses? “I am.” That too, conveys presence, power, self-existence. There are no words which describe God that limit Him to a person, a place, or an event. He is not the “God of the sea” like Poseidon or the “God of war” like Ares. He is “I am.”

“I am the LORD God of your fathers…” Here, God uses His only personal name, Jehovah or Yahweh, and identifies Himself as the God fo Moses’ ancestors. The God to whom Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob prayed. The God who brought Jacob down into Egypt and promised Him that He would bring Israel back out of Egypt. Again, for Moses, the next few months are going to fill in the details of just who this God is. For you and me, it will be the next few chapters.

In 5:1-2, Moses will stand before Pharaoh to demand Pharaoh to let Israel go and Pharaoh will ask, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Okay. Fine. Moses did not know the Lord either but Moses asked the question to get information. Pharaoh asks the question out of defiance. By the end of chapter 15 and the Red Sea, Pharaoh is going to know Jehovah God and he will wish that he had never asked that question, at least not in the way he did!

God wants to be known. For my and your sake, God needs to be known. Ultimately, God needs to be known by you and me through the person of Jesus Christ. But here in Exodus, God could have skipped the entire cycle of plagues on Egypt if He desired. He could have skipped that if God had simply wanted to free Israel, if that was His highest aim. But it was not; God’s highest aim was to make Himself known. Israel has not had communication from God in four hundred years; Pharaoh does not know God from all the other gods that surround him. God needs to make Himself known.

“I am the Lord” over humanity! This is seen first, in the next chapter, when God tells Moses that God made Moses. When Moses complained that he was not a great speaker, God said, “Moses, I made your mouth. I can put My words in your mouth!” (4:11) Another example of God’s sovereignty over humanity is with Pharaoh (14:4) when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God tried the easy way, the open, upfront way when He sent Moses the first time. But Pharaoh hardened his own heart so, like a pressure cooker, God had to further harden Pharaoh’s heart just enough to make Pharaoh blow his pressure, which drove Israel out of Egypt. God never violated Pharaoh’s free will but God had to work through Pharaoh’s obstinacy in order for God to accomplish what He needed to accomplish: making Himself known and freeing His people. Even the armies of Egypt could not withstand Jehovah’s power. Israel could cross the Red Sea on dry land but Pharaoh’s armies drowned in the Red Sea under the power of Jehovah God. He is Lord over humanity!

“I am the Lord” over nature. Ten plagues, in all of which God manipulates nature, shows the power and authority of Jehovah God. In fact, several times as Moses writes about the plagues, Moses notes that they were so that Egypt and Israel would know Jehovah God: 7:17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29. It is only the Creator who could control the creation in this way. God is making Himself known as the Creator and the Sovereign over the whole land (9:29) and the whole earth. Speaking of the creation, God had originally created mankind and told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. 1:26-27). In Exodus 1:7, we see that Israel was doing that very thing, in the land of Egypt, in words that echo Genesis 1. But, Pharaoh was trying to stop that growth! He was trying to stop God’s work from being fulfilled. That’s why Pharaoh needed to be stopped. That’s why Pharaoh needed to know the God who he was trying to fight.

Third, “I am the Lord” over false gods. I had a whole sermon on this point not long ago so I will not spend much time here. But, the statement is clearly made in 12:12 that the plagues on Egypt were also to show that the Jehovah God of the Israelites was more powerful than the many, false gods of the Egyptians. Pharaoh not only could not destroy Israel but he could not even save his own people. Jehovah God is the “Great I Am.”

THE MISSION OF THE ENCOUNTER - 3:7-10:
Like the World War II posters of Uncle Sam calling men to enlist in the army, God pointed His finger at Moses and said, “I want you!” God was calling Moses to become the “supreme allied commander” to oversee the liberation of the Israelites! What a privilege, what an opportunity, what a responsibility! And it was that responsibility that shied Moses away from that job.

Moses had already tried once to lead Israel free - albeit it was by his own power and wisdom - back in 2:11-15 - and that’s what brought Moses into this God-forsaken place at the beginning, forty years previously. No, Moses’ response to God’s call was not pride and excitement to get involved with God in His work of preaching freedom. Moses’ response was not pride or even gratitude to be working closely with the God of heaven. Moses’ first response was doubt and self-deprecation (vers. 11).

You remember that Moses had fled Egypt forty years before, with a price on his head (2:15). He was a fugitive! Also, Moses had not seen His Hebrew family in forty years at least. They would either not recognize him or they might be bitter against him for fleeing and not enduring the same 40-years of slavery that they had endured. Third, Moses was being called to oppose the most powerful ruler in the world at that time - the Egyptian Pharaoh!
But perhaps the greatest reason why Moses shirked back from accepting this awesome responsibility is because of his own humility, stimulated by an acknowledgment of his own weaknesses. In Numbers 12:3, there is a statement made that Moses was a very humble man, more than anyone else on the face of the earth. Humility - a recognition of our own weaknesses and limitations - sometimes drives us away from working with God in big projects.

At one time, Moses was being raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Now, he was a poor shepherd, living in the desert, looking back at how far he had fallen.
“Who am I that I should go?”
You know, God really can’t use us until we come face to face with our own weaknesses. It’s not until we recognize our weaknesses that we can give glory to God.
When God called Gideon, the judge, to lead the fight against over 135,000 Midianites, Gideon’s army was too large! God narrowed down the army to 300 men! Why? Because in Judges 7:2, God said, “Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’”
In our pride and strength, we serve ourselves. In our humility and weakness, we serve Jehovah God.

THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE ENCOUNTER - 3:11-15:
God’s mission begins here with Him encouraging Moses: “I will be with you.” God also promises Moses: “the people shall worship God at this mountain!” You will have success. When God says, “I am with you,” it shows that both the presence and the power of Jehovah God will be with Moses.

Moses’s fearful humility created a void of self-confidence in his heart. God filled that void with His own loving assurance. Moses knew that God’s presence would be with him.

You and I are not being called, will not be called, to make the type of decision that Moses here is called to make. We will not be called to engage in such a monumental task as leading God’s people out of slavery. But, we are called to do something that is just as important: be holy and live for Jesus Christ. If we look at our own strengths, like Moses did when he was still in Egypt, we will fail because we can’t get our eyes off ourselves. We often ask,, “Who am I?”

“Who am I to talk to my co-worker about the gospel?”
“Who am I to learn sign language to share the gospel with the deaf community?”
“Who am I to correct my son or daughter who is living in sin?”
“Who am I to take a trip halfway around the world to talk to strangers about the gospel?”

“Who am I?” I am a servant of the living God.

Jesus promises us in Matthew 28:20 and Hebrews 13:5 that He will be with us. He will empower us to accomplish what He wants us to do. And He often reminds us of that. Every Lord’s Day when we take the Lord’s Supper, we hear Jesus say, “I did this for you. Serve me. I will be with you.” Moses received his assurance; we receive ours.

THE REASON FOR THE ENCOUNTER - 3:8:
Why did the holy Jehovah God, come down in a fire, and reveal Himself to a fugitive watching sheep on the backside of a desert?

To save His people. To fulfill His promises. To bring redemption.

The fact - the picture - of God “coming down” shows His love. Israel could not free itself from Egyptian slavery. Moses, if any man could free Israel, could not do it by his own power. It took the God of heaven to “come down,” empower Moses, to free Egypt. God is the one who takes the initiative. God is the one who makes spiritual things possible. God wants mankind to worship Him. That’s the statement made in verse 12: God wants Israel in the desert to worship / serve Him. That’s how important worship is. That’s how important service to God is. That’s how important it was for Moses to confess his weakness - “Who am I?” - and depend on the strength that only God provides.

God, of course, came down ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ. The incarnation of Jesus is the epitome of the love of God. Why did Jesus do that? Why did He step out of eternity, out of immortality, into a life of limitations, temptations, and death? To save us. To redeem us. To bring us home to heaven.

It might be a mystery as to why God created us in the first place but the cross of Jesus really answers that question. God wants humans in heaven. He wants to share His love with us. That’s why He created us. That’s why He redeems us.

Family, let us allow the “bush that wouldn’t burn” be a metaphor for our perseverance in doing good, even challenging things, because we know that God is with us.

Take home message: In your weakness, submit to God’s strength to accomplish His will in your life. He will be with you through the end.