“Above All Things”

Those of you who have been around know that we need to go back to Exodus chapter 3. I joked this morning that since Schubert has an unfinished symphony, why can’t I have an unfinished series? And I think I’m going to advance the ball a little further this evening, because I think by the time we come to the song I’m looking forward to singing, you may say that it’s not just an unfinished series, but tonight was an unfinished sermon. And I say that not for your discouragement but actually, hopefully, for your encouragement.

We ended at verse 10, and therefore, we need to read from verse 11 to 22 of Exodus chapter 3. God has encouraged him to come so that he, Moses, might bring the people out of Egypt. Verse 11:

“But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.’

“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 ask 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 to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: “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. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, 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 up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 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 a 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 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.’”

Amen.

Well, the reading from Psalm 138 was purposefully chosen in order that we might be reminded that carved in granite at the main entranceway to our church is the second half of the second verse of that psalm: that “you have exalted above all things your name and your word.”

You can see from what we have just read that that was what Moses needed to hear, perhaps more than anything else. He needed to know the name of God, which speaks to his character and his nature and his isness, and he needed to know the covenant promises of God, so that he would be able to not only trust them himself, but he could then share them with the people to whom he was going to go so that the sense of confidence instilled in him by his encounter with God might flow to them.

And so the assignment God gave him in verse 10 is such that Moses is immediately clearly aware of the gap between where he is and what God is asking him to do. And you can see that although God had supernaturally intervened, and although we might be tempted to think that after such an encounter had taken place, that would have been sufficient in itself for Moses immediately to have his fears settled and to have his arm there for the fight…

Now, we don’t want to make little of this, because it is a monumental challenge that he is being given. It’s a task of unparalleled magnitude. It is, if you like, one man against the power of Egypt, which was a superpower. It was the power. And this fellow, whose life we know a little of now from chapter 1 and chapter 2, is receiving the marching orders from God himself: “This is what you’re going to do, Moses.” And his immediate reaction, as is clear from the text, is that he questions God’s choice of spokesman. Immediately he asks, “Who am I that I should go …?”

Now, this is progress in his life, because when you think back to some years ago—forty years prior, when he had gone out for the first time—he wasn’t actually asking the question, “Who am I that I should go?” I think he was operating on the basis that “I am Moses, and I think I’m going to go.” And he had something to do, and he planned to do it. And, of course, it came to a crashing halt. If he was self-assured on that occasion—as I think he was—then, after things have turned out so poorly, after he spent the time in the desert as a shepherd, the air, if you like, is out of his balloon. His confidence has begun to drain away, and he is immediately aware of his personal inadequacy.

Now, we haven’t been all these years together without realizing that this is a recurring theme. Whether we were considering Gideon, who, given his assignment, immediately responds to say, “Me? I am the least; I couldn’t possibly do it”;[1] Jeremiah the prophet: “I’m only a boy, I’m only a boy, don’t say that,”[2] and so on. You see where it starts? It starts with an awareness of who and what the person is. Because self-distrust is actually good if it leads a man or a woman to trust in God. If it doesn’t, then it actually just leads to spiritual paralysis. It leads to inability. It leads an individual to be unwilling to take any course of action.

Now, the question is a straightforward question, is it? “Who am I that I should go …?” And now, God doesn’t attempt to bolster his self-esteem. Do you notice that? You know, if you’ve asked somebody to do something—you say, “You know, we’d like you to do such and such”—they say, “Oh, you know, I don’t think I’m really cut out for that,” the immediate response is usually, “Oh, no, don’t say that about yourself. You’re actually jolly good. I mean, we’ve seen you do other things, and I think you would be super for this.”

It’s not the response of God. He says, “Who am I that I should go?” God doesn’t say, “Oh, you’re terrific. No, you’re just the… You’re perfect for this!” No, what does he say? You see it in the text: He says, “I will be with you.” He’s not saying, “You’re not inadequate.” He’s not saying, “You’re not insecure.” He wants him to understand—and he does understand this, as the story goes on, of course—he wants him to understand that the issue is not “Who is Moses?” The issue is “Who is with Moses? In whose strength is Moses going?” And he needs to get ahold of that. His inadequacy is not denied. It is assumed. And the answer lies in God’s sufficiency. Moses needs to know that God has exalted above all things his name and his word.

And he gives him a sign. He tells him, “There is a day that is going to come. Let this be a sign to you,” he says. “There will be a day that arrives, and you’ll be back on this mountain.” Remember, we said this morning, we’re not going to get deviations from course on “the mountain of God.”[3] But he says, “Where I met you is where I’m going to meet you. And when we’re together the next time, then it would be obvious to you and everybody else that even though you are an inadequate mouthpiece, even though you are a faltering servant, nevertheless, you find rest in my presence, you learn to trust in my promise, and you go forward in faith.”

Well, if we didn’t have the text, we would say, “Well, that, presumably, was the end of it.” But we have the text. Moses is a beauty, isn’t he? ’Cause now he has another question. Isn’t this enough? “If I come to the people of Israel…” “If I come…” He’s already told them, “You’re going.” Now he says, “No, no, if I come…” “If I come to the people [in] Israel and say to them [that] ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

Now, when you read on in this—as I’m sure you’re going to do over the next while, just because you’re as intrigued as I am with the story—you discover that this is actually not the end of the dialogue between Moses and God. When you go into chapter 4, he won’t quit. In chapter 4 he says, “But wait a minute. I have another question: What if they don’t believe me?”[4] And then, after that, he says, “You know, I’m not really a very eloquent speaker.”[5] This is to God, who’s already said, “I’ve assigned you, and you’re going to go, and you’re going to lead the people out.” And then, finally, he says, “Couldn’t you just send somebody else?”[6] It’s a classic, isn’t it? And it’s only at that point in chapter 4 that we’re told that the anger of God was aroused. But he even had the answer—that is, God had the answer—up his providential sleeve, because he says, “Well, you’ve got a brother, Aaron. He’s a little older than you. I already have him in line.”[7]

No, it’s hard to escape the fact that all Moses is really doing is moaning about his inadequacies, is sharing his unwillingness. And the remarkable thing is how God doesn’t chide him. In fact, the response of God to him is to hold his hand, if you like—is to nurse him along. Our opening hymn this morning, we sang of this dimension of God’s character in the verse

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;
Well our feeble frame he knows.
In his hands he gently bears us,
[He] rescues us from all our foes.[8]

Alec Motyer, commenting on that, he says, “The dialogue reveals with what gentleness the irreversible sovereignty of God works.”[9] “With what gentleness the irreversible sovereignty of God unfolds.” We may be confident in this.

God is always, in every place, at every point of time, in every circumstance, in every need, always God.

And so God says to him, “I am who I am.” This is an enigmatic statement for sure. It’s not a description of God. It is simply a declaration of the self-existence of God. God might say, “I am that I am,” or “I will be that I will be.” It’s the verb to be. Jim Packer says, “His eternal changelessness” is here “a reminder to mankind that He has life in Himself, and that what He is now, He is eternally.”[10] That’s why he keeps saying—and it’s repetitive, isn’t it?—“You need to know that I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Because they’re still alive! They’re still alive. And God is alive.

As I said just in passing: What this is about is the isness of God—that God is. This is in direct contrast to… For example, if you’ve been reading in Isaiah in the morning, you know that God speaks to Isaiah, and he says, “I am the true and living God; I am not like these idols that you meet around here”—that God is always, in every place, at every point of time, in every circumstance, in every need, always God. He doesn’t change like shifting shadows.[11] Our lives change. Our circumstances change. The unfolding story of our earthly pilgrimage moves and shifts. But the point that extends far beyond the immediacy of this encounter is this: When God says, “I will be with you as I was with Moses and Isaac and Jacob and Abraham,” he says to you tonight, “I will be with you, Brian, Caitlyn, George, Alice,” whatever. That’s his promise: that the God who has intervened in such a dramatic way here has done this.

Now, I run the risk—and I see the text before me—I run the risk at this point of frustrating you in one of two ways: either by verbosity or by brevity. And I choose the latter, given the context. I’m going to point you to what the Bible says without further explanation on my part.

He says, “I want you to go to the people of Israel and say”—look at verses 14 and 15 again—“‘I am who I am.’” He is the God of self-revelation. He is the God of self-revelation. He makes himself known. We do not come to know God by investigation. We come to know God by revelation—that he has disclosed himself. Otherwise, we could never know him. We don’t find God by a consideration of ourselves and then project into divinity. No, we discover who we are by being made known of it through God himself, and we descend from that to a consideration of who we are. That, incidentally, is part of the significance of the fact that the burning bush, as we thought about it this morning, was never consumed. That was what was dramatic about it. And the point is it was a synonym, if you like, for the very timelessness and eternality of God.

And then he says, “I want you to gather the elders of the people of Israel together and tell them that God is changeless, and he cares.” You can see that there in verse 16. I won’t reread it. He says, “I want you to know that I’ve observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt.” He spoke to Abraham a long time ago, and yet he still cares for his people. He still sees.

In verse 17, he’s the God who keeps his promise: “I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt.” We can trust God’s promises. In fact, there’s no difference between an Old Testament believer and a New Testament believer in this regard. What were they doing? What did they go on? The disclosure of God and his promises. What are you going on into next week? The disclosure of God and his promises.

You say to your friends at work that you believe in eternity, that you believe that there is a heaven that may be enjoyed, and they say, “And where did you come up with this?”

And you say, “Well, I came up with it from the Bible.”

“Oh, you read the Bible?”

“Yeah, I read the Bible.”

They say, “Well, what part do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a promise that Jesus made: ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, mansions. If it weren’t so, I would have told you that. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, so that where I am there you may be also.’”[12]

That’s what he was saying: “Tell the people that you’re going to a place that he’s prepared for you. I promise,” he says. They trusted his promise. Do we?

He is also—verse 20—powerful. “I know,” he says in 19, “that the king of Egypt [won’t] let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So [don’t worry about it.] I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it.”

You know, if it’s right—that we observed the movie or attended the stage play—that C. S. Lewis was one of the most reluctant converts, I think Moses is right up in the top five for reluctant servants. His natural capacity, you see, which he was able to put on display at the age of forty… Natural capacity untethered—untethered from the grace of God, untethered from godly motive, untethered from godly manner—natural capacity and ability will let us down. Let us down. The only strength for an individual, for a church is found in the fact that God is who he is, that he keeps his promises, and that he is able to do what we can’t do.

And the call of God on his life, as we saw this morning, was to come to him. When you read on in the story—and you’ll remember this, I’m sure, from Sunday school or perhaps others—you remember that God then establishes a Tent of Meeting. A Tent of Meeting. And his presence is visible in that Tent of Meeting by a pillar of fire—that’s the fire emblem that runs all the way through—and by the cloud. And he summons Moses to the tent. In that Tent of Meeting, the preparation then is made for the going. But unless there is the encounter in the privacy of the Tent of Meeting, so to speak, the going will be far less than God intends. His call to Moses was first of all to come and then to go.

Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
The maker of heaven and earth.

He won’t let your foot slip.
Behold, he watches over his own,
Neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you.
The Lord watches over your going out and your coming in,
From this time forth and even forevermore.[13]

Can I just say to you what I say to myself: that God, because of who he is, is sufficient for every season of life? He is sufficient for every responsibility that he entrusts to us. He is sufficient for all of our needs. And he keeps all of his promises. Moses was unable to see—’cause he was in the middle of this—what we know, because we have the text.

God, because of who he is, is sufficient for every season of life.

And in saying that to you, I want to tell you just a funny thing. You know from time to time I have said, “That’s why it’s important to read your Bible backwards.” In other words, if you know what’s happened in chapter 33 about the Tent of Meeting, then when you look at chapter 3 here, then you’re able to say, “Well, I guess that’s what he’s on about.”

Well, just this week, in some of the correspondence through Truth For Life, I had a letter from a gentleman. He said he was, I think, if I remember, eighty-five years old. And he said that he was not going to continue supporting Truth For Life any longer, because he was very frustrated with me for telling him that he ought to read the Bible backwards. And he said, “I’ve been reading it the proper way for all my life. Why do you keep telling me to read it backwards?” And I suddenly realized: The poor soul was starting at Revelation 20, and he’s trying to read it backwards. I want to tell him, “No, no, no. That’s not what I mean, ‘Read it backwards.’ It’s the Bible is a book with the answers at the back, in some ways. So if you go to the back, you can see it.”

In this little bulletin that I gave you, there’s a couple of things to note. I wrote things down because I find it easier to write it than say it at the moment. But I said in the middle of that that my hope and prayer for today is that the services will be ordinary, and by that I mean doing what is routine. Instead of a closing message that focuses on our parting, we simply look to the next passage in our miniseries on Moses.

And while I was thinking along those lines, I also came on the song that is quoted in part there. And the second verse of that song—which is an old song from the late ’50s, the early ’60s—the second verse goes,

I do not know how many days
Of life are mine to spend,
But one who knows and cares for me
Will keep me to the end.

I do not know the course ahead,
What joys and griefs are there,
But one is near who fully knows;
I’ll trust his loving care.

And then the refrain:

I know who holds the future,
And he’ll guide me [and guide you] with his hand.
With God things don’t just happen.
Everything by him is planned.

So we say,

As I face tomorrow,
With its problems large and small,
I’ll trust the God of miracles,
[And] give to him my all.[14]

Because he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who is faithful to a thousand generations.

Let’s have a moment of silence, and then we’ll stand and sing of that—just a moment of silence. Let’s tell the Lord that we trust him with the stuff we know, the bits that we don’t know, our fears, our failures—everything:

Lord, we thank you that there are generations yet to be born who will, as a result of the impact of the gospel here, rise to bless your name and bless the memory of each of us when we’re no longer present. We thank you that we’re able to look away from ourselves and to look to you and to ponder that although we are finite creatures, your isness is eternal. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] Judges 6:15 (paraphrased).

[2] Jeremiah 1:7 (paraphrased).

[3] Exodus 3:1 (ESV).

[4] Exodus 4:1 (paraphrased).

[5] Exodus 4:10 (paraphrased).

[6] Exodus 4:13 (paraphrased).

[7] Exodus 4:14 (paraphrased).

[8] Henry Francis Lyte, “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven” (1834).

[9] J. Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage, rev. ed., The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021), 115n.

[10] J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 69.

[11] See James 1:17.

[12] John 14:1–3 (paraphrased).

[13] Psalm 121:1–5, 8 (paraphrased).

[14] Alfred B. Smith and Eugene L. Clarke, “I Do Not Know What Lies Ahead” (1958).