Amen. Welcome, everyone. We're so glad you're here with us today. Welcome to Smyrna Campus. We love you guys. Glad you're connected there and everyone that's connecting with us online. We're so happy to have that connection with you also.
It's been a fun weekend for us. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday. We love doing that. I know that applause is for Sue Ann mostly. I appreciate that. She stuck it out with me all these years, and she deserves that for sure.
We decided to go big time celebrating our anniversary this year. It's a busy time of year for a lot of families with all the graduations and everything. So yesterday was spent going to graduation services and graduation parties for a lot of our youth here at Lakeshore. So that was a great way for us. We love doing that. We want those young people to know how much we love and appreciate them and their families.
So congratulations. Congratulations to all the graduates out there. We're going to be recognizing the ones in the service later on. But let's just give them a round of applause, too.
There was a guy named Dave who was bragging to his boss one day. He says, "You know, I think I know everybody in the world. I don't think there's anybody I don't know." And he just kept going on about that day in and day out, telling his boss how he knew everybody. His boss was getting a little tired of it, so he decided to call his bluff one day. He said, "Okay, let's put this to the test. Do you know Tom Cruise?" He said, "Yeah. I know Tom. We're old friends. Come on. I'll show you."
They flew out to Hollywood, went to Tom's house, knocked on the door. Tom came and welcomed them at the door and said, "Dave, it's good to see you, man. Come on in. Let's visit for a while." So they had a good visit with Tom Cruise. After that, the boss was a little surprised, but he's not totally convinced. He says, "I'm not sure that means you know everybody." He said, "Okay, name somebody else and I'll prove it to you." He said, "Okay, what about President Biden?" He said, "Oh, yeah, we're old friends, too." He said, "Okay. I haven't seen him in a while. It would be good to make a trip."
So they go to Washington, D.C., and they get in the tour of the White House. President Biden is walking through one of the hallways and sees Dave out there. He says, "Dave, I didn't know you were in town. Come on in. I was headed to a meeting, but we could visit for a little bit before I go to the meeting." So he brings Dave and his boss into the room there and visits with them for a little while before they go.
And the boss is pretty impressed now, but he's just not totally convinced yet. He says, "Dave, I don't know. It's amazing that you knew Tom Cruise and you knew President Biden. But he says, 'Okay, name one more that you think would be the hardest one.'" He said, "Okay, the pope." He says, "Oh, yeah, the pope and I are good friends. He said, 'Let's go over to Rome. I'll introduce you.'"
So they fly out to Rome, and they've got the big assembly of the people. The masses are out in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican there. And Dave looks at his boss and says, "Man, it's just too crowded out here. I can never catch the pope's eye in this crowd. You wait here. All the guards know me. I'll go into the Vatican and go up there. The pope and I will come out on the balcony so you can see us." And the boss says, "Sure, okay."
So Dave goes off through the crowd and he goes into the Vatican. About 15 minutes later, here comes Dave with the pope out on the balcony. They wave at everybody and everything. And then Dave comes back out looking for his boss. He finally finds his boss, and he's laying on the ground with paramedics all around him. And he's had a heart attack. He goes up to his boss and says, "Boss, what happened?" He said, "Man, that was the final straw. I couldn't believe that. When you and the pope walked out onto the balcony, the guy beside me said, 'Who is that guy with Dave?'"
You ever heard the old saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know?" Well, there is some truth to that when it comes to our identity as the children of God. It's not so much what we know as it is who we know.
Today we're going to be picking up our series we're doing through the book of Exodus. We're going to be at Exodus chapter 3. Now, if you've got a Bible with you, go ahead and open it up to Exodus 3. If you start at the beginning there with Genesis, it's the very next book, Exodus. And then go to chapter 3 there. We're going to put these up on the screen. But pull them up on your smartphone or tablet too because I want you to read along with me.
Today I want to do it a little differently. I just want to read through this chapter first. And I just want you to follow along while I'm reading. Now, it's a little bit long. So, just I want you to have it open or have it up on your smartphone or tablet.
By the way, if you don't have the YouVersion Bible app, I highly recommend it. It's a good tool to use for Bible study and devotions and things like that. And you can pull up any scriptures on there to read. If you don't have your Bible with you, you can pull it up on your phone or your tablet. There are other good apps as well, but that's one we like to recommend and use. And we put our sermon notes on there as well each week. You can look us up on the blog out there.
So, here's the thing. Exodus 3, remember last week if you were here, if you missed it, you could pull it up on our YouTube channel. But we talked about the fact that up until the end of chapter 2, we see God working in the background, but we haven't seen God speaking out directly, right, in Exodus so far. Until the end of chapter 2 and now leading into chapter 3, it just changes completely.
Now we start having this account of the personal interaction that God has with Moses and with His people and with leading them in the way that He wanted to have them be used to be delivered out of slavery in Egypt. So, it's a huge turning point in the Exodus narrative.
So, I want you to follow along as I just read through Exodus chapter 3 and then we'll break it down into some things we can learn from this. Okay?
Exodus chapter 3. Now, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Now, this next part is a part a lot of you have heard about probably. Have you heard of the burning bush? We're about to have the burning bush moment here. Okay? This is the burning bush moment.
It says in verse 2, "There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up." Would that get your attention? It would me for sure. Okay? A bush on fire but it's not burning up.
It says in verse 3, "So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up." When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses, Moses," and Moses said, "Here I am."
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Ammonites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Probably some parasites too."
Verse 9, "And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh, to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' And they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I am has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, '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, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. Go, assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appeared to me and said, I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.'
The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.' But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.
And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave, you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. And you will put on your sons and daughters, and so you will plunder the Egyptians."
Now when Moses got this message before this burning bush, there's no way for us to really know all that he was feeling when this happened. But it had to be tremendously both shocking and amazing at the same time. That he has God speaking to him, first of all, that's amazing, audibly speaking to him, but that he's doing it in this unique way out of a bush that's burning but not being consumed, not being burned up.
But even more amazing is the message that God speaks to him. Moses, you're the one I've chosen to go back to talk to my people first, let them know that I'm sending you to do this, and then take them to go before Pharaoh and ask for Pharaoh to let you go. And he's not going to do it at first, but I'm going to do some great works to convince Pharaoh not only to let you go, but here's the kicker to me, but to give you gold and silver and food and just everything you're going to need just to get you out of Egypt, because they're ready for you to go. You're going to be supplied with all of your needs when you go.
It's an amazing promise, an amazing revelation of God's plan. Remember, God's plan has already been at work. We've seen that behind the scenes, but now God is verbalizing that plan to Moses so that he knows, here are the next steps in the plan I have that I promised from the time of the fall in Genesis to the promise I made to Abraham to the promise I'm now continuing to work out.
And God is continuing to work that plan and fulfill that promise to us even today. So I want us to make that connection there because everything we're going to be looking at here today is a foreshadowing of what God has done for us today. It's a looking ahead. It's a picturing of all of God's plan being fulfilled through Jesus Christ coming to deliver us from slavery to sin.
You make that connection, right? They're being delivered from slavery to slavery, and then Jesus is going to be the ultimate fulfillment to deliver us from slavery, the slavery to sin and death that we're all under because of our sin. So let's remember to make that connection as we read through the book of Exodus. It is a picturing and a foreshadowing of all of the fulfillment of God's plan that is ultimately fulfilled through Jesus and will be completely fulfilled when Jesus comes back to take us to be with Him.
So I want to break this down to a couple of major sections especially that we need to understand here because I believe it speaks directly to what's going on in our culture today big time. The first thing I want us to focus on, there's a lot going on in this text, but here's where we're going. God is revealing Himself in this text.
So the first thing we're going to focus on and the second thing we're going to talk about is defining God. How do you define God? What would you say if somebody asked you to define God for them? How would you define God? Because the world is trying to do this in a lot of different ways, trying to define God, or to deny God completely, one of those two approaches.
Well, God is revealing Himself to His people in this text and what we're going to see here with chapter 3 is that He is going to help us rightly understand the nature of who He is and how He speaks to Moses. If we understand the wording, if we understand how He talks to Moses about identifying who He is, we're going to learn a lot from that about the character of God and who God really is.
Now that's vitally important if we're going to be His children, if we're going to honor Him, if we're going to live for Him, that we understand who He is. That we understand His character. Because when we understand who He is and we understand His character, we're more willing then to surrender to His will and honor Him with our lives because of who He is.
So here He's telling us a couple of really big things about who He is and about His character. The first one is this, God reveals Himself, He is transcendent. Every now and then I like to use a big word to let you know I went to school. But I looked it up to be sure I was using it correctly. And here's what it says about the word transcendent.
Transcendent, of course, is an adjective and it means to be beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience. That's what it means to be transcendent. It's surpassing the ordinary. It's exceptional. As it relates to God, it's God existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe. He is above all, beyond all, encompasses all.
When God says, "I am," is my name that you can tell the people, "I am has sent you." The phrase in the Hebrew "I am" is sometimes translated in English, it used to be Jehovah a lot of times, now they've changed it to Yahweh. But it's a word that is beyond anything we have in the English language. Transcendent doesn't even quite cover it.
I'm going to tell you another part of it in just a moment. But transcendent is the beginning place I think we need to start with to understand the nature and the character of God and who God is. He is so far above everything. He existed before creation. He's always existed. He exists apart from time and material things.
Another way you could say "I am," I know it's not correct in the English, but it's better translated, "I be who I be." That's a better translation. I just am. And I always have been. And I always will be. God. And the reason we have a hard time wrapping our head around that is because there's nothing else like that, right? There's nothing to compare that to. There's nothing to say, "Alright, here's something that illustrates that perfectly." Only God is God.
That's important for us to know. Because a whole lot of times we try to be God. I talked about that some last week, right? But only God is God. That's why when He gave us the commandments that we're going to talk about in this series, He said, "Have no other gods before me. I am the God. You don't need to have any other gods when you have Him as God."
So He is, first of all, transcendent. The Psalmist said it this way, Psalm 90 and verse 2. He said, "Before the mountains were born and you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." The words translated everlasting there illustrate the idea of eternity, of no beginning and no end. Just always has been.
I was reading something recently from Lee Strobel. He was talking about how there are many scientists today who have come to the conclusion, even some of the greatest scientists, non-Christians have come to this conclusion that the universe had a specific beginning. That the universe that exists began at some point.
Now to me that really settles a lot of questions about is there God? And was there a Creator God? Because if something didn't exist and then it exists all of a sudden, there has to be a cause. It doesn't just happen. Never in science have they ever had anything just happen that didn't already exist to cause it to happen.
And so if there was nothing and then there's the universe, something, there has to be an origin, a cause that brought it into existence. We believe that the Bible reveals that to be God. How could God do that? It's because He already was. I be who I be. I am who I am. I was already existing. I was already there when I did that, when I brought that into existence.
So God is transcendent. Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 23 and 24, God speaks to the prophet Jeremiah. He says this about Himself. "Am I only a God nearby," declares the Lord, "and not a God far away? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them," declares the Lord? "Do I not fill heaven and earth," declares the Lord?
Now the reason I use this verse is because it leads into, it connects to the transcendent nature of God, right? He fills everything already. But He also talks about another attribute of God and that is that God is not only transcendent, God is imminent. He is also present with us.
The word imminent carries with it the idea of existing or operating within, inherent. Speaking of God, is God permanently pervading and sustaining the universe all the time? He fills all of the created order of things. He fills it all, all the time. There is nowhere you can go, the scripture says, where you can hide from God. You go to the heavens, who's there? You go to the depths of the earth, who's there? You go as far east as you can go, who's there? As far west as you can go, you name it. God is already there.
So He's not only transcendent over it all, He is in it all. He is present in all of His created order of things. So you can never go away from the presence of God. Now that can be scary if you're doing things you shouldn't be doing. But it can be so comforting if you're seeking the presence and the power and the peace and the love of God, that He's always there for you.
See, that's the thing we need to remember. Not only is He always there, but He's there for you, not against you. So God is transcendent, but He's also imminent. He's right there with us.
So it's important for us to know, because here's the thing that's happening in our culture. I want to tie it to what's happening around us in today's world. People are trying to define God their own way. Now that's not new. Mankind has done that throughout history. But it seems to be more prevalent in our culture, in our culture today.
Here's the term I hear more than any other term that people who don't want to surrender to God will use over and over again. "Well, my God would never," and say whatever they think He would never do. Or "my God wouldn't allow," you know, as if you can define your God your own way.
Well, you can if it's not the God of the Bible. Here's the thing about the God of the Bible. We don't get to define Him. He defines Himself. We don't get to decide what God is like. God tells us what God is like in His Word. We don't get to say, "Well, I just don't feel like God would be like that."
Well, you may not feel like it, but that doesn't change who God is. He be who He be. Whether you feel like it or not. Whether you're moved to think that or not. Whether it makes sense to me or not. God is God. And we don't get to define God. We are lower than God. He's transcendent over us. We don't get to tell God what God has to be like. God tells us what He's like.
And we need to get to know Him for who He really is instead of trying to create a God that suits what we want Him to be. Because I can tell you every God that man has ever created has failed miserably throughout all of history. We need to quit trying to fashion our own God. We need to learn who God says He is. Because He is the one true God.
People need to stop for a second because it's really insane to start saying, "Oh, my God wouldn't do this." That's just crazy talk. You don't have that control, that ability, to tell what God would or would not do. It's like a silly story. It's like a silly illustration. It's like you have somebody that you say, "What's your favorite kind of fish?" And your friend says, "A labradoodle." And you say, "A labradoodle's not a fish."
"Yes, it is. My labradoodle's my fish." "No, a labradoodle is a strange breed of dog. It's kind of like a foreshadowing of the antichrist." No, it's not that. It's a cute dog. It's a beautiful dog. Don't send me emails on that, okay? It's a beautiful dog, but it's not a fish. You can call it a fish. You can define it your way as a fish, but it's not a fish. That's insanity.
At some point, I've got to step out of that conversation if they keep insisting that's a fish, because it's not. And that's what we're doing with God, and that's what we're doing with people in our culture today. We're trying to redefine reality. Instead of accepting the reality of who God is and who God made us to be.
It's about who you know. When you get to know the real God, you begin to understand His character, His attributes. There's no reason to define that God. He's the God we need. He's the one we need to be in relationship with. He's the one we get to know and serve.
And Moses is going to face a challenge that is tremendous. Far beyond his ability to handle on his own. So who's he really going to need to know well? God. He's going to need to know the character of God to do what God is asking him to do. He's going to need to know he can trust God. He can trust God's presence. He can trust God's power. He can trust God's provision for him and his people. Or he will never go before Pharaoh and do what God is asking him to do. He just wouldn't do it.
Without knowing those things about God. Now he's still going to struggle with it like we all do. There will be times when we struggle even when we know intellectually who God is, we're still going to struggle emotionally with accepting that and stepping out in faith that that's who He is. There are going to be moments where that's hard for us.
But the more you experience that, the more the trust builds, the more the faith builds in who God is. People are always saying, "I just wish I had more faith. I wish I had stronger faith." The only way to strengthen your faith is to step out and exercise it. You start being obedient to what God's calling you to do and you see God be God when you step out in faith and do what God is calling you to do.
And so we, like Moses, see this is a foreshadowing for us. Like Moses, we've got to stop trying to define God our own way. We've got to start accepting who God says He is as the reality, as the truth of who He is. Because if that is the God that we see in Scripture and we can trust Him to be that God, then we can trust Him with anything and everything in our lives.
We can trust Him to go before. Moses was going to have to go before his own people. Remember, he's been gone 40 years from his own people in Egypt. He fled the country because he had committed murder and it was discovered, right? And yet, he's the one God says, "I'm going to use you to get my people released from slavery in Egypt."
So Moses has to know, God can do this. I'm not qualified. I can't do this. But God can. Because I know who God is. He's told me who He is. He's revealed to me who He is. And all through the rest of the Exodus narrative, here's what we're going to see. God is going to keep piling evidence on evidence on evidence on evidence that this is who He is.
So that Moses' faith can grow, get stronger, he can carry out the mission, the plan, that God has for his life. He'll do that for you and me too. If we will just start accepting God as God, and living like God is God, and trusting and obeying God like He really is God, then He will keep giving us evidence upon evidence upon evidence that He is really who He says He is.
You'll experience it over and over and over again, just like I experience it over and over again. God is God. He be who He be, and I'm glad that God is God.
God said to Moses, "I am who I am." So He said, "Say this to the Israelites: I am has sent you." God is using His personal name. Now my personal name, some of you know my middle name, some of you don't. My name is Randall Thomas Cordell. So if I had to give, you know when I have to sign legal documents or whatever, that's what I have to put on there. That's my legal personal name, how I'm identified by the government.
And if you mess that up, you have to start all over, right? You can't fill out a form and get it wrong with the government. You got to get it right. Well, God is making sure Moses gets this right. He's going to have to stand before His own people and stand before the government of Egypt and say, "I am has sent me to you to do this thing that He's sending me to do."
And so God is making sure He knows how to identify who He is. There's a passage in the New Testament that speaks directly to this that I thought of as I was preparing this message. It's found in Acts chapter 17.
In Acts 17, Paul has now been called into ministry and taking the Gospel especially to the Gentile world. And Paul is in Athens, Greece. And in Athens, Greece, it's the home of the philosophers and the teachers. You've got the Stoics and you've got the Epicureans and all these different movements and philosophies that are being taught there.
And they had this area in Athens called the Areopagus. And that was a meeting place for these philosophers to go give speeches and teach people. And they would have followers. If they said, "Oh, this guy's going to be here today," his followers would come listen to him, write what his views were. And then another guy would come later in the week and they would go listen to them.
And then they would have philosophers debate each other on what their philosophies were and which one was the right one. Well, Paul got there early before anybody realized he was there. And he walked around the city of Athens and he saw all these idols, all of these false gods. And it made him think, it disturbed his soul to see all these false idols.
See, the Greeks had idols for everything, just like the Egyptians did, right? So you see the parallel here? You've got another group of people living in another time period who, like the Egyptians, had a god for everything, thinking that they were the gods of these things, of fire and rain and water and all the, you know, a god for everything.
And he noticed something when he went around Athens. He's had this statue there that said, "To the unknown god." Can you imagine that? They are so convinced that all these gods had power over this thing or that thing, but they didn't really cross. They stayed in their lanes, right? So you had to have a god for everything.
So just in case they missed one, they made this statue to the god they might have missed. Because their theory of these gods was, "You can't get them mad at you because if you get them mad at you, they'll zap you, they'll punish you, they'll hurt you some way." So they didn't want to leave any bases uncovered, so they made this statue to the unknown god.
And so when Paul got up to speak to them, they invited him to speak at the Areopagus that day. And as he got up to speak, he used that knowledge he had of all these gods that they worshipped. Here's what he said beginning in verse 24. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands."
Well, right away, they're not going to like what he's saying. They thought these were real gods. "He's not served by human hands as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth. He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him. Though He's not far, He's not far from any one of us."
So, he has just talked about the transcendence of God, but also the eminence of God. He's over everything, but He's also not far from anyone. He's right here with us, okay?
Verse 28, "For in Him we live and move and have our being." And then he quotes one of their own poets from that time period. He says, "As some of your own poets have said, we are His offspring." I love how Paul was so well learned in crafting a message that would connect to the people that he was talking to.
They would love hearing about one of their own poets and something they said. And so Paul is making that connection for them. To see that the one the poets were really talking about, they may not have understood it, but He's the God I'm telling you about. He's the one that we come from, that we're connected to.
John 14, beginning with verse 16, Jesus said, He's talking to His disciples, and He knows He's going to be leaving their physical presence when He goes back to the Father. He says, "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him or knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you."
So He's promising that when He gets back to the Father, He's going to send them His presence to indwell them. Okay? Some of you may know on the church calendar, today is Pentecost Sunday. Now Pentecost Sunday is recorded for us in Acts chapter 2. It's commemorating that after the death, burial, and resurrection, the disciples waited in Jerusalem like Jesus told them to. He said, "Then you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you'll be My witnesses to the whole world."
This is the fulfillment of the promise in John 14, that He was going to send this presence, this Helper, to be with us as His people. So this is not only God's transcendence. He's going to be back with the Father, but He's going to be eminently involved in our lives. He's going to be with us, in us, to indwell us and empower us. We have His presence with us all the time.
Well, God's defining Himself as eminent and transcendent, and as the only true God. So if we are going to worship the God of the Bible, we can't redefine that. Because that's who God says He is. That's who God has revealed Himself to be.
Now any variation of that is us making up our own God. It's us forming another idol, God, that we're going to worship. That's why it's not okay for Christ followers to use this terminology. "Well, my God would never..." You can't put any limits on this God. You cannot redefine what He can and cannot do, what He will and will not do, what He said or did not say. You can't redefine that for Him.
Because He's God, we're not. So we have to let Him be who He be, and decide we want to follow Him as the God of our lives, without redefining who He is. Or we choose to reject Him for the God He has revealed Himself to be. Those are the only two options of what we can do with this God.
But there's something else that happens in this encounter with Moses. That is, not only does God define Himself, but God defines Moses, and He defines me and you at the same time. And I love that in this passage. Look at verse 11. But Moses said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" That's a good question, isn't it? Who am I?
You see, that's a struggle for almost everybody, especially at certain stages of life. Especially going through, you know, going through childhood, and you start hitting adolescence, and you're trying to figure out who you are. And some of us still haven't figured it out, right? We're still, I love it when people say, "I'm going off to find myself." I always tell them, "Look in the mirror. There you are." You don't have to go anywhere to find that.
But the truth is, to find who we are, we need to listen to what God said to Moses when Moses asked the question, "Who am I that I should go?" I think that question seems to answer something that's crushing all of us, this question of identity. Who am I?
Here's where we are in human history. We're in a period of time where people just love creating their own identities. They love making up their own identities of who they are now. There are people just deciding, "I'm a cat." There are men deciding they're women, and women deciding they're men, right? And then there are people deciding, "I'm not a man or a woman."
We're just coming up with all these different identities. In fact, they came out with an identity spectrum now. Especially when it comes to gender. A gender identity spectrum that starts with, you know, absolute man or absolute woman to anything else you can ever imagine all the way down the spectrum, and you just pick where you are on the spectrum, on your identity.
Now the danger with that is, here's the thing. When we start defining ourselves, when we start coming up with our own identities ourselves, here's what we do to ourselves. We enslave ourselves to whatever identities we pick. If I say I'm a cat, what have I got to do now? I've got to start using a litter box or something, right? I don't know. I can tell you that's never been a temptation for me.
But if I say I'm a man, then I have to conform to that. If I say I'm a woman, then I have to conform to that. If I say I'm not either one, then I've got to conform, right? We enslave ourselves by whatever identity we decide to pick for ourselves.
And here's the thing about picking your own identity. For a lot of people, it comes out of periods of confusion in their minds and in their hearts. Right there, in a period in their lives where they're just so lost and so searching. And my heart goes out to people where they're just so lost that they just don't have a clue of who they really are and what they're supposed to be doing and what their lives are supposed to be all about.
And my heart breaks for people like that. Because that's not what God wants. And that's not what God's order and design calls for. He has something better for us than being controlled by our emotions in the moment. Because that's what happens so much is our emotions take over and in the midst of those crazy emotions that are driving us so hard, we choose things that we lock ourselves into when we weren't prepared to make those choices.
And we've been confused by the world and confused by our hormones and confused by our life failures and situations and failures of other people that we thought were there for us who weren't. All those things are pushing our emotions and our emotions are just so strong that we get convinced of things that are not at all what God reveals about our identity.
And so it's important that we listen to this question, "Who am I?" And how God answers that question. Especially in our culture today. When people are just so determined to identify themselves whatever they feel like on the inside emotionally in their hearts that they are.
Let me ask you, do your emotions go up and down, back and forth at different stages and times and events that are going on in your life? Yeah, that's a very unstable way to decide who you are. To decide your identity. There are times my emotions made me think I was going to be an NFL superstar running back. As a kid, man, I just thought that's what it was going to be. If it wasn't that, I was going to be a Major League Baseball player, one or the other.
Neither one of those things was God's identity for my life. It's not really who I was created to be. And I'm glad, honestly, that God helped me discover who He wanted me to be. And that's why I'm preaching to you today. That's why I'm teaching God's Word today. Because I was willing to listen to God's answer to that question. "Who am I?"
And you need to be open to listening to God's answer to that question for you. "Who are you?" Here's what God said when Moses asked, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Verse 12. And God said, "I will be with you." Did you catch that?
"Who am I?" "I am who God is with me to be." God is with me. God's got a plan for me. It's a good plan. He's got a plan and a purpose for my life. I need to listen to, identify with God and the character of God to determine my identity. Not try to do this on my own. And not let the culture do this to me or for me. But let God define me and who I am.
You see, who we are, it matters who you know so that you can identify who you are. If you know God, then you can be, you can be able to identify who God designed you to be. Because it's about who you know. If you don't know God, then you're just out there floundering trying to find some identity.
But if you know Him, and you know He's with you and He's the Creator, and He's the Designer, He's the one that knit you together in your mother's womb, you know He gives you your identity. You don't make that up yourself. He's the source of your identity.
So it matters who you know. It's a question of identity. It's a question of being in that relationship with Him. He says, "I will be with you." So what's happening here? We can base our sense of self on God. That's the connection I want you to make. You can base your sense of self on God.
We can find our confidence and our worth in knowing that He is here for us, He's here with us, He's transcendent above us, He's enough to protect us and provide for us and get us safely home. Here is who He says we are. And I want to break it down for you in just some simple ways of identifying what God says about who we are.
Okay? And Moses has to come to grips with this too. He understands this about himself. The first thing God says about who we are is I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. See, that's what the whole plan's about. That's the whole plan of God. He knows our identity is that we are sinners, we are flawed, we've come short of His glory, right?
He understands that about us. And so in His plan for us, He has this plan to take care of this problem, not His problem, our problem that we created, that we sin against God. We break fellowship with Him. We break that relationship with Him. It's broken. And we're suffering the consequences of a broken relationship with our God.
And so God in His plan for us wants us to come to the realization that we're sinners in need of a Savior because if we can get that right, we don't keep on trying to define ourselves. We go to the One who can heal us and our brokenness, and let Him take care of us instead of doing this on our own.
So in Romans 3, verse 22 to 24, here's what he says. "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. For, here's that phrase, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But then he adds this, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by... Christ Jesus."
See God's plan? From Genesis, what were we all? Sinners. Needing a Savior. And God initiated His plan like He told the serpent. One's coming who will crush the head of the serpent. Speaking of the coming of this Jesus, who would be the one who would heal the brokenness that sin brought into our lives and put us back into a right relationship with God who created us to be in His image in relationship with Him and fellowship with Him.
That's who we are. We're sinners who need a Savior. But there's another thing God reveals to Moses and to us about who we are, and that is, I'm called like Moses was called. Moses is being called by God with a plan and a purpose to be used by God for great work that needed to be done.
And what we have to remember today is that this was a foreshadowing, right? It was a looking ahead of God's completed plan in sending Jesus because He had a call for those who would come to know and follow Jesus. Listen to Acts 2, 38 and 39. Remember this is Pentecost Sunday.
Acts 2, 38 and 39 was on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached that first Gospel sermon. Peter replied when they asked, "What shall we do?" He said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will what? Call."
See, we look at people like Moses, we look at people like the Apostles, and we look at preachers today and say, "When were you called into the ministry?" Guess what? You're called too. We're all called by God to come heal the brokenness of our lives through the Savior Jesus Christ and the provision He made for us on the cross.
He's calling you. He's calling me. He's called all of us through Jesus to come and be healed, to be who He created us to be, to mend the brokenness that we're feeling and experiencing in this world without God and put it back together again the way it was supposed to be.
There's a prayer in Ephesians 1 that Paul prays for the Christians at Ephesus that I think really ties in with Moses too and what God was wanting for Moses is He wanted Moses to understand that he was called to do this great thing. And it's not because of who Moses is. It's not because Moses has it all figured out. It's because God's going to provide for Moses everything that he needs for this job.
And God's called you to a life that He's already prepared in advance to provide you everything you need for the life He's calling you to. You can count. That's who He is. That's who He be. He be the God who provides for the people that He calls to the life He calls you to.
So if He created you as a man, He's providing what you need to be the man He's called you to be. If He's called you to be a woman, He's providing for you what you need to be the woman that you need to be. If He's called you to be a husband or a father or a wife or a mother or a grandparent, He's going to give you what you need for that role that He's called you to.
Because that's who He be. He be the God who is transcendent and immanent with us for the life He's calling us to. In Ephesians 1, verse 18, here's the prayer. "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and in His incomparable great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is invoked, not a word, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be the head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."
God's called you to this promise, this inheritance, this life that He has in store for you. In 1 Peter 2, verse 9, He says this to Christians, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light."
Moses, you're going to go and I've called you to lead these people out of bondage, out of slavery. Christians, you are a chosen people set apart, called by God out of darkness into His wonderful light. You are a called person in the kingdom of God, a set apart chosen person in God's plan and purpose for the world.
There's one more. Like Moses, I am sent. I'm not just called, I'm sent out after I'm called. Moses, I'm sending you first to go to your own people and convince them that you're the one I've chosen, but then I'm calling you to go to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to release my people from bondage. It's a big task, but it's the same task on a bigger scale that He's called you to and He's called me to.
Because it's not just the Israelites. The call He has on us is for all people all over the world for all time that are enslaved by sin need to be freed. In Matthew 28, beginning with verse 18, Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age."
Wow, He's called us to go make disciples of all people everywhere. That's too big, God. I can't do that. There's no way I can get that done. But He said, "But I'm with you always." So whose power is going to do this? God's power. It's not our power. It's not dependent. It doesn't rest on our shoulders. What rests on our shoulders is obedience to God's call.
God's going to take care of the rest when we are obedient to God's call in our lives. 2 Corinthians 5 beginning with verse 17, Paul said it this way, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. He's committed to us this message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ, what? Ambassadors, as though we were God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
We're sinners in need of a Savior. God's taken care of that. He's provided that. He's called us out of darkness into His marvelous light, but He's called us to a purpose. And all of us are called to this same purpose. Now, we fulfill it in different ways, but we're all called to this same purpose, to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ to a world that needs Him so desperately. A world that is lost and confused and trying to find their identity and it can only be truly found in Christ and through Christ.
That that broken relationship with God can be healed and they can be put back together with Him. Amen? Amen. There may be people here today or listening online today who need to understand their identity today. I want to call you to seek God when you're seeking your identity. Don't let the world decide for you. Don't even let your own emotions decide this for you. It's too important.
Let God reveal to you what He's already planned and decided for you as for who you are and what your purpose is in this world. Maybe you need to make a step today of making that decision to follow His call on your life.
Let's pray together. Father, we thank You that in Christ we have our identity settled. We are Your children made in Your image. Our relationship with You is healed through Him. We thank You for Jesus and what He's done. We know now that You're calling us out of darkness. You're calling us into Your marvelous light. If there's some hearing the message today who want to receive and accept that call on their lives, we pray that as this invitation is offered they would take those steps that they need to take. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
Let's stand and sing together. If you have a decision you need to make, everybody have a seat please. Harper, come up here, man. We have a young man who comes today. We love that his family is making sure he's been raised in the church and he's been such a good part of Lakeshore and our children's program here. Pastor Andy and the group back there have been working with Harper and teaching him. His dad's been teaching him. He's been getting it from his whole family learning about Jesus, and it's just been on his heart to take this step today, a profession of his faith in Jesus and being baptized into Christ. You know that's great, isn't it?
Now here's the thing, as a parent, it's so hard to know is my child ready for that step, right? And here's what I always tell parents. If this is something that God has put on their heart, they won't let it go. It'll be persistent. They will not quit talking about it and saying, "I need to do this. I need to do this." And that's been Harper for a long time now. And so he's coming to be obedient to that today.
Harper, I'm going to ask you to repeat after me a profession of your faith, okay? I believe. I believe that Jesus is the Christ. That Jesus is the Christ. He's the Son of God. Savior. Amen. God bless you, Daniel. If you want to go with him and Andy, our children's pastor, is going to go back to the church and he's going to get ready for the baptism, and we'll celebrate that here in just a minute.
Come on up, brother. Yeah, come right up here. Tell everybody your name. My name is Billy. Billy comes today. He just poured out his heart, just being honest. He said, "I'm struggling and my soul is disrupted. I'm just struggling and agonizing trying to stay on the path that God wants me to be on."
So I just want us to pray for him right now in a very special way. Father, I just want to lift up this man to You. You know his heart. You know his struggle. You are not far from him. You're right here for him. Help him to know Your presence, Your power, Your provision in a greater way than he's ever known it before. To help him to hold on, to take the right steps, to make the right decisions, to trust You and Your plan and Your purpose for his life. Help him to know how valuable he is to You, so valuable that Your Son Jesus died for him on that cross. Never, never let Satan, Father, try to tell him anything other than how valuable he is to You.
And Father, help him to hold on to You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. God bless you, brother. Thank you. Come on up here, Jeremy. Come up here, man. Jeremy comes now. You don't have to say anything. You're going to be okay, alright? You'll say that in a minute, alright?
Jeremy's coming asking for prayer because I know he and his wife, they're praying earnestly steps that Jeremy feels God calling him to do. And he's doing it. And he shared some of this with me personally. And I know, I think I know what that plan is. Alright? Yeah. But I can't answer that for Jeremy. Jeremy has to listen to the Lord and the Lord's call in his life.
And he just asking for the church family to pray with him as he seeks that path for these decisions that he believes God is calling him to make. Let's pray for Jeremy and Davina now. Father, we just thank You for Your love and Your power and presence for Jeremy. And Father, we know You've got a plan and a purpose for all of us. And sometimes it's hard to know. It's hard to seek that and find that and have confidence in that.
I just pray that You would open up his eyes and his heart and his mind to see clearly and know with certainty Your call on his life. But then, Father, when he sees it, help him to have the response of obedience to Your call. Yes, Lord. Obedience is where we find the strength and the power and the glory and the fulfillment of all of Your plans and promises for our lives. Help him to walk in obedience to You is our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you, brother. Love you, man. Thank you. This time, Dr. Ed is going to come and lead us in a time of communion, and then we'll celebrate the baptism, and then we'll... Amen.
Love celebrating the graduates, love celebrating the baptism today, and all the good things that God is doing here at Lakeshore. Thank you for your support for that. If you want to continue worshiping through the giving of an offering today, we have offering boxes available, one in the back of the auditorium on the post there, one in the hallway as you exit. You can drop your offering in the top slot there.
You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com, or you can also scan the QR code in your bulletin shell. That'll take you to that page as well. When you give your offerings, it's an act of worship of God, but it also supports the work and ministry like our youth ministry and children's programming and all those things that we do as a church.
So we thank you for your faithful support of the work and ministry here at Lakeshore. This time, Jeremy's going to come back up. Come on up, Jeremy. He's going to close us out with some announcements. And this morning, we're going to be talking about the work and ministry of God. Let's listen to this little prayer. Thank you, Jeremy.
on May 20, 2024
