Burning Bush

exodus is important because the people of God are being formed and shaped by the God of the people

first impressions

• Our story picks up as Moses is tending sheep in the desert and comes upon a bush that is burning but not being consumed

• And God is introducing Himself to Moses because He wants to do something through Moses

God shows us where we are by showing us who He is

what if the place where you are in and don’t want to be is the place that God forms You into the person He is calling you to be because of who He is?

Moses is faced with the biggest questions in life. What do you do with the biggest questions in life? Where do you go?

Moses asks, who am I?

• Have you ever had questions about God? You are walking through life, trying to make sense of it and all the sudden something happens that makes you question everything?

Exodus 3:10–12 ESV

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 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.”

• Exodus is an incredibly important book because it is the formation of Israel. Genesis is the story of the creation of Israel and Exodus is the formation of it. That means that who they were as a people were formed. A people moving from slavery to freedom, with God in their midst.

• In the formation of Israel we see the formation of Moses. A fugitive called by God, who has been promised that God would be with him,

• We have left a two year period of trauma that has led to increased volumes of anger, depression, anxiety and disconnects.

• We are far from our homeland.

• But we are also in a place, the place of displacement, where we can be formed and embraced by God’s work, will and power.

• what if this time in our lives was defined not by what e we lost but by who God is?

God is with us in what He’s like: He carries the burden

Exodus 3:2–6 ESV

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

• God want Moses to see that He is fire that is not consumed. That He is self sustaining, sufficient in all ways and is powerful enough to bring forth life and be able to take it. Fire that burns and is not consumed is eternal. It does not die out because it needs nothing outside of itself.

• This is the God that Moses interacts with. A God who can consume but does not.

• Knowing that God is a fire that is not consumed speaks to Him being a prime mover. He shifts the burden from us to Him. He holds the burden.

God is with us in where He is: changing the ground

Exodus 3:7–8 ESV

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and 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, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

• This directionality is important. Gods of the ancient near east did not go to people, they made people go to them. Rituals, sacrifices, all so that people could go to a place to get something from God.

God comes to us and changes the ground Itself.

God is with us in Who He is: a rescuer not a mercenary

• God is uniquely connected to The people of Israel and is uniquely independent of them.

• This is different from the gods of the Ancient Near East . They were dependent on the people and they would get grumpy if they didn’t get what the people were supposed to give them.

• God is a rescuer not a mercenary.

as we see God declaring who He is, because He is a rescuer, He is making room for others in Him.

• We encounter God and are changed by Him to become like Him. Our encounter with God allows us to wrestle with these big questions in life and allow us to form us to Himself.

• When we come into the presence of God, when we are embraced by Him we become placed, we are brought in.

Moses, for the rest of His life, identifies, not as a Hebrew, or as a Shepherd, or as an Egyptian, but as God’s. HE is called a friend of God.