Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Exodus 3:15
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 20, 2022

In recent years, it’s said we live in the Epidemic of loneliness. Blame individualism, globalization, technology, or anything else which undoubtedly has a part to play, but social isolation is one the rise. The traditional image tied to the loneliness epidemic is that of an older person, past retirement age, living alone, because the modern world has deprived them of the ability to interact with close friends and family. And while there are many examples of those dear people, recent evidence suggests that loneliness is more widespread. For instance, a 2018 survey of 20,000 Americans, found fewer elderly people experienced loneliness than younger generations. And according to a more recent study at Harvard, older teens and young adults were hit hardest by loneliness during the pandemic. Many of the most “connected” people are really the loneliest. I think that loneliness and isolation affect each one of us to a greater or lesser extent. 

Yet the worst implication that can come from human loneliness is that we are naturally tempted to think that God is also far away from us. That he, like the rest of the world, carries on unaware and unconcerned about our struggles and troubles. That is truly a feeling that leaves a person feeling crushed. That issue is what I will focus on today in our text from Exodus 3 as that’s how the ancient Israelites probably felt as well.

You see, what had once been a single family was now an entire nation that filled the land of Egypt. However, this nation had to wonder, “Where is God?” They had gone from the favored residents of Egypt to harshly treated slaves. And in the first two chapters of Exodus, God seems entirely absent. The Lord who was so obviously active in the time of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is nowhere to be found. That’s the introduction to our text in chapter three today, where Moses speaks with God from the burning bush. As we go through I want to highlight 6 lessons about God that will comfort our lonely hearts.

Lesson 1: God is holy, but he wants to be close to you. God called to him from the middle of the bush and said “Moses! Moses!” Moses said, “I am here.” 5 The Lord said, “Do not come any closer. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” I’ll talk about the burning bush and the angel of the LORD a bit later, but for now consider this incredible paradox: God is holy and yet he wants to be close to sinful people. Moses must take off his sandals and he also hides his face, but consider what’s happening here: God, who dwells in light unapproachable, knows Moses and wants to speak with him. Even though God is holy, he still wants to be close to you. That’s hard for a sinner like you or me to understand, isn’t it?

A good example of this happened this past week when I preached in Pardeeville for their Lenten services. After the first service I had supper with the congregation and then, as I walked back into the narthex, a little boy hopped from a corner out and yelled “Boo!” Now, I am unfortunately rather susceptible to that type of thing and after my soul returned to my body, I congratulated him on getting me. He then gave me a high five to go with the potential heart attack and went on his merry way. Well, then came the second service when I stepped out of the sacristy and stood before the congregation to begin the service. I looked over at him and smiled. He looked as if his very life was flashing before his eyes and he suddenly began reading his bulletin with great interest. After the service I shook his hand and winked at him on the way out and he gave me an embarrassed smile. But it struck me that there was no shame in him scaring me in the narthex until he realized I was the visiting pastor. We are naturally fearful about drawing near to God because of his holiness or even his called servants, thoroughly sinful though they are. God’s holiness is so great and our sin is so great that the relationship he wishes to have with us may never seem possible. Like fire and a bush, we think that a meaningful relationship with God is not going to work out. But as Jesus would say, “With man this is impossible, but not for God.” Without compromising his holiness God wants to be close to us and has made this possible in Christ. 

Lesson 2 is next. Note how God identifies himself here… He calls himself the “God of your fathers…” Before giving Moses any other indication of who he is, in intimate mercy, he is willing to attach himself to people, that he might belong to us. That’s Lesson 2: God is not a god, he is your God. This is missed today, isn’t it? The vast majority of people believe in some sort of higher power, something greater than ourselves, but what does that mean? That’s so abstract and far away, it is impersonal. That makes no demands  That keeps no promises. You can’t be close to a higher power… But our God is personal, he knows our family, our history, and he associates himself with us. He stands by you and wants to be counted with you.

And that brings me to Lesson 3: God cares about your pain. Listen again to what God said to Moses from the burning bush:  “I have certainly seen the misery of my people… I have heard their cry for help…Yes, I am aware of their suffering” (3:7). If you’ve truly suffered, you know pain–be it physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, or in combination. But almost worse than the pain is the sense of loneliness and invisibility in the midst of that pain. To feel like you are at the bottom of a deep pit and the world is inexplicably carrying on as normal, that’s loneliness. To feel as if no one can see your pain or hears your cries, or even realize there’s anything wrong. Some of you have experienced similar pits. Maybe you are in one right now.  So listen again to these words of God: “I have seen…; I have heard …; I am aware of your suffering.” God cares about your pain. He isn’t blind to your hardship. He isn’t deaf to your prayers. He isn’t ignorant of anything. He sees exactly what you are too hurt or ashamed to bring up to others. He hears those angry prayers and groans. He is aware of your lonely suffering and he cares about your pain. 

And he doesn’t just sit back either. That’s Lesson 4: God comes down to bring you up.  God told Moses through burning bush, “I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey,(Ex 3:8). God proverbially “came down’ to bring the Israelites out of slavery and bring the to the promised land. And God “came down” and became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ in order to bring us up out of the slavery of sin and death. Just like the burning bush from which he spoke to Moses, Christ dwelled as the holiness of God in human form and yet his human nature was not consumed. Only in Christ could God come down in order to bring us up. He came down to earth. He came to those who cried for help. Every other earthly system of progress involves us raising ourselves up to God, but not in the Bible. We find a God who comes down to bring his people up. 

Here’s the fifth thing to know about God: Lesson 5: God has something for you to do. After God has told Moses about all the good things that lie in store for the Israelites, God said to him, “Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” (3:10).  And then we heard the just the beginning of what would be a twenty-eight verse attempt by Moses to get out of it, complete with claims about how he wasn’t up to it and how he was nothing special. But in actuality Moses was uniquely qualified, even if it had been forty years since he had fled from Egypt. No other Hebrew had been raised by Pharaoh’s daughter; “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was as powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). In fact, there were few Hebrew men his age as most had been thrown into the Nile at birth on the Pharaoh’s orders.

If he hasn’t already, God one day will call you to do some things that only you can do.  Now realize to prepare you he may take away your friends … or your spouse… your home. He may withhold something you always wanted or remove something you’ve always appreciated. All this happened to Moses over the first 80 years of his life precisely so that he’d be prepared to do what God was calling him to do during the last 40 years of his life. You can be confident that there are things God would have you for him and his people that he has and is uniquely preparing you for, through both the good and the bad. If you’re still on this earth then God has something for you to do.

Finally, our confidence and consolation is found in Lesson 6: I AM with you. Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”12 So he said, “I will certainly be with you…But Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites…and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I say to them?”14 So God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” This is God’s covenant name, the name which is used to speak of his faithful love and sure promises. We think it would be pronounced “Yahweh” originally, the one you’ll read in English translations as LORD. 

In Egypt, Moses knows that the names of gods were invoked, that is the people would call on their name in order to receive blessing. If you wanted the sun to shine out of the clouds you called on the name of Amun-Ra, the sun God. If you wanted to be successful in war, you invoked the name of Horus, etc. Moses knows this and asks God what he should be called by the Israelites. But God’s name isn’t to be compared to any pagan idol, nor is he only God of a certain aspect of creation. Therefore God declares himself to be simply who he is: I AM WHO I AM. 

You might hear people say something similar about someone they know well: “Well, that’s just John for you. Or something to that extent. It speaks of the unchangeable nature of the person. This is more profoundly true of our eternal God, who declares himself to be “I AM WHO I AM”. He has always been himself and he always will be who he is. He is immutable, as the theologians would say. He does not change. And, here is the key to your comfort: The God who never changes promises that he is with you. God declares: “I AM with you!” The God who was with Moses is the God who is with you and me. This same God who liberated the Egyptians from slavery, sets you free from the salvery of sin and death. The same God who led the Israelites through the desert in a pillar of fire and cloud, is the same God who walks before and behind you every moment of every. The I AM is with you! Jesus, himself, was called Immanuel which means “God with us.” And it was Jesus who said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Or as he said before he ascended, I will be with you always. He, who was present in the burning bush, also dwells in all of his holiness in your heart without destroying it. He is who he is. He is Yahweh. And he promises “I AM with you.” Now and forever, amen!