Utumishi Blog

 1. He’s the God who takes the initiative

2. He’s the God who relates

3. He’s the God who saves

“I have seen… I have heard… I know… and I have come down to deliver them…” (Exodus 3:7-8) This is brilliant! Salvation is top down. It’s something God does, not something we do or contribute to.  When I say “I’m saved” – I don’t mean “I’ve made a commitment to God” or “I’m living for God” – if that’s what it means to be saved I lose my salvation every day – When I say I’m saved I mean that God has saved me out of a pit I could never get out of. And it’s not like he sends down a helicopter winch – as if God is safe up there and he sends down a rope and we hold on and he pulls us up – no – “I have come down” (v8). The transcendent God of Islam would never come down. We have a God who comes down. Who comes into the fire of suffering and pain, who one day will take on human flesh, who will be born in a shed, who comes down into all the mud and muck and filth, down even to death on a cross… to deliver us from slavery… to enter a new Eden – v8: “a good and broad land”.

How is God going to do it?  Through a man – Moses (v10). It’s very interesting – God will save, God will come down… and a man will bring the people out. You get the same paradox with Joshua and then with David later in the Bible – God alone will save… through the man. It’s only resolved in The God-Man.

And the man through whom God saves is a weak man. Moses says “Who am I?” (v11) God answers: “What about who I am? I will be with you” – This is the coming down God – I’ll be there right with you – in the pillar of cloud and fire – I’ll be doing the saving at ground level. “And this shall be the sign…” Again, it’s interesting what the sign is. It’s not a ‘fleece’-type sign is it? “When you have… you shall…” – it’s a sign for afterwards. The man of God needs to put his faith in the Word of God. Salvation is going to come about through a man who walks by faith not by sight.

And what is the goal of God’s salvation? “You shall serve God on this mountain” (v12). God is going to save a people out of slavery for service to God. That’s the dynamic of the gospel – from slavery to worship – rescued from a terrible task master to serve and enjoy a wonderful master. Again the goal is relationship. And it’s a relationship remade in person by the God who saves.

4. He’s the God who reveals himself in salvation history

Moses asks basically, “When people ask me, ‘What God are you talking about?’ what shall I say?” (v13). It’s a good question – Who is this God? What is he like? What’s his name? What sort of God are we talking about?

So God gives his name (v14-15) “… this is my name forever”. Again it’s relational isn’t it? When you give someone your name you’re opening up and inviting someone in to know you a bit more. Or to put it another way you’re giving something of yourself away. That’s why we’re reluctant to give our name to someone who just stops us on the street or a unknown caller on the phone. And why we feel really bad when we forget someone’s name we’ve met before. It’s a relational thing. A name is not something that you use like a magic word. We can slip into using God’s name like that in prayer can’t we? But it’s about relationship.

And what is the name?  “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be” or “I am becoming who I shall become” (v14). It’s obviously some sort of form of ‘to be’. It could just mean that this is the living God – the self-existent one. But there does seem to be some sort of future tense in the Hebrew, similar to verse 12 which is translated “I will be”. So then God is basically saying – “If you want to know who I am just look at what I’m going to do.” Very often the Bible answers the question “What is God like?” not by saying he’s got all these attributes (omnipotent, omniscient and all the other omnis) but just by saying ‘Look at what he’s done. He’s parted the red sea, he’s brought us into the land, he’s fought our enemies – that’s who God is.’

When you get to John’s gospel we find that The Word, the only God who was at the Father’s side, has taken on flesh and come down to make him known.  Again and again he says “I AM” – and in his prayer to the Father just before his death he says: “I have manifested the name”.  When Jesus is asked, ‘What is God like’, ‘Show us God’, he says, “have I been with you so long and still you don’t know me?”  His life and death and tears and washing feet were manifesting who God is – just as the first Exodus was a display of who God is and what he’s like.

Application: God is not just a collection of attributes and he’s not just a collection of titles. Sometimes we can try to impress each other or impress God by piling up a load of Hebrew titles for God – El shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha.  But God is not a static being. He’s not giving us his name as way to access his power. He is revealing himself as the acting-in-history God. He is a saving, weeping, suffering God; a God who has done stuff. We just need to read the story of the Bible and get to know him.

And finally…

5. He’s the God who promises

• Verses 16-17: Moses is commanded to preach the promise of God. The rest of the verses of the chapter are a promise of what will happen. “They will… he will… I will… I will… I will…”
• Verse 18: the implication is that the elders met with God as Moses preached the promises of God. Preaching God’s Word is not an academic exercise it is a meeting with God.
• Verse 19-20: there will be signs and wonders accompanying the Exodus (v19-20) just as there will be signs and wonders accompanying the greater Exodus (Luke-Acts).
• Verses 21-22: There’s going to be a great victory won entirely by God but the people will have the plunder, they will be more than escapees, more even than conquerors – there will be a complete reversal.

Why do we have all these promises and predictions here in chapter 3? We get it repeated in later chapters when it actually happens so isn’t it a waste of ink? No. We should never get bored of the amazing fact that God promises things and they actually happen. No other religion has a God like that. Isaiah the prophet mocks the other gods and says basically:

Tell us what’s going to happen, that we may know that you are gods – did any of you predict what is now happening? – No? – Well the God of Israel – The I AM – he did actually declare these new things long ago. And now he declares promises of a new Exodus, a great anointed one, a suffering servant, a new heavens and a new earth.

We get to the New Testament and it’s just one long promise fulfilment – ‘This was to fulfil…’ ‘This was to fulfil…’ The Christian life is simply standing on the promises of God – not making up new promises or twisting promises that don’t really apply to us to try to make them apply to us – but holding on to the promises that really are for us – “I will be with you always” “ I will never leave you or forsake you” “No-one shall snatch them out of my hand”  “I am coming soon”.

Is this the God we are preaching and worshiping in our churches – the promising, acting-in-history, saving, relating, taking-the-initiative, top-down God?