I Am

Exodus 3:11-14

January 15, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

In the late 1800’s there was a tightrope walker named Charles Blondin who routinely amazed people with his daring acts. In those days, one of his especially daring acts was when he strung a tightrope across Niagara Falls and in front of 10,000 screaming people, he inched his way from the Canadian side of the Falls to the American side. As he arrived on the other shore, the crowd was shouting his name: “Blondin! Blondin! Blondin! Blondin!” Once he was firmly on the American side, he raised his hands, quieted the crowd and called out, “I am Blondin! Do you believe in me?” And the crowd shouted out, “Yes, we believe! We believe! We believe!” When the crowd had quieted down again, Blondin said, “I am going to go back across the tightrope to the other side, only this time I am going to carry someone on my back. Do you believe I can do this?” And, again, the crowd’s excitement was almost tangible as they cried out, “We believe! We believe! We believe!” Once more, he got the crowd quiet, and in the stillness, Blondin asked, “Who will be that person?” And there was absolutely no noise from the crowd. Dead silence. This gathering that just a few moments ago had affirmed their belief in Blondin found they weren’t willing to be the one he would carry across the falls. No one in the crowd was willing to put their belief to the test (Campolo, You Can Make a Difference, pgs. 4-5).

I heard Tony Campolo tell that story many years ago as a reminder that, as Christians, we often say we believe certain things but acting on that belief or living it out is something else entirely. In other words, we might believe certain things about God or our faith, but often there is a disconnect between what we say we believe and the way we live our lives. The pastor I had growing up said it was because of the 18-inch gap: the distance between the head and the heart. We believe, but we don’t always do.

And there are also parts of our faith that we don’t realize ought to impact the way we live. Sometimes we simply haven’t thought through why what we believe matters. In the video this morning, you heard what is known as the Apostle’s Creed, a rather short summary of our faith as Christians that dates from the 400s (so it obviously wasn’t actually written by the first Apostles). The earliest Christian creed or statement of belief was simply this: “Jesus is Lord,” but as the years rolled by and the church became chronologically distant from Jesus and the original twelve disciples, it became important to summarize or codify what Christians believe (cf. Hamilton, Creed, pg. 13). In an increasingly secular and post-Christian world, it’s becoming important once again for Christians to know not only what we believe, but what difference it makes. And so, for the next few weeks, we’re going to work through this creed in a series we’re calling “The Big C: Core Beliefs to Change a Community,” and my prayer is that through these weeks you don’t just learn what the creed means, but you also find this creed making a difference in the way you live. In other words, our goal is that we will learn what we believe and why it matters.

So we begin, as all things do, with God. The Creed begins this way (say it with me if you know it): “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” If we were to write a headline describing the state of belief in God these days, it might read something like, “God has fallen on hard times.” In recent years, atheists have become more vocal and somewhat militant in arguing against belief in God. People like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have dominated headlines and bestseller lists with book titles like Hitchens’ God Is Not Great (Hamilton 18). In 2014, the Pew Research Forum released their “Religious Landscape Study” which revealed that the percentage of “nones” (those claiming “no religious affiliation”) had risen from 16% in 2007 to 23% in 2014. That number is even higher among the so-called Millennials, where 35% claim no belief in anything, least of all God (https://goo.gl/FSiiiu). Even so, try reconciling that number with the latest Gallup Poll numbers, in which 89% of Americans claim to believe in God. That’s a number that’s remained fairly steady since Gallup started answering the question in 1944. Largely, I think it means that folks may believe in “a god,” but not necessarily the God of the Christian faith or the God of the Bible. Either that, or we’re hedging our bets, choosing to say we believe just in case it turns out to be true!

To be completely honest, though, those who do believe in God have not done ourselves any favors in the way we talk about God. When Islamic extremists blow themselves up and kill others while crying out, “God is great,” the world wonders what kind of God this is. And when we, in an attempt to comfort those who have lost children or other loved ones, say things that are simply bad theology (like “God must have needed another angel”), those who are questioning belief already wonder what kind of a God kills children while allowing rapists and murderers to live. In a world that is as broken as ours, does it even make sense to say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth”?

To answer that question, we first have to determine what this God that the Bible describes and Christians believe in is like—and then we have to live out faith in that God, not who we think God is. The “god” so many perceive through the actions and words of others is often far from the one who reveals himself in the pages of Scripture, and one of the first places we really directly encounter the living God is in the passage we read from Exodus this morning. Let’s set the scene, first. There’s a lot of history crammed into the first two chapters of Exodus. The Hebrew people have ended up in slavery in Egypt, but when the Pharaoh or king of Egypt orders the death of Hebrew baby boys, one boy is saved and not only that, he’s adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and spends the first forty years of his life in luxury, named Moses and raised as a prince of Egypt. One day, he makes a deadly mistake that causes him to spend the next forty years in exile in the desert as a shepherd. Imagine an 80-year-old man herding sheep—and yet, in reality, Moses is just getting started with God’s purpose for his life. When we come to Exodus 3, the God of his ancestors has met him in a burning bush, spoken to him, and called him to be the one who would help set the Hebrews free from slavery. Chapter 3 and the first part of chapter 4 are basically Moses’ attempts to get out of this call from God—excuse after excuse, which God knocks down until, in 4:13, Moses finally says, “Lord, please send someone else!” I honestly love that—Moses is so human! Just send someone else, please! But buried in the midst of this argument Moses has with God is a revelation of who God is because Moses learns God’s name.

Knowing a person’s name means we have some sort of relationship with them, even if it is from a distance. But it was believed in ancient times that knowing the name of a god was imperative if you were going to approach that deity or ask for help from that particular god. The name of the god would tell you something about their character, and if you knew the personal name of the god, you enjoyed a privileged relationship with that god (Dunnam, Communicator’s Commentary: Exodus, pg. 72). Up until this point, the Hebrew people have not had a “personal name” by which to call their God—usually he was referred to as the creator God or as “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” So one of Moses’ excuses is basically this: “I don’t know your name. If they ask me who you are, what should I tell them?” Moses apparently knows the people have forgotten who God is; they’ve abandoned their roots and, most likely, adopted at least some of the Egyptian ways of worship and belief. So if Moses is going to try to rescue them in the name of their ancient God, he thinks he’s going to need a name, a calling card. Who should I tell them sent me? What’s your name?

The words God said back to Moses have been a source of discussion and comment and confusion for millennia now. In our English Bibles, it’s often translated as “I am who I am.” It sort of sounds like Popeye, right? It could also be translated as, “I will be what I will be” or “I create what I create” (Enns, NIV Application Commentary: Exodus, pg. 102). That’s not God’s name, by the way. Actually, the sense of the phrase in Hebrew is more like a question. It’s more like God is saying, “What does it matter who I am?” Why do you want to know my name? The Egyptians and others want to know the names of their gods so they can control them, but you can’t control me. Even if you know my name, I’m not obligated to do what you say like those other gods are. What does it matter who I am (cf. Enns 102)? And yet, God goes ahead and does give Moses his personal name. He condescends to Moses’ request, not because Moses asked, but because God wants the people to know something about himself. His name is not “God.” His name is Yahweh—or, as our English Bibles put it, “I Am” (3:14).

As a quick aside, we need to remember that “Yahweh” is the best current guess as to how God’s name is pronounced. At one time the most common guess was Jehovah, and the differences exist because there are no vowels in Hebrew. God’s name in the text is just YHWH. Over the centuries, the name of God was not pronounced for fear it would be said in an unworthy manner, and the actual pronunciation was lost. But the meaning was not. Yahweh—I Am—the God who always has been, who always is, who created everything there is and sustains it each and every day. I Am—the one whom the psalmist celebrates with these familiar words: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4). I Am—the God who is far above and beyond anything we can imagine, who is not bound by the events or circumstances that control us. The fancy theological word is that God is transcendent—above everything. Yet, this God, this I Am, is also immanent—he is closer than we can imagine. He is not what the Greeks called the “unmoved mover,” the one who set the world going and walked away or just sits back to watch the show. He is close to us, he is involved in our lives. I saw a fantastic picture of this idea this past week in this video that surfaced from Great Britain. (VIDEO: British Boy Salutes, No Sound!) This little boy, dressed up in his British guard gear, salutes the soldiers as they walk by. Normally, such guards are emotionless and pretty much ignore everyone around, but this time, one of the guards turns back and stands with the little boy to allow a picture to be taken. He comes to be with this little one who wants to be like him. How like God—he doesn’t have to pay attention to us, he is transcendent, but he chooses to be with us—he is immanent. To Moses, headed into a dangerous situation, this God says, “I will be with you” (3:12). His heart is broken by the things that break our hearts, and yet he is above it all (cf. Frazee & Noland, Think, Act, Be Like Jesus, pgs. 34-35).

Moses experienced this far-yet-near God in a burning bush in the middle of the desert. Moses wasn’t necessarily looking for God, and yet there he was. God often shows up when we least expect it, surprising us with his presence. I experience God’s presence in the midst of creation. In fact, the more I learn about creation and its incredible intricacies, the more I am amazed at the power and majesty of the creator. Mathematician John Lennox  says the odds for the self-organization of the universe are somewhere around 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power. Put another way, astronomer Fred Hoyle said that the possibility of life on earth organizing on its own would be like a gale force wind blowing through a junkyard and, after it passed, finding that a Boeing 747 had spontaneously assembled itself (qtd. in Hamilton 25). Evolution may explain how things change and morph through time but it still can’t account for how things started. There’s an unexplainable factor that you have to turn to the book of Genesis to find an answer for: in the beginning, God. Even those who doubt the existence of God are more and more admitting that creation shows clear hints of design, which means there must have been a designer. When I am out in creation and I see how things work together, I am once again amazed and astounded by this God who stands above it all and yet cares for it all.

I’ve experienced the presence of God in the birth of both of my children. There is something holy, something powerful in being a co-creator with God, in the moments when a new life comes into the world. Even the most hardened of hearts can’t help but give thanks and even tear up a bit when they hold a newborn baby. Life itself is a gift, a miracle that ushers me into the presence of God. And, similarly, I experience the presence of God when I stand beside a casket and celebrate the life of a person who has been faithful, who has loved God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Those are not times I look forward to—none of us do—but they are powerful times when God’s presence is so very near, again because life is a gift and we know that on a “gut” level. I experience the presence of God in worship, in music, in a quiet moment (of which there are too few these days), and in the words of a friend who speaks just what I need to hear at that moment. None of these, of course, prove the existence of God. None of these will convince a committed atheist that God is real. But when it comes to the foundation I want to build my life on, I come back to these words: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”

And the foundation we choose is important—vital, even. Several years ago, I heard Ravi Zacharias share about his visit to the Ohio State University. As they drove past the Wexler Center for the Performing Arts, his host pointed the building out, calling it America’s first postmodern building. “What is a postmodern building?” Zacharias asked. His host explained: “The architect said that he designed this building with no design in mind. When the architect was asked, ‘Why?’ he said, ‘If life itself is capricious, why should our buildings have any design and any meaning?’ So he has pillars that have no purpose. He has stairways that go nowhere. He had a senseless building built and somebody has paid for it.” Zacharias considered the building and then asked, “Did he do the same with the foundation?” That question was met with silence (https://goo.gl/N7tPXp), because we know that if the foundation is not solid, if we don’t build our lives on something that is rock solid, neither the building nor our lives will stand. That’s why this statement of faith we call the Apostle’s Creed begins on this firm foundation: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

So why does believing in God matter today, in my life? First of all, a belief in God gives my—and your—life purpose and direction. Look at Moses. Once he got over his complaints and his excuses—or once God pushed him past all those—Moses found his true purpose in his life and did more in his last forty years than he did in the first eighty. When you hear the name “Moses” mentioned today, it’s not because he was a shepherd or even because he was once a prince of Egypt. We remember Moses as a rescuer, the one who led the people out of Egypt, the one who brought God’s law to the people. He is Moses the lawgiver, Moses the redeemer, Moses the leader—not Moses the shepherd or Moses the prince. When he built his foundation firmly on his belief in God, his life gained a purpose it never had before. And, along with that, let me offer a word to those who might think their best days are in the past. Perhaps you’re older, and you’ve experienced loss in your life—physically, emotionally or other ways. Let me remind you: Moses’ best days were after age eighty. God still has a purpose for you and for your life. Your physical situation may not allow you to lead people the way Moses did, but there is still work to be done. You can pray. You can lend support to various ministries. You can share your faith. God is not done with you yet. Billy Graham famously said that retirement is not a concept found in the Bible, and he’s right. You may retire from your everyday job, but you do not retire from the kingdom of God. God still has a purpose for you.

For me, what gets me up every morning is the possibility that God might use me in some unique and maybe even important way today. My life’s purpose was solidified when I answered God’s call on my life to be a pastor. Until that time, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do (notice the emphasis on “I”), I was restless. Answering God’s call on my life for today gets me out of bed every morning. Now, God has not called every person to be a pastor, but he does have a purpose for every one of you. Your job, the thing that puts food on the table, may or may not be the thing you feel called to do. Your calling might be found in teaching children and youth about Jesus. It might be found in helping those in need to repair their houses or find work or make Biblical decisions for their lives. Not everyone’s job and call overlap; I get that. But if you believe in God, if you’ve chosen to build your life on the foundation of the great I Am, he does have a purpose for you each and every day of your life. No one is useless to God.

The second reason belief in God matters is that it reminds and assures us we are never alone (cf. Goldingay, Exodus & Leviticus for Everyone, pg. 20). That was one of the assurances Moses needed. When he asks this burning bush, “Who am I? Why do I matter? What difference will it make if I go before Pharaoh?” he receives God’s assurance: “I will be with you.” Jesus, the son of God (whom we will talk more about next week), said the same thing in some of his farewell remarks to his followers. On a mountain in Galilee, even as he sent them into the world to share the good news, he reminded them, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And that same promise is among the last words of the Bible. In the book of Revelation, as the apostle John is given glimpses of the end, he is told that the ultimate goal, the hope of all creation is that God will be with his people fully: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3; cf. Richter, The Epic of Eden, pg. 129). One of the most common themes in the Bible is “God is with us,” and because of that we are told we should not be afraid. At almost every funeral I do, I remind people of that fact using the words of King David: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). We are never alone; God is with us. In my own life, I’ve experienced this truth many times, but the most profound time was when I unexpectedly ended up in the hospital, struggling to breathe due to an erratic heartbeat. We already knew I had a heart murmur, but this was a new symptom and we had driven home from Wilmore, Kentucky to Lafayette to see my cardiologist. After checking my heart, he put me right in the hospital to run some tests and try out some medicines. I will never forget that first night. Cathy and my parents had gone to Sedalia for the night and I was alone in the hospital room. There was nothing on the television I wanted to watch, and the silence began to settle in. And in that moment, when I felt confused and lost, I sensed in a strong, powerful way the presence of God. I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I sensed in my spirit a whispering saying, “It’s going to be okay.” I had no assurance in that moment that I was going to be healed, but I knew it would be okay because God was with me. It’s hard to explain, but I was reminded in that hospital room that I was not alone after all. God was with me, even there.

Another way this belief makes a difference in our lives today has to do with creation care. I’ve preached whole sermons on this topic, so I don’t have time to go into it all this morning, but creation care is different than environmentalistism. It has to do with motive. The environmentalist movement is largely based around the idea that the world is very fragile and we have to care for it to protect ourselves. It’s really all about “me.” But the Bible says the world is made by and sustained by God himself, the creator. The world reflects God, and that God calls us to care for the creation. You find that in the very story of creation itself. In Genesis 1, God tells the humans he creates to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28) or, in older translations, it says to “take dominion over” the earth. Sometimes we’ve interpreted that to mean “pillage and plunder, use it all up,” but that’s not what the author, quoting God, means. We have to interpret that verse with the same command in Genesis 2, where the instruction is this: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (2:15). Take care of it—in other words, be a good steward of what you have been given. As we are told with everything we are entrusted with, we’re not owners. We are only stewards of anything we have, because ultimately it all belongs to God. So when it comes to creation, our stewardship responsibility should include things like recycling, thinking about things like fuel and energy economy, promoting sustainable agriculture, turning off the lights when you leave a room. Those are acts of creation care, acts of Christian discipleship and stewardship.

Finally, because we believe in this God, our lives ought to result in praise and worship toward him. That’s the response of the Biblical authors. Right in the middle of your Bible is a book of songs, worship songs that reflect the life of the community of Israel. There are 150 hymns in the book of Psalms, and the final one is really a summary of all that has come before. The writers of the psalms are not shy about calling God out, about complaining when things are not going well or when it seems that the enemies will win the day. And yet, even in the midst of all that life has to throw our way, the psalmist, in the end, sings these words: “Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord” (Psalm 150:1-6). When things are difficult, when life is hard, we turn to worship to gain a different perspective, to begin to see the God who is above it all and who is, ultimately, in control of it all. Music is something I really connect with, and I often wake up in the morning with a song in my mind and heart. I will find myself sort of absent-mindedly singing whatever song that is in the shower, and most of the time it’s a worship song, maybe one of the ones we sing here or something I’ve heard on the radio or my iPod. That begins to set the tone for the day, as I worship the great I Am, the one who is, who was and who is to come. Belief in God calls us to worship, not only when things are going well, but especially when things are going wrong. To absent yourself from the community of believers, from the times of worship when things are hard is to rob yourself of one of the best resources you have available to rise above the circumstances of life. Worship connects us to God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and it allows us to see that the worst thing is never the last thing.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth…do you? And if you do, are you willing to allow that belief to shape your life, to change your community? In the weeks to come, we’re going to explore other beliefs, but this really is the bedrock of our faith. This is where we stand. Now, some of us may have learned the Apostle’s Creed when we were kids, or in Confirmation class. Myself, I learned it during my first appointment, where it was a regular part of the worship service and it would have been embarrassing for the pastor to not know it by heart! I had to learn it quickly because reciting the Creed had not been part of the church I was in growing up. Some of you, like me before 1993, may never have learned it, but I want to encourage you, during this series, to memorize or re-memorize the creed, as a reminder of these truths we stand upon. To help you with that, as you leave this morning, you will receive a refrigerator magnet with the creed printed on it. Put it somewhere you will see it often—for many of us that would be the refrigerator! But take some time each week between now and the end of February to work on getting these words, these core beliefs, into your heart and mind. Then, starting next week, we will have a drop box up here in the front, and when you feel you not only have this creed memorized but when you’re willing to allow these beliefs to shape your life, you’re invited to put your name on one of the little hearts that will be there and drop it in the box. In that simple action, you’re saying that you’re putting your whole heart into this faith we proclaim. By the end of February, our goal is to have the box filled up with hearts representing people who are focused on living out this faith, making a difference for the sake of the great I Am.

Now, remember Blondin, the tightrope walker from thirty minutes ago or so? After he asked for a volunteer to ride on his back across Niagara Falls, the crowd was silent. Even after shouting, “We believe in you!” they weren’t willing to take an extra step to live out that belief. Finally, one man stepped out of the crowd and, without saying much at all, climbed onto Blondin’s back and for three and a half hours, stayed there as Blondin inched his way back across Niagara Falls to the Canadian side. Only later did the crowd find out that the sole volunteer was Blondin’s manager—a man who had a vested interest in Blondin’s success. Are we “invested” in what we believe? Do we believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth enough that we’re wiling to step out, live out this belief and allow it to make a difference in everything we do? Are we willing to do whatever is necessary to represent the great I Am well? Let’s pray.