On January 7th of this year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper ran an article about a woman, a young woman, 26 years old, whose name is Brittany Merrill. And the story's fascinating. It tells about how she created several years ago and now oversees an organization that's called the Ugandan-American Partnership Organization. And over the last several years, she has channeled millions of dollars in donations to that organization for the purpose of caring for orphans, caring for widows, digging wells so that people in Uganda can have clean water. And also has started a program of training, vocational training for widows in Uganda so that they can not be left to the streets and also can themselves take care of orphans. So each widow in this program cares for 10 orphans themselves. Brittany was born into a life of privilege in the Atlanta area of Georgia. Her dad's a very successful businessman. In fact, right now her dad is building a billion dollar, that's billion with a B, dollar resort in the Atlanta area. And nobody who knew her or knew this family could ever have imagined that her life would turn out the way that it has so far. Twenty-six years old, and she spends the bulk of her time among some of the poorest people in the world living among these folks in Uganda. The story of how all of this came to be is amazing, and the article actually tells it. But it all goes back to a meeting that she had with a young woman about her own age in 2004. It was a 10 minute meeting with a woman by the name of Sarah Camara. And Sarah Camara lives in a tiny hut in a Ugandan village and cares for 24 orphans that sleep on her dirt floor. every night. And from that 10 minute meeting with this Ugandan woman, Brittany Merrill's life changed forever. It altered her plans. It's shifted her dreams. It changed the way that she extends her energy. It has radically impacted her life. Well, I wonder if you've ever had a meeting like that. Have you ever met somebody that so impacted your life that things just changed, your whole direction of life changed? Maybe it was a teacher. Maybe it was a friend and the friendship developed that changed the way you view the world. Maybe it was your spouse. Not every relationship has the power to completely change your life, but there is one relationship That has not only the power to change your life, but the power to transform your life. And that's the relationship that emerges when you really meet God. When you meet the true God. The God who's revealed himself to us in the Bible, when you meet God, everything changes. There are many people in this room this morning that could testify to the truthfulness of that statement. We've heard stories from a lot of the folks that are gathered with us this morning of how they met God. Their life was going this way. God met them and suddenly their life goes a different way. We've heard those stories. We have those stories right here in this room. And this morning in our continued study of the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, we're going to see another account of how meeting God changed life. It's the story of Moses, how God came to Moses, interrupted his life and completely transformed the rest of his life. It's found in the third chapter of the book of Exodus, second book in the Bible. If you've got a copy of one of the Bibles that's in the chair in front of you, it's found on page forty six. Several weeks ago, we began just working through the book of Exodus. God willing, over the next several months, we're going to continue to study verse by verse from this wonderful book and in this book. Coming to the first 10 verses of the third chapter today, we're going to see how Moses met God. Or more accurately, how God met Moses, so here the word of God, as I read the first 10 verses from Exodus chapter three. Now, Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 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're 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. 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 and the Amorites, the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I've also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them come. And I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God. The God who saves reveals himself to people who have been humbled. And he reveals himself in amazing grace and in blazing glory. This is what we see in the encounter between God and Moses at that incredible sight of a bush that's on fire and yet does not burn up. Sometimes when we think about Moses and his life, we might be tempted to assume that he had everything going for him from the earliest part of his life. We read about him in both Old and New Testament. He's commended to us as an incredible man of God, a man who did unbelievable exploits. And if you're not careful, you might think, well, of course, I mean, he was born to a faithful family, right? He was. But as you recall from the earlier chapters of this book, he didn't get to live with his family very long. The scripture tells us that Moses did not grow up being intimately acquainted with the Lord God whom he ultimately served so well. Now, in God's providence, Moses was born to a Jewish family who were living as slaves in Egypt at a time when Pharaoh had issued an order that all Jewish baby boys should be murdered, should be thrown into the Nile River. But God, in his providential kindness, preserved Moses, kept him alive. And again, as you recall, he worked it out so that Moses's own parents could raise him, but they only had him for nine or 10 years. Then they delivered him to Pharaoh's daughter, who officially adopted him. And he was raised, trained in all of the ways of Egypt. Moses was raised to be an Egyptian. In Acts chapter seven, verse 22, we read that he was instructed in all of the wisdom of Egypt. Now, what this means is that Moses didn't go to a Christian school. He didn't go to a Christian college. He didn't go to Sunday school. He didn't attend a church. Moses learned everything that he knew about God in his early life in those first nine or 10 years when his parents instructed him before they had to deliver him to Pharaoh's household. But beyond that. Moses lived during a time when God had not revealed himself for more than 400 years. You read the book of Genesis and at the time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we see God revealing himself to those men and their families time after time. Sometimes he did it in dreams, sometimes in visions, sometimes in audible voices where they heard him speak. But the last time that God had revealed himself to his people was when he told Jacob to, yes, indeed, get up, go with his family into Egypt, where Jacob's son, Joseph, had risen to power because this was God's plan. And so he told Jacob, take your family, go to Egypt. But that was more than 400 years before the scene in the text before us today. So for 400 years, God's been silent. Four hundred years, the people of Israel have lived in Egypt. Their situation has become increasingly desperate. And yet God has not responded. During those centuries, the Israelites fell into disfavor with Pharaoh, they became his slaves, as we've seen in chapters one and two, they were treated brutally. They were made to suffer horrendously. Yet God, through those centuries, didn't speak, he remained silent, he didn't intervene. Until this day, when he shows up in the middle of the wilderness and reveals himself in the most peculiar fashion in a burning bush, but in doing so, Moses met him and Moses's life was changed forever. I want us to look at these 10 verses, this story of the burning bush, which is fairly well known to us today, and to see how God reveals himself to people and to see it in terms of three broad headings, three broad categories that we find in the actual verses themselves. The first is this. God reveals himself to humbled people. To people who have been humbled, to people who are Humble. Remember Moses's story. He was raised in a royal family. He grew up in Pharaoh's household. That meant he had the best food to eat. It meant he had the best education afforded to him. He had all of the advantages of the Egyptian kingdom given to him. He became a powerful prince in Egypt. At age 40, He went out to check on his people because he knew he was a Hebrew. He knew he wasn't an Egyptian. And he saw an Egyptian taskmaster abusing one of his Hebrew brothers. And so he looked this way, looked that way, and he killed that taskmaster and that he buried his body, hoping that he'd gotten away with it. Here's a man who's pretty self-assured. Here's a man who has confidence, who has power, who has ability, who's not afraid to take another man's life. And after that, it was made known to Pharaoh. Pharaoh put a price on his head and Moses, having thought that the people of Israel would realize that God was raising him up to be their deliverer, maybe even entertaining delusions that he would be the next Joseph who would rise to power in Egypt and be able to make things better for his people. Instead, at age 40, he's exiled to Midian. Running for his life, unable to go back home because he's wanted for murder. Now, in Chapter three opens. Moses is 80 years old. And he's working for his father in law. He's a shepherd, a shepherd. You might recall when Joseph brought his people, his brothers and their families, his father into Egypt. He says, when they ask you what you do, don't tell them that you're shepherds, because Egyptians hate shepherds. So Moses, raised as an Egyptian, learning to look down on shepherds, now finds himself in the lowly work of a shepherd. His earlier dreams and hopes of delivering Israel had failed. And so for 40 years, he's been humbled as a shepherd. During that time, he became a husband, he became a father. And during that time, he also was humbled by the time that Exodus three opens and this scene unfolds before us. You don't get the sense that Moses regarded himself any longer with self-importance. You don't get the sense, and we will see it in the rest of the chapter in chapter four, especially that Moses is brimming with self-confidence. With a can do attitude, look who I am, look what I can do. Something has happened to Moses over the course of the last 40 years, and that that has happened can be described with the word humility. God humbled him and by humbling him, God prepared him to meet. The God of the universe. When Moses was ready. Through humility, God appeared, God came, and we see this is the pattern that God has ordained, not only in Scripture, but throughout history. Both James and Peter teach us in the New Testament that God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Listen to what God says in Isaiah 66, one and two. Thus says the Lord. Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made. So all these things came to be, declares the Lord. In other words, what do you have that I need? I don't need anything you have. You have what you have because I have created everything and afford you whatever you have. That's what God's saying. He is underscoring the fact that he needs nothing. He's supreme. He's self-sufficient. But then the rest of that text in Isaiah 66 goes on and says this, but this is God speaking, but this is the one to whom I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit. and trembles at my word. Humble, contrite, trembling at the word of God. God reveals himself to people who are humble. And so God often humbles people in order to prepare them for having revelation given to them of the true and living God. The reason that many people have never met God. Is because many people have never been humbled. Quite honestly, the way that many people think of God is simply arrogant. It's just arrogant. People think God owes them something. What's being revealed when we complain against God? When we complain about our lives. We might not ever say these words, but if you dig down beneath the words, we are comfortable saying what you really get to is, God, you're not running your world very well. God, I don't like the way you're dealing with me or what you are not doing for me, what is that? And when you strip it all away and you just analyze it, it's arrogance. And many people have never met God. They've never been confronted with the truth of the living God because they reside there resides within them this harbor of arrogance and pride. Thinking that somehow God has to answer to them. Even when we ignore God. Or become indifferent or apathetic To the things of God, that kind of attitude betrays pride. Because it's a refusal to see ourselves as creatures who must one day give an account to our creator, and the Bible says God resists the proud. But he gives grace to those who are humbled. He looks with mercy and compassion to the person who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at it, at his word. Could it be, could it be that you're here this morning and you have never met the real God because you've never been humbled before God? Could that be it? Could it be that you know about God, you have enough God in your life that you can talk the talk But you've never just laid your life before him and opened up your soul and acknowledged he's God. He can do whatever he wants to do. And that your life is completely dependent upon him. In Matthew, chapter 11, we read Jesus praying about the revelation of God's salvation that he is bringing into the world. And listen to what he says in his prayer. Jesus praises Matthew 11. I thank you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and you revealed them to little children. What's he talking about? He's not talking about biological children. He's talking about people who come to him as children with childlike humility, childlike dependence, childlike confidence in him. He says you've hidden it from the wise people, the people who pride themselves in understanding. You've revealed salvation to little children. Yes, father. For such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to be by me, by my father. And no one knows the son except the father. And no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Here's a simple truth, you and I are completely dependent upon the sovereign grace and mercy of God in order to know him. We will never know God. You will never come to meet God unless God in his kindness, in his mercy, humbles you and brings you to a point where you are receptive and willing to be engaged by your creator. God chooses to reveal himself to people who humble themselves and come to him like children. As long as you think you're OK, as long as you think that you don't really need anything in this world, that you've got what you need, life's pretty well figured out, then you can kid yourself into believing that you don't really need God. But once God knocks a few props out from under you. Once sickness comes to your family, to your life, and you can't do one thing to remove it. Once death comes to a loved one, once financial reversal comes into your life, God has a thousand ways to knock the props out from under you. And when that comes, if you respond in humility, without demanding, without complaining, without blaspheming God, but in brokenness looking to him, you will find yourself in a position to meet God. Because he reveals himself. To humbled people. God often allows people to feel their own weakness and helplessness so that he can prepare them to enter into a relationship with himself through faith. This is exactly why after Jesus prayed what he did, I thank you, God, you've hidden these things from the wise, the understanding, and I thank you that you revealed them to little children for so it seemed good in your sight immediately after praying that. In Matthew 11, Jesus gives one of the most amazing invitations in all the Bible. Listen to what he says right after that prayer. He says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. My burden is light. He says God hides these things from the wise, the understanding he gives these things, he reveals them to little children. Now, then. Who's heavy laden, who's burdened, who's weighed down, who's pressed under the burdens and the cares of life, come to me, Jesus says, come to me. I'll give you rest. Some of you are here this morning and you are weighed down. You may not tell anybody about it. People closest to you may not understand the full dimensions of it, but if you are weighed down this morning, hear the words of Jesus Christ, he invites you, he commands you, come, come to me. Come, I'll give you rest. You'll find that my yoke is easy, my burden is light. You'll find that when you're connected to me, when you meet the real God through faith in me, that everything changes. Your life will take on a whole new direction and meaning. God reveals himself to humbled people. That's what he did with Moses, but I want you to notice, secondly, from our text that God reveals himself in blazing glory. This is a very unexpected place for God to reveal himself. It's in the wilderness. Our text says that it's in the West part of the wilderness. You see that the West side, verse one, literally what that word West is means backside. So it's kind of like the backside of nowhere. Here's Moses. He's gone beyond the normal range where he cares for his father-in-law's sheep, taking them to the backside by this mountain called Horeb. The Mount of the Lord, it's the mountain later identified with Mount Sinai, from which God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the revelation of his will for his old covenant people. He came in an unexpected place, he revealed himself in an unexpected way. Look at verses two and three in a burning bush. Now, some people have tried to to. naturalized this and say, well, there's a bush that has red leaves on it. And so Moses probably saw this red leaf bush. That's not true at all. This is a common bush. It's just a regular desert bush. But it's a bush that was on fire, Moses knew what fire was. And the fire was burning, but the bush was not consumed. It was a miracle. It was designed by God to reveal truth to Moses. And when God revealed himself in this way to Moses, he revealed himself with unmistakable clarity. Verse four, he calls Moses by name twice. Moses. Moses, it's a personal call, it's a personal revelation, he commands Moses authoritatively. He warns him, don't come near. And then he gives him that odd instruction, take your sandals off your feet. Remove your sandals when he speaks to Moses and reveals himself to Moses. He identifies himself with a covenantal identity. He associates himself with the covenant that had already been revealed to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Moses. Look at the name that is used in verses four through six. Look at how God identifies himself. Verse two, he's referred to as the angel of the Lord. And you see the word Lord there. It's in all capital letters. Why is that? That is a signal to us from our English translators of the Hebrew scriptures of what name is being used, because in the Old Testament era toward the end of that era and into the New Testament, the name of God was regarded to be so holy that sinful people shouldn't take it upon their lips. And so whenever rabbis would read from the Hebrew scrolls and they would come to this name Yahweh, which means I am, which God explains later in this story in Exodus, rather than saying the name Yahweh, which some have interpreted in English mistranslations in English to be Jehovah, instead of saying Yahweh, they would substitute the Hebrew word for Lord, Lord, and they would just speak Lord. And so Lord in all caps and our English translation is a signal that the word for God there that is actually being used is the word Yahweh, which is the verb to be. God says, I am. I am self-existence, self-sustaining, dependent upon nothing. This is the name that was associated with his covenant, with the promise that he made first to Abraham, renewed through Isaac and also Jacob. kept alive through Noah to preserve the pledge and the promise that he made to be God for his people and to ensure that they would remain his people. Verse two calls him the angel of the Lord. What is that? Well, it could be just a mere angel. The word angel simply means messenger. But throughout the Old Testament, this phrase angel of the Lord is associated with God himself. appearing in the form of an angel in what theologians call a theophany, an appearance of God, a visible manifestation of God. And verse four suggests that that's exactly what happens because it says when the Lord saw God called. So there's an identity between the common name for God and this name Yahweh, the angel of Yahweh being one and the same being. Verse six, he identifies himself with the patriarchs. I'm the God of your father, of your father, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. In other words, God speaking from the burning bush. assures Moses that he is being confronted with the same God that his father worships, that the father who raised him for those eight, nine, ten years told him about, and also the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the God of the promise. This is the God of prophecy. This is the God who has given incredible revelation of what he will do for his people. He says, Moses, I'm the God. The only God there is. You are being confronted, you are now being introduced to, you are meeting the God of the universe. He's the God who has promised to save his people. He reveals himself in glorious holiness. Verse five, he warns Moses not to approach. Why? Because there is a great distance between God and between people. God is the creator. We are his creatures. God is holy and we are sinful. So here God is separating himself from Moses. He's acknowledging his greatness and his unapproachable holiness. And then he commands Moses to take off his sandals. Why? For he says, for you're standing on holy ground. Why was it holy? What made the ground holy? It was holy because God was there. It was holy because of its proximity to the presence of the living God, therefore, there needs to be reverence, there needs to be obedience and all a recognition that whatever this God says must be done. And if God had told Moses, stand on your head because you're standing on holy ground, Moses would have done it. Because the God who is the real God has the right to command us to approach him any way that he sees fit. And he tells Moses, take off your sandals for the ground you're standing on is holy. But even before God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, in the burning bush itself, God is showing Moses truth about who he is. I mean, why this? God could have revealed himself in a myriad of ways. Why a burning bush? Well, there's something about God's very nature that is revealed in this unusual sign. Fire was very often associated with God. We see it in the book of Exodus with the pillar of fire that we will read about later that followed the people, led the people every night, protected them as they camped. When God first revealed himself to Abram in Genesis 15 and and issued the covenant He manifested his covenant faithfulness, his presence through a smoking oven and a flaming torch. Fire, in some ways, signifies something of the nature of God. In fact, Moses later, before he sends the people across into the land of promise and Deuteronomy 424 says. Our God is a consuming fire. He is a God who's not to be toyed with. This unusual manifestation of a burning bush that's not consumed reveals God's sovereign power over creation. Who can do that? Who can burn something without it being consumed, but it also reveals God's self-sufficiency. The flame wasn't dependent upon the bush to stay alive. The bush just became the frame for the flame to be manifested. And so God is not dependent upon anything outside of himself. God is completely independent and self-sufficient. God reveals himself to Moses as the holy, sovereign, eternal, self-sufficient Lord over creation. No wonder, verse six says, that Moses hid his face. He's meeting the real God. He's in the presence of true deity. He was afraid to look at God. Fear of God. Is the beginning of wisdom. To know God. Is to fear him. If you don't fear God. Then I can assure you, you don't know God. If you can be nonchalant in your attitude toward God. And you've never met the God of the Bible. There's not a place we find in Scripture where God reveals himself to a mortal without that mortal sensing something of his being undone in the presence of deity. And Isaiah, chapter six, even a holy man, Isaiah, he was a priest and he's there ministering in the temple. And he simply says, I saw the Lord. And you remember what happened to the priest, holy man, Isaiah, when God manifested his presence in an unusual way in the temple? Isaiah said, quite literally, I'm coming apart at the seams, I'm disintegrating. Woe is me. Because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the king, God. He thought he was going to die. You remember, John, the apostle of Jesus Christ? The one who evidently had the most intimate, personal relationship with Jesus when Jesus was on Earth. In Revelation, chapter one, the risen Christ and all of his glory revealed himself to John. He came into the presence of John. You remember what happened to John? Revelation 117 says John fell at his feet as a dead man. To know God is to fear God. And if there is no fear of God in your life, then you can be sure of this. You don't know the true God. Now, that doesn't mean that you have a craven fear like. An escaped convict would have of police. But it does mean that you realize that the one with whom you have to do the one whose presence is among us today in worship, the one who speaks to us in his word, the one to whom we pray is God, holy, almighty, self-sufficient, eternal Lord of creation. And the right attitude and the right response for a creature in the presence of his creator Is reverence all? What the Bible calls fear. If you know the true God, then you cannot treat sin as a light thing. An indifferent thing. This is what happened to Adam and Eve when Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, created by God, they Live with God in such a way that Scripture says they walked with him in the garden like friends would take a walk. They took walks with God. But when sin came, do you remember what happened? They hid from God. Why? Because intuitively they knew now in their unrighteousness, in their sinfulness, they were no longer fit to be in the presence of the holy God. They had broken the commandment of the God who made them, the God who loved them, the God who was good to them. And intuitively, they knew. We need to hide from this guy. And they could not approach him and they would never be accepted by him unless he had come and made a way. Unless he had provided access, which he did and signified by killing animals, covering their nakedness in the skin of those slain animals, slain to represent atonement for their own sin. Have you ever felt like you wanted to hide from God? Have you known what that is, that dread, that sense of. I'm unworthy, I don't deserve to be in his presence, if so, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It might be that God is actually teaching you, showing you truth about himself and truth about you in order to meet you, in order to get you to know him genuinely and deeply. Because in our sin, we are not fit for the presence of God. In his holiness, he is too pure to look upon our sin with any kind of acceptance. Moses, after he led the people out of Egypt and across the Red Sea in that miraculous. Crossing on dry ground. composed a song and he sang it in Exodus 15, and it has this word about the Lord in it, that he is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises. God reveals himself in blazing glory. He is the God of glory. He is holy. He is self-sufficient. He is the Lord of all creation. He is unapproachable in his holiness. Nobody can come into his presence unless he makes provision for them. That's true. But if that's all that we knew about God, That's all that we understood about his revelation that we would never be able to enter his presence. We could never really know him because our sin is no match for his holiness and our sin would prevent us from entering into his presence. But God not only reveals himself to the humbled Moses in his blazing glory, Our text goes on to say in verses seven through 10, he reveals himself in redeeming grace. Look at verse seven, he says it in verse seven, then he emphasizes it reiterates it in verse nine that he sees and knows the sufferings of his people. He cares. He's compassionate. The cries of his people reached him. Indeed, it says, underscoring the certainty of it. God is not passive. He's not ignorant. He's not oblivious to what's been happening. It may have seemed that way. And after all, it's been 400 years and at least the last 80 to 100 years have been very intense in the persecution, brutality. Suffering that his people had experienced. Even now, His people are suffering in Egypt. But God's not revealing Himself in Egypt. God's working in Midian. He's revealing Himself in Midian. It may appear that God is indifferent to the cries of His people, but God is always aware of the cries and the sorrows of His people. Psalm 56, 8 says, You have kept count of my tossings, my wanderings, my being tossed back and forth, put my tears in your bottle, Are they not in your book, brothers and sisters, God, figuratively speaking, has a bottle. Where he collects your tears. He has a book where he's written down your sorrows, God is not indifferent. God is not cold, he knows our sorrows are known to him. He is not passively sitting by in the wake of our sorrows. Rather, he's working, he's planning, he's fulfilling his promise for our complete deliverance in ways that will absolutely be for our best interest. God acts to save his people and to do so by his grace. Look at verse eight. Did you notice this verse when I read it earlier? This is an incredible verse. God says, 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 these tribes that he then names. You see it. God comes down to lift us up. God stoops, he bends low. in order to raise us up. That's an incredible picture that he gives to Moses of what he is doing, what he is determined to do. He reveals his mission to Moses. It is a rescue mission, and there's two aspects of it. He stoops down to deliver his people from bondage. To set captives free. To give liberty to those who have been enslaved, they were under cruel taskmasters. They are in a situation that is hopeless, helpless. No way the Israelites can deliver themselves. They can't get rid of their situation. They can't throw the chains off of their hands. Same thing's true for you and me and our sin. The Scripture says whoever sins is a slave to sin, and if you're a slave to sin, if you've never been set free by God, you cannot free yourself. You can turn over a thousand new leaves. You can make a hundred resolutions, you cannot change yourself, your situation can feel hopeless, it can look helpless and left to your own resources, it is. But God comes down to lift us up. To deliver his people from bondage, but look what it also says to deliver his people to something incredible. to a great new home, a new inheritance, what the text calls a good and broad land. In other words, all they need. They've been living in Goshen, which was some of the best land in Egypt. But the text tells us that they multiply. They're now more than a million of them. And so they probably felt really pressed in that small place where they were required to live. But God says, I'm going to take you to a place where you can stretch out a broad land and look at how he goes on to describe it. A land flowing with milk and honey. What is that? It's a picture of a land of abundant provision. A land that is already cultivated, a land where you can not only have your needs met, but you will delight in the provisions that it gives you. What's God saying here? So I'm going to take you to a place where you will be able to depend upon me and receive from me everything you need, everything that you might require in order to enjoy life to the fullest. God is saying I'm giving you myself by providing this land for you, a land where you will live in confidence, in trust, in dependence upon me. The land that he goes on to describe that is currently inhabited by other people, six nations that he mentions here. Why? Why mention that? I think what God is preparing Moses to teach his people is that, look, this is true. I'm giving you this, but it's not going to be a cakewalk. It's not going to be without a fight. They're enemies. And you're going to have to learn to fight the enemies. You're going to have to learn to drive out the enemies. Again, brothers and sisters, this is a picture of what God does for us in the eternal salvation that Jesus Christ gives us. And that is true for us, too. God has prepared a land for us. He's giving us himself everything we need, everything our hearts long for, to find joy and delight in him. But there are Canaanites and Perizzites and Hivites and Amorites in the land, and we have to fight them. We have to put sin to death. We have to resist all the temptations to go other ways than the way of faith in Jesus Christ. The promise is real. It's true. There's abundant provision. There's life. There's joy. And it's yours when you fight the fight of faith to live independence, confidence, hope, trust in all that God provides for us. In his son. Despite all opposition. God will deliver his people to the land flowing with milk and honey. God does all this in love and grace, he hears the cries of his people and he responds. Verse 10, he calls Moses. This is the beginning of an extended conversation that we'll see in the rest of this chapter into Chapter four, where God tells Moses that he's to go to Pharaoh, he's to be the redeemer of his people. He tells Moses to enter into God's own rescue mission. He tells Moses to do the work of a redeemer, the work of a mediator. And the rest of the book unfolds how Moses does exactly that. Do you see what God is doing here in this story? God's revealing himself as he really is to Moses, who's been humbled so that now he's prepared to receive the revelation. God's making known himself to the one who he will use to deliver his people from bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. And he reveals himself in his blazing glory, his self-sufficiency and holiness. And he reveals himself in mercy and meekness, in tenderness and grace. Compassionate, caring for his people, the God who comes down to lift us up, to save us from our sin and despair and deliver us to a life of unending blessing and joy that is found in dependence upon him. The salvation that God provided for his ancient people in Egypt is a picture, a portrait, an anticipation of the eternal salvation that God provides for all of his people in Jesus Christ. Moses was raised up by God to represent Jesus. He was prepared by God, sent by God to deliver his people from slavery to the land of promise. And in doing all of that, Moses was a type Moses was a foreshadowing. He was a billboard pointing forward to someone who would come as a greater than Moses and bring about eternal redemption for his people. And the story of Moses. Prepares us for the story of Jesus Christ. Just as God raised up Moses and sent him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, So God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to lift us up, to save us from sin and to bring us into fellowship and union with him. Forever. God revealed the truth about himself to Moses in that burning bush. And in doing so, he changed Moses's life and he set the stage for others to have their lives changed as well because they came to know God. I wonder this morning if I'm talking to somebody here who doesn't know God, do you know God? I'm not talking about knowing about God. Moses knew about God. Have you ever met God? Do you want to meet God? Do you want your life to be transformed through the encounter with the God who created you as you receive from him the provisions he's made to rescue people like you? In Jesus Christ, God came down to lift us up. In Jesus Christ, God makes himself known. If you want to know God, humble yourself before him. Be honest this morning about yourself. Admit who you are and what you are before God. Confess to God that you are a sinner. You have broken his law. You've not lived the way you should live. Be faithful in the responsibilities that he has given you. Isn't it interesting? Forty years, Moses is tending flock. That's all he's doing is tending sheep. But it was in the midst of being faithful in what he knew to do that God came to him and revealed himself to him. If you want to know God, come to him in the only way that he commands. God told Moses to take off his shoes. What does God say to us? He doesn't command us to take off our shoes. If you want to know God, what does God command? He commands us to trust his son. He commands us to bow before the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me. On another occasion, Jesus said, I and the father are one. And when one of his disciples said, show us the father, it'll be enough. In John 14, nine, he says, Philip. If you've seen me. You've seen the father. You want to know God. Come to Jesus Christ. You don't know what God is like. Then gaze at Christ, meditate on Christ. God came to Moses and revealed his majesty and mercy to him as the God who is not only able to say, but is willing to say he revealed himself as the God of covenant faithfulness, who had made promises, who will keep his promise Who is holy, who is almighty, who is self-sufficient. Everything God revealed to Moses about himself was true. It was adequate. But it wasn't complete. The rest of the book, we see God revealing more of himself to Moses. You see a transformation in Moses over the book of Exodus as well as he comes to know God more. But even beyond Exodus, through the rest of the Old Testament, the prophets and the other books of law and history, we see God revealing himself more and more. There is a progressive revelation of God. It's like the dawning of a new day and it gets brighter and brighter and brighter. It's all true, but it's not complete. And the Old Testament ends with true revelation of God. And yet there's more to come. And that more to come is in the New Testament with the birth of a little baby in Bethlehem, when God becomes man in Jesus Christ and he sends his son, Jesus Christ, into the world to fully reveal himself. And in the coming of Jesus Christ, we now have the noonday sun shining the revelation of God. So if you want to know what God's like, go to Christ. You want to know God? Come to Christ. You want to hear what God has for you? Obey him. And what does he say? Come to me. Come to me. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to grow in your knowledge of God? Trust Christ. Some of you are here this morning. You're looking for God. Where should you go? Don't go out to some field and hunt for a burning bush. Don't go searching for some kind of experience. Oh, I just need this experience. You want to know God come to Christ. Look to Christ, trust Christ, God has come to us in his son. If you look to Christ and trust Christ, you'll meet God. And in meeting God. You'll be changed forever. Brothers and sisters, that's who we are, that's what's happened to us, we're people who've met God. We're people who come to Christ, we're people who God has reached down into the world, he stooped down and has lifted us up. And as those who are being lifted up, those who are depending upon his grace and provision in Christ Jesus, we ought to be the most joyful, hope filled, faith filled people in the world. Because we know God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for giving us your son in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. We thank you for his life and death and resurrection, and it teaches us the depth of your love for sinners. It teaches us the power of your grace to lift us up. And we ask that you would help us to look to Christ today and know you. I pray for those in this room who came to the room this morning. They don't know you. They've never met you. Lord, don't let them leave without revealing yourself to them. Do for others what you've done for us, what you did for Moses. Show yourself in the power of your glory, in the wonder of your grace. I'm making Jesus Christ known to the heart. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.