All right, so we're starting this new series called I Am, and any Jewish person living in the last 3,500 years would know that phrase very well, because this is how God introduces himself to Moses on the mountain, the burning bush, and that's the story we're gonna look at. And then Jesus picks up that authority and that title because Jesus was the one actually on the mountain that made that statement, to Moses, and so any Jewish person hearing that phrase, I am, would have immediately associated that with Godhood. And so when you hear these crazy people say or write, well, Jesus never claimed to be God. Everything Jesus did and said proved that he was God. Healing of the blind man, raising people from the dead, his own resurrection. But specifically when he's teaching, and all through the book of John, and that's where we'll be for the next six weeks, but all through that book, he keeps saying, I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, no way that a Jewish person would have missed that. because they love Moses and they love the first five books. They call them the books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And Moses was so revered. Does anybody know when Moses died, what they did? God sent an angel to bury Moses because Satan wanted his body. Why would Satan want Moses' body? because he knew that if the Jewish people kept Moses, they would have stuffed him and they would probably still be carrying him around today and worshiping him because he was that revered. And so God said, no, we're going to bury him in a place, and we don't know, we know what mountain he's buried on, but we have no idea where he's buried to this day. But that's how much they revered Moses then and today. And so no one could have missed this I am statement that Jesus is making. And we're gonna go through those in the next few weeks, but we're gonna see where this story starts in Exodus chapter three. In one sentence, here's what I want to say to you today. When you know who you represent, the story completely flips. And I'm going to show you that with Abraham, with Moses, with Paul, and hopefully with you and me. If you'll stand out of respect for God's word. All right, Exodus chapter three, the first 15 verses. Here we go. It says, now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, here I am. Interesting phrase. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground. And then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." Moses says to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain. Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me, and they ask me, what's his name? Then what will I tell them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you were to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. Now listen to this last verse. God also sent Moses. Say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. You can be seated. Now what does it mean? Usually we spend the entire sermon just talking about the name of God. Listen, I don't know any more about it, but I'll just tell you the truth. The Hebrew, when you break it down, God's name there is a verb. God is an action. God is spirit, He created us in his image, and I think that means we're body, soul, and spirit. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think that's one of the things that makes us like God, the three natures. But I don't know exactly what he meant by that, because God is a spirit. He lives in time, outside of time. He lives inside of us. But the actual phrase I am is a verb. So when Jesus comes along, says, I am the door, I am the great shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life. He is putting the title behind the verb so that we see how God is working amongst us. But we'll start with Moses because he is just wandering along, honestly, this is Joe's opinion, hoping that God leaves him alone. hoping that God doesn't call him to do anything. See, I'll recount real quickly Moses' life. Moses is born. He's a Hebrew. He's supposed to be killed because he's a male baby in Egypt. He gets spared. Long story short, he ends up getting adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. And for 40 years, he's raised as the crown prince. He will be the next Pharaoh in Egypt. I mean, he is the man. And then he kills an Egyptian. You can read all this in the early parts of chapter one and two. And he gets out of town because he knows they're gonna arrest him or kill him. So he flees to Arabia. Saudi Arabia today. He flees over there and ends up helping some girls water their sheep. Long story short, he gets a dinner invitation out of that, gets married, has a couple of kids, and spends the next 40 years wandering around in the desert taking care of sheep. And he assumes that that's gonna be the rest of his life. But God has other plans. Moses, I think, is hoping God will just leave him alone. But one day, he's way up in the northwest part of Arabia with the sheep, and he sees a bush on top of a mountain that doesn't burn. There's two things there. Number one, why is a bush growing out of the top of a mountain? Number two, why does it not burn up? Moses said, I got to go check this out. Now, here's what the mountain looks like. It is not the Mount Sinai that everybody celebrates as Mount Sinai in Egypt, because it specifically says the mountain was not in Egypt. It was where Jethro lived, and Jethro lives in Arabia. And interestingly enough, the Arabs all throughout history, you know what their name for this mountain is? The Mountain of Moses. All right, kind of tricky to put those pieces together, but this is not discoloration of rock like you might see out in Arizona. This rock is burnt. It is permanently burnt. Wonder how that could have happened. You get the idea. Now, this mountain is very important because this is where Moses talks to God, up here somewhere. Um, when they come back after he does lead the Israelites out of Egypt, there's a couple of three, four or 5 million people that come with him. They all come back to this same mountain. It's the place that Moses knows. And Moses goes back on the mountain to talk to God. And what else happens up on top of this mountain? He gets to 10 Commandments. That's exactly right. And what's interesting, because this is such a far out in the wilderness place, everything at the base of this mountain is still there. I can show you where each tribe, the 12 tribes of Israel camp, the altar to the golden calf is still there. All of that happened there. Later on, Elijah, when Elijah, destroys the prophets of Baal. It says he will run to the mountain of God and he will hide this mountain right here. And then we get to Paul and this usually gets overlooked because it's in one sentence. In Galatians chapter 1, It says, Paul says, but when God who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, that's all of us, I did not consult any man, didn't talk to anybody, nor did I go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately, where'd he go? Arabia. Why would he go to Arabia? Because that's where the mountain of God is. And later returned to Damascus. Here's what's interesting. That word later, five years. Five years, Paul just falls off the map. You read Acts 9, you see the conversion where he's blinded by the light of Jesus and he accepts Jesus. We see that, but the next sentence is five years later. So Paul for five years is up on that mountain. I'm assuming in the same cave that Elijah was in and probably where Moses was in when he's up there to get the 10 commandments. So why God chose this mountain? I don't know, but Moses had a choice to make. You and I see things all the time, and we're drawn to things. I mean, how many of you grew up, if there was a fire, you got in the car and drove across town to see the fire, all right? There wasn't much to do in my small town, okay? If the river flooded, we drove down to the banks of the river to see the river flooded. Small town, Missouri, what do you do? I mean, this is entertainment for us, okay? So here's this bush on top of the mountain that doesn't burn. Moses said, I gotta go check this out. He didn't have to. He chose to. And when he got up there, he hears his name. God says, take off your shoes. And God explains the calling to him. Now with everything in me, I believe God was just, or Moses was just hoping that God would leave him alone. 40 years. He did his 40 in Egypt as the prince. For the last 40, he's been out with the sheep and I think he's pretty happy. And what God's calling him to do is gonna make the last 40 years of his life absolutely miserable. We look at him as a hero leading the people, but do you remember? They hated everything. They complained and griped about everything. They wanted to kill Moses. At every turn, Moses takes junk from millions of people, and yet God used this man to lead them out of bondage. And I'm afraid that the struggle comes when you and I are here at church, but we're hoping God doesn't call us. We're hoping God just leaves us alone. Let me go to church. Don't wanna get too tied up with giving or serving or helping or going. I just, I'll do church. But I think God's got something far bigger for us. I'll show you a couple other examples. Isaiah, in chapter six, verse eight, God's speaking to Isaiah and God says, who will go for me and who will represent me? And that famous phrase where Isaiah says, here am I. Send me. Jeremiah chapter one, God's calling Jeremiah. He said, the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I anointed you as a prophet to the nations. Sounds great, doesn't it? Jeremiah said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't talk. I don't wanna speak to people. God will use Jeremiah over the next 50, 70 years to speak to the highest of the high in the city of Jerusalem. But here's what you'll miss if you're not careful. When God called Moses, when God called Isaiah, and when God called Jeremiah, he was not in a room like this. And God said, hey, I need somebody to go to Venezuela. Do I see a hand? Anywhere, do I see a hand? All of these encounters happened one-on-one. God said, Isaiah, who's gonna go for me? Moses, Moses, here's what I need you to do. Jeremiah, I've chosen you to be a spokesman for the nation. God calls one-on-one. You may be trying to hide from God, run from God, and look, I don't know what God wanting you to do. I just know that for so many people, They end up just burning up their lives with sheep, whether it's whatever, however you choose to spend your life, doing things that, there's nothing wrong with them, but there's nothing great when you could be doing wonderful things for the kingdom of God. Just something to think about. Because Moses had a choice whether he would go up the mountain. God stayed on top of the mountain, I think, for a reason. Moses, if you're interested, come up. And Moses had to make that decision. Was he gonna go up and see and hear, or would he just go ahead and just hang out with the sheep? The second part is much worse, and that is people are suffering greatly, but I am. We live in misery, but he still is I am. Now, when you look at the story that I read to you, it reads pretty plain. I mean, Jebusites and all these people, all these other ites, and these are corrupt tribes that are worshiping false gods and sacrificing their children and all kinds of other horrible things are going on. But he says, Moses, you're gonna lead my people out of Israel and you're gonna go into that promised land and you're gonna displace all of these people because I have seen the misery of my people. Okay. Here's the hard part. Does anybody know how long Israel is in Egypt? 430 years. If you read, it says to the day. God led them out the exact day that God brought them in when Joseph came down and brought Jacob down. I believe that's what's gonna happen with the second coming of Jesus. Even though you and I are going, come on, Lord, come on, Lord, when it happens, it will be at just the right second. It will unfold exactly the way God wants it to, and that's why if you've not accepted Jesus yet, don't go home without him. Stop by our guidance point out in room three. People are out there to help you. These people, and the rabbis will tell you that for the first 200 years they're in Egypt, things are pretty good, okay? That's when Joseph leads them in, they get all the good farmland given to them, Joseph's leading, and all through the plagues, but then the Jewish people begin to multiply, Pharaoh gets freaked out, and they enslave everybody. And basically the last 230 years are absolute misery. The Jewish people live in poverty and abuse. Now think about it. America's 250 years old. For 230 years, they lived this way. And then they cried out to God. And you're like, what? Let me help you. Because we're living in a very similar time today, where if you went to most churches today, they're not going to cry out to God. They may cry out to some God, but it won't be the living God. It won't be the great I Am. And there really won't be any prayers. They do more telling God who He is and what He's going to do. than they do accepting what the Bible says, but they were so out of tune with God, they didn't even bother to pray. And I think at a certain point, somebody said, hey, maybe we ought to go back and pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that's when the breakthrough began to happen. Listen, my brother lives up in Missouri. We don't talk very much, but he's busy, I'm busy. But he called me the other night in tears, and I'm like, oh, this is not good. Puddings, don't cry. This is a real issue. And he tells me the story about a relative of ours, that 13-year-old boy, and his dad died about five years ago. Suddenly, mom dropped dead, and this 13-year-old boy is alone. in the world and he comes to my brother's house and he says, I have no one. My brother's crying, I'm crying, what do we do? What do I do? I said, well, I'll tell you what. I said, I'll pray and you be. And sometimes that's what you and I have to do. You gotta say, you know what, if I'm there, I can be. If I'm not there, I can pray. My brother and I have switched those roles many times before. And people even come up and said, what can we do to help? And the answer right now is nothing, but my family's working on things. God's got a plan, but I don't understand this. And I told God that. I said, I don't get what your plan is here. I still trust you. That's the hardest thing. You see, we live in misery. but I am. He's still there. Whether it's anxiety, depression, whether you're dealing with guilt, whether you're dealing with physical pain, you're dealing with grief, God is still there. He's still the great I am. And in the end, this will all make sense. You and I have that as our confidence. The rest of the world does not have that. We have a confidence that God has a plan even in our painful time. Solomon said this in Ecclesiastes. He said, for there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him. I think Solomon was feeling that himself. Our misery weighs heavily upon us. And maybe that's why Jesus said, come to me and I will carry that load for you. Then there's a quote that I don't know who to attribute it to, but it says that 100 years ago, if it was sin 100 years ago, it's still a sin today. Don't water down the gospel, the message of Jesus for an offended generation. So stop and think about that. Was this a sin 100 years ago? And if it is, We don't get to change the word of God. We don't get to change morality. And that is, you don't have to go back much more than that. Just go back a hundred years and say, how would this behavior have been looked upon a hundred years ago? And you'll get the answers that you're looking for, or you can just go to the book itself. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this, the greatest danger to Christians is to live on yesterday's manna. That's bread. Living on what I learned last year, living on what I read yesterday, that's why we've gotta be in the Word, we've gotta be in groups, because in those groups, sometimes you get to be and sometimes you get to pray. And sometimes you need somebody else to pray so you can be. And God switches those roles around and that's why the church so desperately needs each other. And then we get to the last part, and that is Moses asked the question, who am I? And God gives him the same answer, I am. Moses knows better than anybody who he is. Forty years in the desert did not blind him from the fact that he still was a murderer. That story stayed with him. I don't think you would forget a story like that, all right? Just like the story that Ron was sharing earlier about the man who shared the gospel with him. And yet God calls him. Interesting, because same thing happened with Paul, didn't it? Paul was giving approval for all the Christians to be killed. He was hunting us down to have us killed. And yet that's the guy God chose, after five years of prep, that's the guy God chose to write half the New Testament. That's the guy God chose to bring the gospel to all of us who are Gentiles to this very day. So you're saying, well, I'm not sure that God could call me because of my past. Listen to me. Only people God has to call are people with past. Again, that message that Ron shared is so good because you have friends still back in those same places that you came away from. I don't know them. They're not gonna come listen to me, but you can go back and tell them how you got changed and tell them what Jesus did for you. That's the whole point. So when Moses says, who am I? God knows who he is, nothing. God knows who we are, nothing. Isaiah 64, 6 says, all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in God's sight. So there's nothing I'm going to do that God's going to go, oh my gosh, would you look at Joe, what a guy. No. The only thing good about me and the only thing good about you is Jesus. That's what it means to be a Christian, that statement right there. But God does call us and say, hey, I need you for this project. I need you to help with this. I need you to serve. I need you to give. I need you to be a part of this prayer team. Whatever, whatever it might be, but if you're not careful, you'll walk right by the mountain rather than say, I better go check this out and see what God wants me to do. Let's do the safe quote, I like that. Unpopular opinion, very few things create more suffering than our addiction to feeling safe. Safetyism, I've never heard that word. Safetyism is the death of aliveness. What is it God is calling you to do in 26? Is it to accept Christ? Is it to be baptized? Is it to start serving or giving or being a part of a mission team or working in the teen ministry or the children's ministry? Is it helping us with one of our church plans? I don't know, but I do know this, God has called every one of us. He's called every one of us. The question is, are you gonna keep wandering? Are you gonna sit down and talk to him about that calling? I understand, you're saying, of all times for you to call God, do you know the pain I'm going through? God said, yeah, I'm aware. Let's go do this. God, do you remember my past? You know what he says? No. Isn't that what the blood of Jesus is all about? Wiping away our sin? I wanna finish this, kinda trite, but nonetheless. We live in a time, where it is more dangerous, more dramatic to lose people's cell phones than to lose their souls. And it's because people don't think a whole lot about their souls. So I don't know where you are as we start 26, but I pray this is the day that you say, I'm gonna listen to the call of God. So Father, as we finish, would your Holy Spirit connect? Is it the calling? Is it the walking away? Is it the trusting you in the midst of misery and frustration and anxiety and pain, but knowing that you're still good and that you're still there and that you're going to get us through this and eternity is going to be forever? Are we so worried about our past that we think you can't use our presence? God, I'm asking you to spin things because once you get involved in our life, oh man, does the story change. In Jesus' name, amen.