EXODUS THREE: AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD
by Sidney Yuan
We would all like to have an encounter with God. The question is how to have such an encounter. Exodus Chapter 3 is a very familiar story to most of us. God encountered with Moses in a burning bush, and asked him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Moses was 80 years old at that time. A lot of us think that we are too old to serve God in our 60’s, 50’s or even 40’s. Moses spent 40 years in the palace of Egypt as a prince, 40 years in Median being a shepherd, and another 40 years trying to deliver Israelites out of Egypt, into the Promised Land. By the time he accepted God’s calling to deliver the Israelites, he was already 80 years old. Let’s look at what can we learn from Moses’ encounter with God as shown in the outline of today’s sermon
A. Preparations for Encounter with God (Exodus 3:3-6, 11, 13; 4:1, 10)
B. Purposes of Encounter with God (Exodus 3:8-10, 17)
C. Power of Encounter with God (Exodus 3:17-20)
D. Promises in Encounter with God (Exodus 4:12; 2 Corinthians 3:5)
A. Preparations for Encounter with God
First of all, let’s look at the preparations for encounter with God. What kind of preparations do we need to have an encounter with God? A lot of times, we are not prepared to have an encounter with God, either we are not aware of His presence in our lives that we don’t encounter with Him, or we are not holy or pure that we cannot encounter with Him, or we have all kinds of excuses not to serve him and we are not willing to have an encounter with him.
1. Awareness of God’s Presence (Exodus 3:3)
Let’s look at the first preparation- Awareness of God’s Presence:
Moses said in Exodus 3:3, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight". What “marvelous sight was he talking about? It was the burning bush. What’s so special about a burning bush? What would we do if we see a burning bush? I think most of us will run away. Some of us might call the police. We tend to run away, for we worry that the fire might spread and consume us. But Moses actually spent time to study this sight. He noticed that though the bush was burning, it was not consumed, which was a miracle. It was then when he said to himself, “I must turn aside now to see this marvelous sight. It’s difficult to understand why Moses would pay attention to a burning bush. Is it because he knew he was on the Holy Mountain? Moses told us in Exodus 3:1 that Mount Horeb is the Mountain of God. One might say, of course Moses was alert, if I am on the Mountain of God, I’ll pay attention too. I will turn every rock and look behind every bush to look for God. However, all Christians have the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit within each one of us. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” Do we spend time to look within us to seek God? 2 Corinthians 1:22 also reminds those who belong to God, God will give us His Spirit as a proof or a seal to show that we belong to Him. God’s Spirit is constantly speaking to us, if we care to listen. To encounter with God, we should be alert and pay attention to the presence of God’s Spirit within us, just like Moses said, we must turn from whatever we are doing and pay attention.
2. Awareness of Any Unconfessed Sins (Exodus 3:5-6)
Another reason why we don’t encounter with God, has to do with the fact that we are not holy or pure. Hebrews 12:14 says, unless we are holy, no one can see God. God said to Moses, "Do not come near here, remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God for He was Holy. Moses knew that he was a sinful person and he dared not look at God.
Nowadays, there is a tendency for us to want to be God’s buddy, and we forget that we are sinful and God is infinitely pure or holy. A broadcaster of a Christian radio station once said, he was talking to Jesus the one day while shaving. So, he was casually shaving in front of a mirror in the bathroom and his buddy Jesus just stood there talking to him like a servant? Does this person know what happened in the Scripture when Jesus revealed himself to people around him? When the Apostle John saw Jesus in Chapter One of Revelation, he fell down as though he was dead. One might argue this was only a vision. However, when Apostle Peter saw the miracle performed by Jesus in catching all the fish in Luke 5:8, he fell down at Jesus’ knee and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” When Peter saw Jesus’ miracle, he knew Jesus was God, and immediately he realized how unclean he was compared to this infinitely pure God. Also, in the Gospel of John Chapter 18, Judas led the Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus. Jesus asked, “Whom do you seek?” The soldiers replied, “Jesus the Nazarene”. When Jesus replied, “I am He”, all the soldiers drew back and fell to the ground.
Sometimes, we do try to be aware of the Holy Spirit within us, but we cannot hear Him. The reason is that we may have unconfessed sins in our lives which grieve the Holy Spirit as mentioned in Ephesians 4:30. We can grow numb to the voice of the Holy Spirit who tries to talk to us. And worse yet, we can be so rebellious that we quench the Holy Spirit as Paul says 1 Thessalonians 5:19. To quench the Spirit means that the Spirit is no longer talking to us. The Psalmist told us that in order to be close to God, we must have a pure heart & clean hands. 1 John 1:9 also teaches that “if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. In order to encounter with God, we need to pay close attention to His presence and continuously confess our sins to stay pure.
3. Awareness of our Excuses (Exodus 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10)
A third reason why we don’t encounter with God is that we have so many excuses of not to serve Him. Sometimes, we can be holy that God is speaking to us, and we can even be aware of His presence in us, but we are not willing to serve Him. In Exodus 3:11, Moses asked “who am I?”, and in Exodus 4:10, Moses said “I have never been good with my speech…I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” He forgot that it’s not him, but God who is doing the work. He was only a vessel of God which He used to further His purpose. If we notice in the Bible, God did not just pick the wise to do His work. Most of His disciples were uneducated people, like fishermen. In 2 Corinthians 1:27 Paul says, “God uses the foolish to shame the wise”, so that no one can boast. This way, God brings all glory to Himself. In Exodus 3:13, Moses asked, if I go to the Israelites, what if they don’t know You, and ask me what is Your name? In Exodus 4:1, Moses asked again, “what if they don’t believe or listen to what I say?” When we rely solely on our own abilities in performing God’s work, we will have a lot of concerns, like what if this and what if that. However, when we realize that it’s God who is doing His work through us, all we need to do is trust and obey.
B. Purposes of Encounter with God
After looking at the preparations for encounter with God, let’s look at the purposes of encounter with God. The two most important purposes are to deliver the afflicted and to bless the afflicted.
1. To Deliver the Afflicted; 3:8-10
How can we deliver the afflicted? God said in Exodus 3:9-10 the cry of the children of Israel has come to Him, and He has seen how the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites. So He sent Moses to Pharaoh that he may bring them out of Egypt. As we know, the bondage that the Israelites experienced symbolizes the bondage of sin. All of us are afflicted by the bondage and oppression of sin and God wants to deliver us. The only way to deliver us is by the blood of Christ. And for all of us who are saved by the blood of Christ, God is calling us to deliver His other children, just as He has delivered us out of the bondage of sin.
2. To Bless the Afflicted; 3:8, 17
The second purpose for encounter with God is to bless the afflicted. In verse 8 and 17 of Chapter 3, God mentioned two times, that He will bring the Israelites into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Of course, the promised land flowing with milk and honey symbolizes heaven. However, the main purpose of salvation is not to get men out of Hell and put them in Heaven. I repeat, the main purpose of salvation is not to get men out of Hell and put them in Heaven. This is only a by-product. There is another far more important metaphor in Chapter 3 of Exodus and that’s the burning bush. Thorns and bushes generally symbolize sin in the Scripture. The bush was on fire but it was not consumed. Why was the bush not consumed? Because God was in the bush. Our flesh constantly tempts us to sin and it is like a bush which is set on fire. If we accept Christ’s spirit to come within us, we are not consumed by the fire or by sin, for our sins are forgiven by the blood of Christ. On the contrary, if we do not accept Christ, we will be consumed by fire, the literal fire of Hell. If we accept Christ, we have God in us, much like God in the burning bush. Therefore, salvation is not merely getting men out of Hell and put them in Heaven. If this were the case, then all of us who are saved will be the sitting around waiting to go to heaven. Salvation is getting God out of heaven and putting Him in us, the burning bush. Yes, it is a true blessing to be able to go to Heaven, but the biggest blessing is the ability to enjoy God’s presence inside us on a daily basis, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us, and not to grieve the Spirit. God wants us to give this blessing to others and this is the second purpose to encounter with Him.
C. Power of Encounter with God
This will lead to the third main point, the power of encounter with God. If we have good preparations and we understand the purposes of encounter with God, we will be empowered by Him in carrying out His will through us. From Chapter 3 of Exodus, we see that we will be empowered in three areas, with the power of His presence, power of His word and the power of His Image.
1. Power of His Presence; 3:12-14
From the Chiastic / Parallel structure of this passage, we see that the most important passage in Chapter 3 is in verse 12 the presence of God with us. He is the Holy God mentioned in verse 5 and since he is the Holy God, He demands sacrifices for our sin in verse 18, which ultimately was fulfilled by the only sacrifice that is acceptable to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. In verses 6 and 16, God reminded Moses that He is the same God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He wanted to send Moses to the Pharaoh to deliver His people out of Egypt into the promised land. Similarly, this very same God is still reaching out to us, asking us to deliver His people from the bondage of sin.
2. Power of His Word; 3:15-21
Besides the power of His presence, we have the power of His Word. In verse 15, God told Moses what to say to the Israelites. In verse 16, God told Moses what to say to the elders of Israel. And in verse 19, God told Moses what to say to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. You see, God told Moses exactly what he was supposed to say to the Israelites and to Pharaoh. Today, God is still speaking to us through His word, the Bible.
I have seen many people claiming that God spoke to them directly, ranging from true revelation from God, to people claiming that they heard voices from God telling them to kill. How can we know if God is truly speaking to us? How can we discern God’s voice from the voices of this world, or the voice of Satan? We will know if we read the word of God. Only by carefully comparing Scriptures to the message we received, can we discern whether the message is indeed from God. Sometimes Satan will try to confuse us if we are not careful, like what he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan asked Eve if God indeed said not to eat from any tree of the garden. God did not say that. Instead God told Adam and Eve to eat from any tree except that of the Tree of Knowledge. So what Satan said was the exact opposite of God’s word. No wonder some people claimed they heard God telling them to kill people. Sometimes, Satan will even use God’s word to try to confuse us. When Satan tried to tempt Jesus to sin, he actually quoted the Bible saying that God would send His angels to protect Jesus if He would throw Himself from the top of the temple to show that He was the Son of God. Satan employed Psalm 91:11-12 on trusting God to justify testing God. But Jesus resisted Satan with God’s word also saying, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 6:16). If we are not familiar with God’s word, we will be easily deceived by Satan, or even think that it is God who is speaking to us. Therefore although God’s presence in us is the most important thing in encountering with God, we should discern God’s voice by reading the Bible carefully. That’s why we stress the importance of Engaging the Word.
3. Power of His Image; 4:1-9
Besides the Power of His Presence, and the Power of His Word, we need the Power of His Image. We may have a good message from God, but people might not believe we are sent by God. Moses was afraid that Pharaoh will not believe that he was sent by God. God gave him 3 signs or miracles. Moses was given the ability to change his staff into a snake and back to a staff. He could change his hand into leprous white and restored his hand. In the third sign, Moses could change the water from the River of Nile into blood. The Bible told us that Moses wasn’t successful with the three miracles. The Pharaoh’s wise men and sorcerers could perform these same tricks.
In John 2:23-24, we were told that many believed in Jesus’ name, after observing His signs and miracles, but Jesus would not give Himself to them. Why did He not give Himself to them? For He knew that they did not truly believe. Jesus was telling us that signs and miracles cannot make people believe. However, almost immediately after this passage, Jesus explained to Nicodemus that people who truly believe and are born again, or born of the Spirit will be like wind. The wind blows where it wishes, one hears the sound of it, but does not know where it comes from and where it is going, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. The Greek word for wind is the same as that of Spirit. So there is a play of words here. No one can see the wind but they can hear and feel the wind. Likewise, no one can see the Holy Spirit in us, but they can feel the presence of the Spirit through our conducts and actions. Sometimes, we may have a wonderful message that we want to deliver to people, but no one will believe us, unless we have proof that we are from God. If we have God in us, it will lead us to transform into the image of Christ. And when people see that, they will know that we are indeed from God, not by performing miracles, but through the image of Christ, His love, compassion, truth, mercy, grace, etc.
D. Promises in Encounter with God
1. Our adequacy comes from God (2 Corinthians 3:5-6)
The last point of this sermon is on God’s promises. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:5-6, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
Paul is essentially saying that if left to his own abilities, he was useless. He was depending on divine revelation and the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul was depending on God’s presence and His word. Only God can make us adequate to do His work. Instead of us serving God, it’s God who works through us. We are all ministers of the New Covenant, which is the forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul calls the New Covenant, that of the Spirit, and the Old Covenant, that of the letter, or the Law. The Old Covenant stressed human responsibilities. It was essentially an objective, external standard that God revealed for His people the Israelites without any special enabling grace. It was intended to show that we cannot please God by our own abilities. However the New Covenant rests on promises that include the indwelling and empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit who enables the believer to obey.
2. “Now, go!” (4:12)
In Exodus 4:12, God commanded Moses to “Go!” This reminds us of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, “Go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” A lot of times, we are afraid to think about the places that God might send us, for example, South Africa, or a hostile Muslim country. But may be it is a neighbor who needs to hear the gospel. May be it is a colleague at work, or may be it is a family member. However, we may be we still have excuses like that of Moses. But we have to remember 2 Corinthians 3:5, our sufficiency does not come from us, but from God. All we are asked to do is to “go” and let God work through us.
Let’s summarize what we have studied on the subject of encounter with God. First of all, in order to know God’s will in us, we need to prepare for the encounter with God. We need to pay attention to God’s presence in us so that we can encounter with God. We need to continue to confess our sins and stay pure so that God is able to encounter with us. We need to get rid of our excuses so that we don’t avoid any encounter with God.
Next we need to know the Importance of the purpose of encountering with God. It is to deliver people who are under the bondage of sin. Salvation is not getting men out of Hell and put them in Heaven, but getting God out of Heaven into men, and anyone who has God’s Spirit in him or her will not be consumed by eternal fire but has everlasting life.
The power of encounter with God is that He promised He will be with us. However, any revelation from God must be tested by the word of God to test out its authenticity. And no one will listen to us, unless we bear the image of Christ, with love, compassion, mercy, truth and grace.
Lastly, we should remember God’s promises that our sufficiency in carrying out His work depends on Him and all we are asked to do is simply “Go!”
The challenge for today’s sermon is- When God calls you, trust his promises and go for it!
