God Knows My Name Exodus 33:12-23
• I have heard knowing some ones name is connecting to their identity and individuality
• Knowing someone’s name is helping that person to feel known, understood, and valued
• In Exodus 33, God tells Moses, “I know you by name” your cherished you’re treasured
1. The importance of our names
• A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest sound in any language,” said Dale Carnegie.
• If Dale Carnegie is right, then the opposite must be true: not hearing our name must be the loudest, discouraging, not hearing our name makes us feel one does not matter, less-ness.
2. In the Exodus, Moses meets with God Burning Bush, Mount Sinai, Tent of meeting, cleft of rock
• Moses had an intimacy with God even though Moses is merely human
• The writer of Exodus says, God spoke to Moses “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11). Moses would speak with God at the Tent of Meeting,
• Moses and God conversed over the Journey for the Israelites. Moses reminds God of his promises. “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; God said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Consider too that this nation is your people” (vv. 12-13).
3. What “We know” about Moses
• We know that Moses has found favor in God’s eyes in verses 12-17, twice we read that God knows Moses “by name.”
• We know God chose Moses to be the leader of Israel, to deliver, to journey with them
• We know Moses is devoted to his people ,he won’t separate himself from his people. While Moses was receiving the commandments on Sinai, the Israelites were dancing around a golden calf, and yet Moses still pleaded for his people: “But now, if you will only forgive their sin — but if not, blot me out of the book you have written” (32:32).
4. Moses asks God questions
• Moses asks God to go with them listen to the text “For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us
• Moses asks God that he might see Gods glory In “Show me your glory, I pray,” he asks God (v. 18). He had seen Gods glory before
• God’s response is to not fulfill Moses’ request in full, promising to show Moses his “goodness” rather than his glory, because no human can see God’s face and live (33:20).
• The “goodness” God will reveal God promises to give Moses something as a reminder of their relationship: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, (v. 19).
5. Finally, God knows My Name Moses and God know one another’s names that connection, saves a people.
• The Scriptures reveal God who created the universe knows our names.;
• God knows my name so we won’t be abandoned in the wilderness by a God who turns a deaf ear to suffering; injustices, wrongs, discriminations, or even our sins
• God knows our names so, we won’t have to navigate our way in the world without God
• God knows your name! God knows us: that even all the hairs on our heads are numbered (Luke 12:7).
• What’s in a name? Everything! It’s the sweetest sound in any language.
• God knows my name “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
• The Psalmist says, “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.
• God knows my name, God knows, my failures, God knows my intentions God knows me and still is willing to forgive us names God promises to go ahead of us and be with us always, even to the end of the age
