Who Am I?

Exodus 3:1-15

Title: Who Am I?

I. Moses' Identity Crisis - Who Am I?

II. God's Identity Revelation - I AM

III. God's Everlasting Promise - "I will be with you"

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father and from His Son Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin of the world.

This morning, I would like to invite everyone to enjoy a story in scripture that no doubt is very familiar to many of you. Our story takes place a little east of the Gulf of Aqaba near what today is called the Al-Jawf Region in northern Saudi Arabia. At the time of our story, however, the area was called the land of the Midianites. The Midianites were the direct descendants of one of the children that Abraham had with his second wife Keturah. In Genesis chapter 25 we discover that after the death of Sarah, Abraham took another wife named Keturah and together they had six children. As a side note, some ancient rabbis believed that Keturah was in actually Abraham's former concubine Hagar. They believed that soon after Sarah's death, Abraham brought Hagar back home and gave her the new name Keturah which means "incense" or "sweet smelling one". The Bible is unclear on the subject so we really don't know a great deal about Keturah except that she became the matriarch of some 16 different tribes with one of them being the Tribe of the Midianites.

Our story is found in the book of Exodus chapter three. Almost immediate everyone will recognize that our story revolves around Moses' encounter with the LORD at the Burning Bush. It's a story that is a favorite among children, teens as well as adults. It is a story that has become a favorite in Vacation Bible School, Youth Classes as well as Small Group Adult Bible Studies.

This morning, we are going to focus our attention on the first 15 verses of that story where we discover Moses and God starting off by sharing their identities with one another. Moses shares his identity crisis while the LORD reveals Himself as the Good God of All Creation. Interspersed throughout our story we also discover the LORD invites Moses to experience a life changing transformation and then invites Moses to co-partner with Him on a rescue and redemption mission for the People of Israel. As we read and study this passage this morning, it is my hope that we also discover an even deeper truth. The truth that God wants us to experience the same life changing transformation along with co-partnering with Him on a continually rescue and redemption mission for all the people on earth today.

Let's turn to Exodus chapter three and stand as we hear God's Word.

I. WHO AM I? - verse 11

Moses sums up his whole self-identity crisis in verse 11 when he replies to God's invitation by asking both God and himself a very simple but very deep question - WHO AM I?

One of the things that the first two chapters of the book of Exodus share with us is that Moses had to deal with an ongoing identity crisis. It's an identity crisis that has a great many twists and turns. For example:

Moses was born to live out his life on earth as a Hebrew slave. His life was destined to be one in which he would be working as hard as he could from sunrise to sunset seven days a week all year long. He would have little or no control over what he did, where he lived or even what he ate. Everything would be dictated by the whim of his Egyptian overlords.

However, through the grace of God, the Bible tells us that Moses was rescued and instead grew up as an adopted son of an Egyptian princess. Moses grew up as an elitist practically having anything and everything he ever wanted. His future seemed bright and his prospect of being one of the next leaders in the Egyptian dynasty seemed all but certain. But then we know that all came to a crashing end when out of anger he killed an Egyptian overlord and then had to run for his life out of Egypt.

The Bible tells us that for the past 40 years Moses had lived life out in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of a vast and dry wilderness wasteland. Moses had been doing his best to make a living as a Midianite undershepherd. He had become a son-in-law of a Midianite priest who had taken him in after Moses had rescued his daughters from a bunch of roughneck shepherds who were terrorizing them.

So, was Moses really a Hebrew slave, an exiled member of Egyptian royalty or merely a poor Midianite undershepherd who was living on the backside of nowhere?