Matt Chandler - God Speaks

Hey, good morning! How are you doing? Well, excellent! If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those—Exodus chapter 3. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you. Be sure to grab that, as we’re going to look through the entire chapter of Exodus 3. We’ll read through it, and then I’m going to come back and point out some things as we go through it again. It’s important that you see that I’m not making any of this up; I’m actually digging into the very word of God. If you don’t own a Bible, you can take that one; it’s our gift to you. We’re just glad that you’re with us.

On Wednesday of this week, I got a call from Lauren. She said, «Hey, on your way home, will you stop and buy a fire pit?» I asked her where to buy a fire pit, and she replied, «Just go to Lowe’s or something.» So, I love my wife, and I went to Lowe’s, where I found a little fire pit on clearance. It wasn’t just to get that fire pit, but also to find piñon wood because it smells like fall. I got the fire pit and started looking for piñon wood, and if I had to find a tree to cut down, I was getting that piñon wood. So we got it all, and I set it up in the backyard. As non-handy as I am, I got it together, and every day since Wednesday, we have burned that fire.

Now, providentially, that call came on a Wednesday of a week when I would be preaching Exodus 3. Here’s what I mean by Providence: it struck me this week, as we’re burning this piñon wood that actually smells like fall, that fire is one of the few things in the universe that is simultaneously inviting and terrifying. That’s what it is. Fire is inviting; there’s something about it that we want to be around, but there’s something terrifying about fire, too. Now, maybe not for you and your life stage, but I have three children, all of whom lack the gene of fear. I also have two dogs—Gus is smarter than some people I know, and thank God for that—while Gunner is pretty, but twice he has tried to smell the fire. For us, you’ve got the inviting warmth and the enticing smell of piñon wood against the terror that a kid is going to try to jump over it or into it, or that the dog will try to eat it. This has been our experience every night since Wednesday.

What struck me about this phenomenon surrounding fire and human beings is that if fire is simultaneously inviting and terrifying, then it should not surprise us that when God shoves himself into the forefront of the story of Exodus, He does so as a flame. God has been in the background; we’ve been watching Him move all these pieces, but it’s all in the background. He hasn’t said His name, and He has not revealed Himself. Now, in chapter three, this God, who is both inviting and terrifying, makes Himself known.

Let’s read this—Exodus chapter 3. Even if you have no background in church, you will be somewhat familiar with this story: Moses in the burning bush. The irony is that the bush isn’t actually burning in the typical sense; it’s on fire but not being consumed. But that’s neither here nor there—we don’t have time for that. Let’s look at Exodus chapter 3, starting in verse one.

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. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning yet it was not consumed. 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 God said, «Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you stand 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.» 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, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have 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.» But Moses said to God, «Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?»