"God's Response to Moses"

 

            "Therefore say to the Israelites; 'I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.' "

 

            When Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to find their own straw for brick making, while demanding that they continue to meet the same quota of bricks to be made each day, the Israelite overseers appealed to him. They literally "cry out" to the divine Pharaoh, the one they serve: "Why do you do this to your servants?" But although they cry out, they receive no mercy, no justice, no redemption. Insead they receive a harsh and demanding answer: "Get back to work. You are lazy. So now, go – serve." They cry out but are told to serve Pharaoh, to do his work.

            Moses then also cries out, but he cries out to the Lord. "Why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all." We hear the disappointment and the frustration in the voice of Moses. He accuses God of doing harm instead of good. Moses blames the Lord: "You have not even begun to rescue." So, John Durham writes, "we are brought to a point of what seems to be a narrative of the complete and abject failure of the Lord's plan to rescue his firstborn, Israel."

            This is a time of confusion. There seems to be a confusion of who it is that is bringing trouble, of who is truly God and Master, of who it is you go to for help in times of crisis. The overseers treat Pharaoh as God, and are harshly rebuked. Moses complains bitterly to the Lord, and receives a word of assurance and grace.

            God speaks to Moses' heart. He does not speak in anger or with impatience or in a demanding way. He also does not promise a quick fix to the oppression of his people. He does not wave a magic wand and all their problems go away. Rather, he speaks to Moses' troubled heart:

                        I Am the Lord.

                        I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai).

                        I established my covenant with them.

                        I have heard the groaning of the Israelites.

                        I have remembered my covenant.

            God begins by helping Moses connect his current life experience of discouragement and frustration with his past, with his heritage. "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty." Moses is in the family line of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob. If you read the account of the sons of Jacob, you discover that Levi was not a hero, not a giant of the faith. There was much in his life that needed forgiveness. He was one who sold his brother Joseph into slavery. But Levi was connected to the faith of Abraham, and it is from his line that the priests of Israel are chosen. So Moses connects to his past, to his ancestors, to the faith of Abraham and to the covenant that God made with them. Looking back to them and their experience with God helps him, reassures him in his difficult time.

            So we also connect our current life experiences with our heritage. For some that means connecting to a family of faith. We remember a time in past generations when our family, people not so different from ourselves, went through difficult days with faith, and knew God was with them. We remember how they lived and we are encouraged to live with the same faith.

            My family of previous generations were people who were not heroes, they were not leaders, they were not pillars of the church. They were simple people of faith who went through immigration to a new land, and then held together through the Great Depression and World War and through all of their lives, found that God was faithful, that Jesus saves, that God's love was real in their hearts. They were people who prayed. They knew God healed them, even their groaning.

            So when I go through my anxious moments, when I am fearful, when I am discouraged, God says to me, "I AM." "I am the God who was with your family in the past. I was with Gust and Hilma in Tacoma; I knew them and helped them make a life in a new land." Now I realize they were not so different from me. We feel the same fears and anxieties in our struggles, in our failings. The same God speaks today: "I AM."

            But family only takes you so far. Not everyone has the same heritage. So we must remember that we are in Christ not because of our family, but that we come into God's family by adoption. We have a part in Moses, in Abraham, in Christ, not by family, but by grace. We have been welcomed into God's people by the blood of Christ. We have been welcomed because people of faith were bold to speak even to Gentiles of the Savior, and because in later generations, people of faith had hearts for the whole world and they did not stop their preaching at a border, or at an ocean shore, or when they encountered a new language or culture. There are reasons why we have heard the Gospel. We know a God who hears and makes covenant with all people and who uses his faithful people to carry out his Great Commission. When you feel defeated or discouraged, when you cry out to God, remember to look back to the God who appeared to Abraham, and who made a covenant with his family, who heard the groaning of his people, who saved them.

                        Then God said to Moses, "I am the Lord, and I will."

                        I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

                        I will free you

                        I will redeem you

                        I will take you as my own people

                        I will be your God

                        I will bring you to the Land

                        I will give it to you.

            We are also to connect our current life experience to the future, to what God will do. The important thing for Moses to understand here is that the future salvation God talks about is something that is already set in motion. Even as Pharaoh is unyielding in his prideful and stubborn refusal to obey God, even as the Israelites are so beaten down that they cannot believe the words of Moses, God is actively defeating Pharaoh, God is setting the people free. It cannot yet be seen, but when the deliverance comes, there will be no mistake.

            The freedom of the Israelites does not come by the kind-heartedness of Pharaoh.

            The deliverance of Israel does not come by the courage and skill of Moses.

            The redemption of Israel does not come by the will of the people.

            The deliverance from Egypt is an act of the Lord God. There is no other reason. No one else will receive the credit. In the same way, God will work in your future. In Christ, God's future has begun. We wait for a great and glorious day.

            In the promises of God to Moses we hear the language of the marriage vow. God "marries" Israel in these promises. His action is deeply rooted in love and grace. The language is covenant language, which Christians have incorporated into the marriage vows.

            "I, Dwight take you Kathy, to be my wife; and I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband: in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."

            Those are strong words. They are words we speak beyond our ability to keep them. They are God-sized words.

            Here God speaks his covenant, his marriage vow to Israel, and to all who will come into this relationship through faith in Christ. These are not empty words. They are solemn vows. "I am the Lord. I will free you, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God."

            Hear the deep, committed love of God in these words. In Christ, we hear the word of God that saves and redeems us.

            God is "I am", but he is also "I will." He is the God of redemption, of salvation, of healing, of life everlasting. We find him in the past, in our heritage. We find him in the present as he listens to our groaning and acts before we are aware of it. We find him in the future as the one who is faithful to all he has promised. We need to put our minds more on what will be. We need to live by faith when we cannot see the work that God is doing and preparing.

Perhaps today you can hear the Lord speak "I will" into your heart, as he did to Moses. Sometimes we can hear that as an inner voice. But even when we do not experience it in that way, we hear God's "I Will" in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. There he spoke plainly and out of deep, saving love.

            "I am the Lord. I will save you." Receive that word in faith, and commit your life to him.

            Amen.