Exodus: God's Identity and Yours

Exodus 3:1-15

The story of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush is one of the most recognizable stories in the bible. It is filled with significance and hope. This is the passage where we start to get a clearer picture of who God is and what He does. In this sermon we will discover that God is the one who demands our attention, the one who knows the suffering you experience, the one who is always present and the one who simply “Is”.
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It is God who defines himself, we don’t define Him. But yet many of us worship a God of our own making. A god who we have formed and fashioned from our own thoughts and opinions. But God has not left that up to us, He has given us passages like this one to discover who He is and what He does. Further to this; if God is who he says he is, then we ourselves are defined by Him. And that is both liberating and empowering.

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Going Deeper:
Questions for group discussion:
(You don't have to work through all these questions. Just pick a few that you feel will keep things rolling.)

• Ice breaker - have you ever known someone your entire life but yet you know almost nothing about them?
• Conversely; have you ever gotten to know someone intimately well in a very short period of time?
• How has Scripture formed your beliefs about who God is? Have you ever struggled with any of His attributes or how He has revealed himself?
• Read Exodus 3:1-6. Describe a time when God firmly got your attention. What was it about himself that He revealed?
• In verse 6, God reveals himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What is the significance of that revelation? Was God associating himself with these men because they were upright, moral, “always do the right thing” kind of guys?
• Re-read Exodus 2:23-25 and 3:7. During 400 years of captivity, God saw, He heard and He knew. Do you draw any significance from the fact that god “knew”?
• In the midst of long periods of struggle or seeming silence from God, do you find it difficult to maintain hope and trust?
• What do you think God might have been doing during these 400 years?
• What do you think God might have been (might be) doing in your periods of struggle or silence?
• Read Exodus 8-12. What is God promise that comes through at least twice in these verses? (His presence. “I have come down…”  I will be with you…”)
• In what ways is Jesus the perfect fulfillment of this promise? What passages would indicate this? (Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1 - Emmanuel, Matthew 28:1-10, John 1…)
• Read Exodus 3:13-15. Moses asks a question and God gives a response. What do you think of God’s response here?
• In God’s response, he gives his intimate name that had not been revealed before. Talk about this name and how you understand it. (Leaders dig into YHWH a little. This article may offer some fuel for discussion...)
• God also responds by calling Himself the “God of your fathers” again; why does he do this a second time?
• The sermon mentioned the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Have you ever heard this parable before? What do you make of it and the response to it that I gave?
• If God is who He says He is, this means two things, we don’t define God and God defines us. How do most people define who they are? Is our identity fluid?
• Interact with this quote from the sermon; “Moses was the ideal person - he was raised in an Egyptian court, he saw the people's suffering, God’s hand was on him from the time he was a baby. But all this wasn’t enough for Moses - he still felt inadequate. Moses didn’t need higher self esteem, he needed a greater sense of God’s presence and identity.”
• How can God’s identity shape what you do and why you do it this week?
• God was doing this work in Moses’ life to send him back to his people. Who is God sending you to with His message?