"Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What's his name?' What shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And he said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Let's take a moment to pray.

Father, we again want to ask that you would grant great light and insight into your Word. We pray, God, that your scriptures would continue to do a work of sanctification in our lives. And God, as we take a look at this precious name, this profound and such a crucial revelation of who you are, I pray, God, that we would have a greater sight and perspective as to the nature of our God, and that ultimately this would absolutely change our lives.

We thank you it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, I want to ask, how many of you guys are afraid of spiders in this room? A good number of you guys, you know. And you do realize it's completely irrational, right? To be afraid of something literally as small as your thumb, or even smaller, right?

Well, just recently I saw one of these viral videos on YouTube where this man, he was a giant of a man. I mean, he, well the video says he was like 6'5", you know. And he's sitting there, and he's just like wringing his shoe in his hand, and he's going, "Ahhhhhh!" And you're wondering like, "What's this guy doing?" And all of a sudden you hear in the background the wife's like video, and she's like, "Do it!

Be a man!" You know? And then it spans up, and there's a little spider on the roof. He's like 6'5", so he can just kill it, and he's like, "I can't do it!" You know? And then, next thing you know, she's rationalizing with him. He's like, she's saying, "You're right there!

You're 6'5", you're huge!" You know? And he's like, "I can't!" He gets close, and he's like, "Ahhhhhh! No, I can't do it!" And then she starts to question his manhood, you know? He's like, "You're a man, you know, people be a sissy," all this kind of stuff. And in the end he goes, "Ahhhh!" And he throws his shoe, you know?

And the video is kind of hilarious, but at the same time we realize whenever we have a fear, it grips us. There's a part of it that it is rational. Spiders are scary. Some of them are venomous. And the thing about spiders is they're just so sneaky, you know?

They come out of nowhere. They survive everything. You try to drown them, but they still survive. So yes, I get it that sometimes they're afraid. But on the flip side, it's completely irrational. You're literally like a hundred times bigger, if not more, than that spider. I mean, that spider is at your mercy, and here you are wringing your hands, like, "Oh my gosh, can I really do this?" And the wife is behind you, "Do it!" You know?

Well, the reason why I talk about this is because in our story last week, we talked about how Moses fled Egypt. And I believe there was a great fear in his heart. Okay? There was a huge fear in his heart. The Pharaoh wanted to kill Moses. Of course there's a fear in his heart.

And what's more, it's clear that as he's sojourning, as he's running away into the land of the millions, he has a fear in his heart. Now, the next event that hit us, or hit Moses, was that God interrupted his life. And he revealed himself in this blaze of fire from a bush.

And there was an audible voice coming, like that, you know, it says an angel appeared, essentially. And this angel taught Moses that simply the manifestation of God's glory in this form is so holy, Moses cannot approach. And the scripture says that Moses was filled with fear. Okay? So here's an individual, already fearful, but now encountering the fearful and awesome presence of God.

But what we see in this interaction between God and Moses is that the fear that gripped his heart is irrational and it's unreconcilable. To the degree that Moses continues to resist the calling of God as God is commissioning him to go and deliver the people. And so what we're going to read and what we're going to see is the interaction between God and Moses.

And we're going to see the heart of Moses that's gripped by fear. And from it I hope we can learn a great encouragement of how to overcome that fear for us. Well, let's begin with verse 10 and 11. And let me read it again, it says, "Therefore come now, I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?'" And so this is where we're going to go from this sermon is we're going to see Moses' fear in the words and excuses he says.

And then we'll see the response of God. Okay? The first fear that we see when he says, "Who am I?" That is a fear of his own shame and inadequacy. Right? It's a fear of his, it's a self-doubt. It's a self-doubting fear. Okay? And what he has there essentially saying is, "Okay, I heard you.

You've seen the needs of the people and you've heard and you've come. But why do you got to involve me into this? Who am I? I can't go to Pharaoh. I can't go to the nation, you know, the leaders of Israel. I can't deliver these people." Now, there's a sense to which his questioning is right.

Because this isn't like fighting the other shepherds. This isn't like fighting another man. He's going up against the superpower of that time. You know what I mean? He's going against the reigning, you know, empire of that generation. And he's thinking that he's going to go to Pharaoh and just be like, "Hey, let all the people go.

Okay?" And we're talking about hundreds and thousands of people, if not a million. So, this isn't no small task. So rightly, we might think, Moses is saying, "I don't think I'm up for this task." Now, what's really interesting about this is, I was reading a lot of R.C. Sproul's commentary on this.

Because, you know, he writes a lot about the holiness of God. And this is one of the passages that he writes a lot about. But what was really interesting is he said that he thought Moses was then having an appropriate question. As to, when you see the glory of God, and then the mission of God, you naturally have like a, "Oh, the sense of, I am lowly servant.

I can't do this." So he said, he said this statement that, he made the point that, when you see the glory of God in that light, naturally you're low. And you know what the thing about it is, I absolutely agree with that. You know, when you have an appropriate view of God, you will naturally see yourself.

And quoting John Calvin, he said this, "A man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God. And upon that, he comes down after such contemplation to look into himself." This is the only way we truly know ourselves. And so simply put, knowing yourself begins with knowing God.

Absolutely. But, is that what's happening here? Is Moses having an appropriate questioning of himself before the glory of God? And my case would be, no. What's happening here is Moses is filled with fear in his heart, and he's now making excuses, disobeying God. Because what you see in context immediately, and what you see in broader context, is that as Moses is seeing and experiencing God, he is interacting with God.

But step by step, he is giving excuses as to why he doesn't want to do what God says you should do. And Moses' perspective is wrong to the degree that God expresses his frustration. And later it would say that God burns in his anger towards Moses. This is not a scenario where Moses is having a godly, humble view of himself.

This is a scenario in which in fear, he is fearing and doubting what he would be. What he would be. This is an issue of self-doubt. And the reason why I say this is because, let's just think back to the broader context of what Moses is experiencing. Moses' heart was truly filled with fear.

To the degree that he would run away. And while running away to the Midianites, he would say, "I am a sojourner." And then once he meets his wife and he has a son, he names his son Gershom. You know what Gershom means? I mentioned it last time. It means, "I don't belong here." It means, "I am a foreigner." Imagine how it must grieve you that you had to leave the high position.

How much fear it must have, or how much self-doubting that it must have caused in his heart that he starts naming his kid like that. One of the things I fear is being bald. Truthfully speaking, I am 33 and pretty young, but I am thinning out a lot. So I have to do my "Going before the Lord, you know God, being bald or having hair is nothing.

I really need to focus on you and be content." But imagine if I lost that battle and I was like, "Oh no, I am going to be bald." And all of a sudden, just to remind everybody that I am this sad, I start calling my kids, "Hey Baldie." "Hey Q-Ball." I just start bowling ball this and shine this.

I just start naming the things around me according to the bitterness in my heart over this issue. My point is, Moses is very much disturbed by the fact that his life so far, it has such an ups and downs and there is a great fear. And so you can imagine if God is calling him, "I want you to go back to Pharaoh." "Pharaoh?

Seriously? He was out to kill me." "I want you to go back to the Israelites, the leaders of the Israelites." I mean, they remember Moses, the Hebrew who lived up in the palace, who thought he was going to be judge and he thought he was going to do this.

And he killed a man and now he is on the run. Of course they remember him. How could I go? And automatically you have the self-doubting and the view of self like, "I can't." You know, even if we do one silly thing, you know, you wave to somebody but they are not really waving at you.

And then you run away because now you feel an awareness of yourself. Right? Moses definitely feels an awareness of himself and there is a fear. Now I went at length at this but I want to prove this point to you with another passage, Acts chapter 7, verse 23 to 28.

So please turn your Bibles there. Acts chapter 7, verse 23 to 28. This is an interesting passage because this is Stephen giving a defense as people are persecuting him and just before he has martyred him. He is giving a defense of how he believes in both Moses, the law, the temple and how he values all of that.

And in so doing he gives a little commentary on Moses. Starting from verse 23. It says, "But when he was approaching the age of 40, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking the Egyptian.

And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand." Do you see that? He is commentating on our story that we are studying. And this was while he was in Egypt. He struck down that Egyptian. It commentated on what Moses believed.

Moses already had in his mind that maybe God is using me to judge or discern for these people and help them and deliver them. What am I saying? By the people rejecting him, it's like, "Who made you judge? Who do you think you are? You're going to kill us too?" You know, Moses is taking a back.

My case is, Moses already feels like a grand failure because he thought he was going to be delivered already before. And now God is calling him and saying, "I want you to go back and you can imagine the kind of fear in his heart. I was already there. I already failed.

I can't show my face over there anymore. Who am I?" So I don't think he's making this godly question of, "God, I'm just a lonely man. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to serve you." No, he has a fear that's gripping his heart. What is God's response to that?

Well, God gives him so much grace and God encourages his heart by saying this. Jump back to Exodus 3, verse 12. Sorry. And he says, "Certainly, I will be with you and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." I think that's quite amazing.

He says, "I will be with you." So the question, the answer to your question, "Who am I, God?" You are the one whom I am with. My presence is going to be with you. And God being the God that he is, he sees through what Moses is saying. He might be like, "Ah, I can't do this.

I don't have the skill," or whatever it may be. But God sees right through that. "I see your fear. I want to encourage you now." He doesn't really answer the question, "This is who you are," does he? God doesn't say, "Remember who you are. I was sovereign before you were born.

I was sovereign with your mom and I was sovereign with the midwives and I was sovereign with the Pharaoh's daughter. Remember how I raised you in the palace and I gave you the greatest food and I gave you the greatest education? You can do it!" You know, like God didn't say that.

God just said, "Moses, I see your fear. I'm with you. And I'm going to show you that I'm with you. And I'm going to show you that I'm the one who sent you. And I'm going to show you by, he says, "I'm going to sovereignly make it so that you will worship exactly in this place." Wow.

That's awesome. So by way of application, we see Moses' excuse and then we see God's response. What God is doing is giving Moses a perspective. He's not only answering the question, but he's giving a perspective. "My presence is with you. And there is your security." Remember, God explained to Moses, "I've seen, I've heard, I've given my attention, and now I've come.

Now you come to me and I'll send you, but I will accomplish this deliverance." The perspective is, "God, God, God, God, God, and then me." Like this. But I bet you in Moses' perspective, it's like, "I have to go to Pharaoh. I have to go talk to the Israelites.

I have to deliver them. I can't take all these people. I." Every single one of us, we have to do an entire paradigm shift. Our worldview, our questioning of how to make a decision cannot start with us. Otherwise, you will automatically fail in every occasion. You need to have a broader perspective of God.

You need to think of how is God working? What is his desire? How has he been supplying? How is he going to fulfill? And then you realize your role in the vast majority of what you do is like this. Apostle Paul asked the question, "Who is sufficient for these things?" And he's talking about his ministry.

And the fact of the matter is, I think about that all the time. Who is sufficient for ministry? And if I were to think at any moment that unless I do X, Y, and Z, this is going to fail, I'm already set up for failure. Who is sufficient for anything we do?

Parenting. Any parent in here would know, like, I try my best. I try to give it my all, but still there's so many things I could be doing. There's literally a limitless number of things that you could be doing. You can commit all your--you can have a full-time thing, which a lot of our parents do, amen, but still feel like I've inadequately given of myself, right?

So the fact of the matter is, if your worldview is still centered around you, there's your first failure. You need to have a reordering of your perspective. You need to have a different order of your perspective, a different scale of your perspective, that God dominates your perspective. Well, this is the first point.

The hard part is, and the problem is this, Moses is told, "Hey, realize this. I am with you." Right? And the fact of the matter is, a lot of us in this room, we know that. We know God is everywhere. I mean, good theologian, God is omnipresent. There's nowhere we can go.

We escape his presence, okay. But the fact of the matter is, Moses at this point, he's being introduced to God. And so just saying, "Hey, God's with you," it's not helping. You see why? Because it doesn't help to just be like, "Hey." You know, so for example, if someone told, if I was pouring out my heart and I said, "Oh my gosh, I'm struggling." "Don't worry.

Christopher is with you." "Who's Christopher?" It doesn't help to say he is with me if I don't understand the nature of who he is. And so we move to the center of this sermon and the most important part of this passage about the nature of God. But we begin with Moses' question, again from fear.

Verse 13. So Moses hears God and then afterwards Moses replies, "Then Moses said to God, 'Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is his name?'" "What am I going to say?" First we saw the fear of his self-doubt and fear of his own shame.

Now we see his fear of the masses. He has the fear of man gripping him. He can already play it out in his head and we can play it out in our heads. If you've ever done any kind of public speaking, I mean you play it out in your head of what you're going to say, what they're going to think, and you play it out.

And he's playing it out in his mind. He's going to sit there and be like, "You don't know God. What's his name? Huh?" It's almost like if he lied, like, "I've got this hot girlfriend." It's like, "Oh yeah? What's her name?" That's kind of what it's like. And so he fears the people and their questioning.

"They're going to question me. They're going to doubt me. And then I'm going to be on the stand. What am I going to say?" And to this kind of fear, God answers. God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And he said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I am has sent me to you.'" I'm going to be honest, guys.

I don't know how to express the importance and the weight of this passage. I mean in my head, when I studied, it was just like mind-blowing. But I'm going to be honest. Try to put it into words. It was just really hard. And I'm going to say this. It's really hard.

Because what is contained in God's statement, "I am who I am," is in one sense inexplicable. It's beyond us. Right? So I want to give that preface. I'm going to try my best to explain that passage to us. But that passage, in all that it contains, is inexplicable because it is completely beyond our comprehension.

Yet at the same time, God has given us mercy because he's revealed the degree, to a certain degree, his nature contained in his name. And I want to say, some people get so focused on this word, or this name, "I am who I am." But we realize that God is revealing himself in a greater fashion from verse 13 all the way down to verse 22.

And so we have to consider all of that as we see God's revelation. But I want to say this at first. That this name is all of a sudden so important to us because God says, "This is my name to you." And then he says in verse 15, "This is my name forever." And this is my memorial name to all generations.

You think about that for a moment, right? This is the way that God wants to be remembered. Typically, when people say stuff like that, that's the kind of stuff they say on their deathbed. "Remember me as I am, and remember this picture of me," you know? But God, he's just simply introducing himself to Moses.

And he says, "For generations down to all your heritage, I want you to remember me like this." And I want you to know that this name has been so sacred that the Jewish people dared not even pronounce it. They wouldn't even want to write it. And so a lot of times, they would give the symbols Y, H, W, H, but they would just leave out the vowels.

So, truthfully speaking, there's been various renditions of this, but this name Yahweh, which is derived from that statement, "I am who I am," has been so cherished in all of history that people would dare not even write it. And even in your Bibles, rather than just writing Y, H, W, H, in your Bibles, what you see is you see a capitalization of the word Lord, L-O-R-D.

And know that every time you read the Old Testament, you see that capital word. It is his name, Yahweh. "I am who I am." But the first thing that we want to learn about, what that reveals about the nature of God, it's his aseity, A-S-E-I-T-Y. To tell you truthfully, it's hard for me to say the word, so that's the only time I'm going to say it.

The best way to say it is his self-existence. It's his self-existence. And you guys might have heard this before, you guys might have studied it already, that this is one of the nature, like, attributes of God that is broad. We're not talking now about the depth of his love and how intricate it is and how sovereign it is.

We're talking about a broad scope idea of his nature. That God is Alpha Omega. That God is all in all. That his being is completely on a separate level than us. We are beings to which we require fuel. We are beings where we are dependent. We are dependent on air, we're dependent on shelter, we're dependent on parents, we're dependent on just about everything.

Water, food, sustenance. God is a being to which he needs absolutely nothing. He needs no sustenance and food and he needs no other material to feed him and he has nothing of that. He is a God who is entirely self-existent. But why, let me describe this to you in another way.

I'm going to get a little bit philosophical, okay? For vast majority of all of philosophy, your questions are circled around three main ideas. Here are the three. First, what is the origin of man? What is the origin of things? That's where philosophers would sit there and ruminate and they would philosophize with each other and they would ask each other questions and the origin has to be traced back to this and there's a cause this and that's where a lot of philosophy happens.

There's another question. What is the nature of who I am now? Who am I? What's my identity? What's my makeup? If you were to boil me down, what am I essentially? And some philosophers say, "You're just material. You're just flesh and you're just atoms and all this kind of stuff and that's it." Other philosophers say, "No, you're a soul, you're a mind, you're a heart, you're all this kind of stuff." Next question.

Where am I headed? What is my destiny? Right? Think about this for a moment. Those questions baffle mankind for all of history. Those questions sometimes spiral people down into a pit of despisement. Who am I? I don't know. Where am I from? To whom do I credit being here?

Right? And then those questions that spiral a bunch of people into confusion, into being deceived. And then, these philosophers who had no idea how to answer those questions even for themselves, dared to ask that of God. What's the source of God? Who created God? Who is the cause of God?

Our answer? Invalid question. Because God simply is. He has always been. He is now and He will continue to be because His existence is far beyond your imagination. For example, there was a philosopher named Bertrand Russell who was a well-known philosopher. He denied God and he was incredibly popular because he said, "I have a proof that God doesn't exist." Because everything in this world needs a cause.

Everything in this world has a reason for being. Well, what's the reason for God? There you go. There's no God. Everything has to have a cause. There is no God like the God you say who is eternal. But then another philosopher named David Hume said this, "You silly guy.

The reason why you think everything has to have a cause is because of the poverty of your mind. You don't realize that your mind is poor and limited and like this." But God is a God who is eternal. He is the cause. Everything that is in effect has a cause, yes, but He is the cause, the first cause and the only cause to the degree that scriptures would say, "Right now, everything that exists owes its existence to God." Everything that has movement and life owes its movement and its life to God.

And right now, it is God who sustains this life so that it doesn't completely ramble, so that it doesn't completely fall into utter destruction. Now, why am I going on about this, about this theological topic of God's self-existence? I mean, it's all head knowledge. It's all like theory. Okay, I get it.

God is super high. Let me make two points. Number one, the reason why this matters. I am making the point that Moses does not see God as high as he ought to. Can we all just admit that even if you've been growing and learning and you've been learning everything about God, God is so beyond us that even if you held a PhD simply on the attributes of God, you still do not know God as you ought to.

You still do not know God and the reality of the majesty and the exaltation that He deserves. Because God is the great I Am. And our mind, our mind is poverished. We're limited. But number two, there is a perspective that comes from all this, and I just want to quote Jesus' words, so please turn in your Bibles to the book of Luke.

Book of Luke, chapter 12, verse 4 through 7. Book of Luke, chapter 12. Jesus is teaching the masses. There are thousands of people around Him. And He's going to talk about various things here, but He's going to really talk about God and His care. In verse 4, He says, "I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.

But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear the one who after he has killed you has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him." Verse 6, "Are not five sparrows sold for two cents, yet not one of them is forgotten before God? Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Do not fear, you are more valuable than many sparrows." Let me ask you this question. In Jesus' eyes, what is the solution for everyday fear? Fear that people might persecute me. Fear that I might not have enough food. Fear that I might die. In Jesus' encouragement to the people and the masses of that time, what is His solution?

Look at how scary God is. Look at how majestic, how powerful, how transcendent. Look at this God who is the I Am, who has absolute control over you because He made you. Because He has absolute authority over you. And that by His will, He can do whatever He desires with you.

Fear Him. And that is the lesson that Moses needed to hear. He feared everything about himself and the other people, but the challenge is fear God, this God who is the I Am. The self-existent God. So I want to highlight for you, when you think about the self-existent God, don't think like, "Okay, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo." Like He's out in heaven and some transcendent being who's just like, "There." How much power.

How much power must an individual, if you really saw him as a person, how much power would this person have where he has no limitation, he needs no fuel, no sustenance, no nothing. He is absolutely independent and whenever he desires to do anything, he can because he is. You know, recently I saw this one movie trailer.

I don't like to talk too much about movies because some of the movies are bad. But I saw this movie trailer about the X-Men apocalypse. Have you seen that trailer? Seems like it's going to be a really good action-packed movie. But I saw this trailer and there is this being, the apocalypse.

And supposedly he existed from long, long time ago in the days of Egypt, when they had the pyramids and stuff, when they had the pharaohs and stuff. And then these people who are like, "Oh, who is this guy?" And in the movie there is this scene where they are like, "Oh, there is this written about this being who is going to come and he has four horsemen." And then one of the people go, "Oh, he got that from the Bible." And another person goes, "Maybe the Bible got it from him." And I'm like, "What?!" Awful, you know.

And then the trailer continues. So you guys know what trailer I'm talking about, right? And then the trailer continues and then it says there is this being. And then Professor Xavier, he is sitting there with his eyes all buggy and watering. He is like, "I've never felt such power!" And I'm going to be honest, I sat there and I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I felt really offended.

I felt really offended. And I don't want to overly spiritualize for everything, every movie I see, but this is the best that the world can imagine about power. The scripture is saying God has such power that literally every single one of our lives would disintegrate if God chose so.

But not only in this lifetime, but for all eternity, God has authority over you because He is the great I Am. That He could cast you into hell and judge you. That He could send you to heaven and give you all of the inheritance of the kingdom. But this is the Almighty God who can do as He pleases.

He is self-existence and there is nothing that anybody can contribute to Him because He is the I Am. This is our God. And our challenge is to have a view of Him like that. To see Him like that. And Apostle Paul would have the same challenge with the people of his day.

If you go over to the book of Acts chapter 17, Apostle Paul is going through preaching and he's in Athens. And he comes across a bunch of people. He exhibits the same questions that you guys would experience in your religious studies class, in your philosophy classes about God. Who is God?

What is God? Where are we? Who are we? All this kind of stuff. And in chapter 17, if you go over to, let's see here, I lost my place, verse 23. Chapter 17 verse 23, this is what Apostle Paul says. Let me just start in verse 22. So Paul stood in the midst of Heropagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.

For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription. To an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands." He's talking about the existence and being and nature of God.

Verse 25, "Nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything." That's my point. God needs absolutely nothing. He is self-existent. He is the great I am. He says, "He needs nothing since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their inhabitation.

That they would seek God if perhaps by might, that they might grow for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist." That was Apostle Paul's preaching. He says, "This is the God. You worship this unknown God and you put Him in a temple and you make Him essentially.

But God is exalted and He is beyond your imagination." And later he's going to say, "So therefore, repent. Therefore, repent." So indeed, God is exalted and that is the way God wanted to reveal Himself to the nations. This is the way God wants all the generations to remember Him.

The problem is, fear is irrational. Right? That's what I started with. And what we're going to see now is the irrational fear then of Moses continuing to make excuse after God has revealed Himself in this fashion. So let's move forward to chapter 4, verse 1. So jump back to Exodus, okay?

Chapter 3. Or chapter 4. Jump back to Exodus chapter 4. And go to verse 1. So Moses says, "What if they don't believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, 'The Lord has not appeared to you.'" Do you see his fear? His fear is failure.

His fear is failure. Okay, you know, God just laid out the game plan. He just said, "Okay, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to send you. You're going to say this kind of stuff. And then you're going to talk to these people. And then the Pharaoh is going to not listen to you.

He's going to resist you. But then you're going to come out with all their spoils. And then you're going to worship. And you're going to be right here." God just laid out the entire game plan. And Moses' next question is, "But what if they don't listen?" Essentially what he's saying is, "It's not going to work.

But Father, but God, it's not going to work." And he has this fear of failure. He has this fear of it not going right. Look what God does in response. God, in verse 2, "And the Lord said to him, 'What's that in your hand?'" And I love the way God talks to him.

God is so wise and so poignant. "What's that in your hand?" And Moses says, "A staff." Then he said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, a snake. Imagine that. Here's Moses, "It's not going to work. And it's all going to fail.

And they're not going to listen." And God says, "Take that stick. Throw it on the ground." He's like, "Whoa!" "Grab it by the tail." He grabs it by the tail and back to a stick. "Whoa!" God says, "Put your hand in your shirt." "Okay." He takes it out, and it's like leprosy.

So he says, "Why does it snow?" It's scaly. Leprosy is a disease of the nervous system and the skin. The skin decays, and the nervous system gets desensitized. And so your skin is like infected and all this kind of stuff. And he's like, "Ahh! Put it back in your shirt." It's normal again.

And then lastly, God says, "If they still don't believe you, take some water." So he takes some water, spills it on the ground. It's blood. God does three miracles to show Moses God's power. Now, you might be thinking, "Okay, so what God is saying is, 'Moses, calm down. I have things in control, and it's going to be successful.'" But that's actually not the reason why God is doing those miracles.

If you look as to why God is doing those miracles, look at verse 5. "That they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, has appeared to you." It's going back to this idea and perspective. You see, Moses is sitting here thinking, "It's not going to work.

I can't do it." But then God essentially puts on the training wheels and says, "Okay, I want you to follow with me here and obey me. Throw the stick on the ground." Is that miraculous? Just taking a stick and going, "Ugh." Is that so hard? No. It's anything anybody can do.

God didn't ask Moses to turn it into a snake. God did. God told Moses to put his hand in his shirt. Is that hard? I just did it. Am I a leader now because I did this? No. It's nothing. This is nothing. But God didn't ask Moses to make his hand heal again, but that's what Moses is kind of thinking.

God didn't ask Moses to turn water into blood. God just told him to spill the water. You see what I'm saying? It's coming back to that same perspective. You have to realize God is with you. You have to realize God is the one who is powerful, and your confidence is not in yourself.

However, what's revealing is when you take what is God's responsibility and his power, and then you take it and you look at it, and you go, "It's not going to work." What does that say about your perspective of yourself? Let me say it again. When you take the thing that belongs to God, you evaluate it, and you think, "That's not going to work." What does that say about your view of yourself?

Does that make sense? Your view of yourself and the perspective that you have cannot confuse what is God's and what is yours. What was being revealed through these signs was the fact that God was there. God had appeared to Moses, and God was with Moses. That needed to be evident and clear, and Moses is the first person who needs to learn it.

So do you and I. We have to graduate from the kind of belief and trust in God that only trusts when God lays everything out, and God shows you it's going to be okay, and God gives you the power, and God gives you everything, all the resources, and there's zero risk, and then now I'll trust you.

We need to graduate from that and say, not because of what you've done, or because of all the things you give me, but because of who you are as the great I am, I trust you, and I will obey. Do you see what I'm saying? God is training Moses through that with these signs.

God is training him. But unfortunately, Moses, although he's being shown the ropes, he still feels this inadequacy, and in verse 10, Moses says to the Lord, "Please, Lord, I mean we've been going at this for some time. I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in the past time, nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." And Moses is reiterating this idea.

Remember I said fear is irrational, it's scriptural. I can't, I can't, I can't. That's what he's saying. I can't. And I'm going to tell you honestly, I've heard that a lot. When I'm counseling people, "Hey, I want you to go and talk to that person and reconcile." I can't.

"I want you to take a step out in faith and do this thing. I know it's going to be embarrassing." I can't. That's just not me. No. Right? You do realize that although, yes, sometimes it's good to know your limitation. So let me give you a caveat. I hope you guys aren't thinking like this is a sermon about, "Yes, we can, and with God, anything is possible." And then our softball team goes, "Yeah, we can win." You know?

We'll just see about that, okay? This is not a promise that you can do anything and everything in your life. Some of our ambitions are ridiculous, and we just can't do it. But there are things that God has clearly defined as his will for you. There are things that God has given to you as a mandate for you.

There are things that God expects you to simply follow and obey. The proclamation of your faith. I'm going to get real specific. Some of you, you don't want to get baptized because you don't want to be up here talking like this. And it's frightening. It's deadly frightening. I understand that.

I'm still scared of public speaking, believe it or not. Some of you don't want to proclaim your faith to your family member for the fear. Some of you don't want to do various things. Join membership. Some of you don't want to do this. Commit to that. Commit to this.

Like devote yourself to X, Y, and Z. Because you're afraid. Okay? Realize that when it comes to those things, it's not humble to keep second guessing yourself. Because ultimately, God never asked you to rely on yourself anyway. And so scriptures teaches us in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 4 through 6, such confidence we have through Christ towards God, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who has made us adequate as servants of a new covenant.

And to keep going against God's adequacy is to keep questioning God, and God gets frustrated at that. And you keep testing God's patience. And all that becomes is not so much a humble exercise in trying to see whether I'm fit for this or not, it becomes a questioning and an excuse making of why not to obey.

And again, I'm not talking about like leadership, and I'm not talking about various other like ambitions we have. I'm talking about the general Christian call for you to be faithful and committed, and to carry out and fulfill the things God has called you to. To those things, you can't make excuse.

What you need to do is trust God. What you need to do is have confidence. God is mighty, and what He's called me to do, He will amply supply. What's unfortunate, or actually, we want to go forward to look at God's reaction to this. In verse 11 it says, "The Lord said to him, 'Who has made man's mouth, Moses?

Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you say, or what you are to say.'" And God reiterates this fact, "I am your creator. I made your mouth.

I made you." So if you are prone to make this excuse, like, "I can't go on missions, that's not me." Okay, maybe, you know, it's wise, you consider it's not the opportune time, you have to focus on other things, great. But if your excuse is, "That's just not me." Really?

So God made you to not do missions? God made you not to evangelize? I think that "me" you're talking about is the old you, the dead you, the one that needs to die even more. Let's not use those excuses. "I can, it's not me." God says, "I made you." Right?

"I made you." And so we need to obey, even in the small steps, even if we don't get the picture, even if we don't feel like it's natural. That's okay if it doesn't feel like it's natural. It's okay if sometimes we feel inadequate. That's just life, all around. But unfortunately, to God's encouragement and to everything that God's been saying to him, Moses responds with saying in verse 13, "Please, Lord, now send a message by whomever you will." It's a weird way of saying it.

I don't know why he put it into those words. "Send a message by whomever you will." You know what he's saying, right? Just pick some other guy, you know. Can't somebody else do this? Can't somebody else do this? I bet you he's probably thinking, "Can't you do this?" What's really interesting about the word of "Please, Lord," is it says, "Send a message." The reason why it says it like that is because "deliver by hand the message," right?

It's almost like saying, "Just do it yourself." "You came down, you heard, you're powerful, you're worthy, I am. Just do it." "Why do you got to involve me into this?" Right? What I realized at that point is there's something more into his heart. Fear has gripped him to the point where there is actually no excuse.

There's no good excuse. God Almighty reveals himself to you in a bush. He speaks to you, he encourages you, he tells you he's with you, he says, "I'm going to give you the exact words you're going to say." And then you say, "What excuse do you have?" What is revealed here is he's simply not willing.

He's just not willing. And so I want to encourage our hearts today. If there is any level of fear in your heart, any level of discouragement, whether it's external, internal, whether it's fear of yourself, fear of your own failure, fear of other people, I relate to all of that, all of those things.

I'm a people pleaser. I have fear of man in me. I have various things and I experience all of that. How do we combat that? That's the question today. How do we combat those fears? If you're like me, it's typically, "Well, I'm just going to improve on that level." If I'm fear of speaking, I'm going to take a speech class.

I took a speech class, okay? If I fear this, I'm going to do this. If I fear that, I'm going to do this. And what you do is you're going to, "I'm going to gear up. I'm going to armor up and suit up. I'm going to tackle this thing." That is not God's encouragement here.

That is typically not God's encouragement anywhere. Your fear needs to be overcome with a greater fear. And that greater fear comes from an appropriate view of God. So I want to challenge us that as we see the interaction between Moses and God, what has God been teaching you through this two-part sermon?

God has been teaching us that God is absolutely sovereign even when it's invisible. God has been teaching us that God is absolutely near and He is involved intimately. He's been teaching us He is wholly beyond measure to the degree that the advice to this man, Moses, who is the man, was, "Don't you dare come close." We've been learning God is transcendent.

He is beyond what we can imagine in existence and being. But we also learn that God is absolutely patient. He is loving with us. He is patient with us. And all of this that we're learning about God needs to now translate into trust, into confidence. And I truly believe, and I'm going to say it again, every time we have anxiety, every time we have a sense of, "Woe is me," a pitying of the self, a discouragement so that we're not obeying God, we've lost a sight of confidence in God who is the I Am.

So I want to encourage us today that with all of this we want to respond with, "Lord, although I might understand, I trust You. You're with me." I want to encourage you by leaving you with not on a sad note that Moses was stubborn and he was all, you know, excuses, excuses.

Turn your Bible to Chapter 15 after the Exodus, after the Great Ten Plagues, after, you know, all this stuff. Moses is able to sing something quite beautiful. And I just want to say, or I just want to read this for you guys. It's a little lengthy, so follow with me here, verse 1 through 11.

"Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord and said, 'I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted. The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise Him.

My Father is God, and I will extol Him. The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is His name.'" Wow. Let's keep going. "Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea, and the choices of his officers he has drowned into the Red Sea. The deeps cover them.

They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemies. In the greatness of Your excellence, You overthrow those who rise up against You. You send forth Your burning anger, and it consumes us chaff.

At the blast of Your nostrils, the waters are piled up. The flowing waters stood up like a heap, and the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, 'I'll pursue. I'll overtake. I'll divide and spoil. My desire shall be gratified against them, and I will draw out my sword by the hand and will destroy them.' But You blew with Your wind, and the sea covered them.

They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?" I think it's awesome that after Moses went through that struggle of making excuses and excuses, in the end he relented and he took his wife and son, and he made his trek.

And simply by taking that small step of obedience, Moses was able to see something wonderful and be convinced of something amazing. Moses is now convinced, "My God is mighty and great in His name, and nobody like it. Although there is this great nation like the Pharaohs, they're crushed. They go down to the sea like a stone.

There is nothing that stands in the way of our God." Let's have that kind of trust and confidence in everyday approach to our spiritual lives. Amen. Let's pray. Hope you enjoyed the video.