The Bush is Still Burning

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller and his squad are assigned the dangerous mission of finding and rescuing Private Ryan, whose three brothers had been killed in action during WWII. The squad faces numerous hardships and casualties during their search, ultimately culminating in a fierce battle where Miller is fatally wounded.

As Captain Miller lies dying, he tells James Ryan to “earn this,” meaning that the young Private should live a life that justifies the sacrifices made to save him. The movie ends with James Ryan visiting the Normandy Cemetery as an old man, questioning if he lived a life worthy of the sacrifice made for him.

Many soldiers have returned from war with something called “survivor’s guilt”. Why did I survive when so many others did not? For many, it is crippling. I think my own grandfather lived the rest of his life with this guilt, getting by as a high-functioning alcoholic.

And when I read the story of the Exodus again in preparation for this sermon, it struck me that Moses may have felt some this guilt as well. The story begins many years after the death of Joseph, sometime around 1500 BC.

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.

10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.

12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves

14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

Eventually, the Pharaoh became afraid that there were too many Hebrews. He ordered the midwives to start killing all the male babies born to Hebrew women by casting them into the Nile River.
This is when Moses was born, during a period of cruel infanticide. His mother hid him for three months and when she could no longer hide the baby, she placed him in a basket and floated him down the Nile river.

You probably know this story. At the same moment, the daughter of Pharaoh goes down to the river to bathe. She finds baby Moses in the basket and adopts him as her own son.

Moses grew up in the Egyptian royal family, but he lived with the knowledge that he was a Hebrew. God spared his life when so many boys had drowned. Perhaps that explains his actions in Exodus 2:

11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

The next day he discovers that someone witnessed the murder, and he runs. Moses fled to the land of Midian, which was about 300 miles away. He meets a woman, becomes a shepherd, and starts a family. Moses spent about 40 years in Midian, which is a long, full life in ancient times.

But the end of the chapter says this:

23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

That’s one of my favorite verses and perhaps the most important verse in the Exodus story, because it shows us the heart of God. He saw and He knew. Everything else that happens in this story happens because of God’s compassion. Whatever you are going through, God sees, and He knows.

We see it repeatedly in the Gospels. Jesus sees someone hurting, He feels compassion, and He responds. This is the God of the Bible.

In the next chapter, Moses encounters God at the burning bush.

3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

4 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.”

5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then God explains to Moses that He has heard the cries of his people and that He intends to save them from Egypt. He also explains that He intends to use Moses for this mission.

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

That’s a fair question. Moses ran from Egypt in fear. He’s been gone for 40 years. He has a life and a family in Midian.

But it’s also easy to see why God chose Moses. He might be the only Hebrew able to gain an audience with Pharaoh, because they grew up in the same household. It makes a great story – the long-lost brother returns to save his people.

And the ancient world had a lot of respect for Moses, because the Egyptians were the most important world empire at the time. Abraham was rarely mentioned outside of Jewish literature, but Greek scholars were writing about Moses a thousand years later.

They considered Moses to be the true founder of the Hebrew nation. Israel wasn’t really a nation before Moses led them out of Egypt. They had no laws or rituals. They weren’t organized until after the Exodus. The world assumed that Moses must have been a great leader.

Truth be told, Moses was nobody. He was a scared, stammering shepherd. God didn’t need Moses at all. God could have appeared to Pharaoh in a burning bush and made the same demands. God chose to use Moses as a mediator. Why?

There’s literally only one good reason. The answer is Jesus…

God used Moses to rescue his people from slavery. God used Jesus to rescue his people from sin.

The life of baby Moses was preserved when other Hebrew babies were being slaughtered by Pharaoh. The life of baby Jesus was preserved when other Bethlehem babies were being slaughtered by Herod.

Listen to what the book of Hebrews says about Moses:

24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,

25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Listen to what Philippians says about Jesus:

6 though he was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Both men had humble beginnings. Both men confirmed their leadership by miraculous signs. But Jesus is a far greater Moses. The only reason God used Moses at all was to lay the prophetic foundation for Jesus.

The best evidence of this is found in Exodus 3, when God reveals His covenant name to Moses.

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

This phrase in Hebrew is “ehyeh asher ehyeh”. It’s a simple statement, but it is packed with theological and philosophical significance.

It means that God is self-existent. He IS – not because of anyone or anything else. He is completely independent. No other being in the universe can claim that.

It also mean that He doesn’t change. He is faithful and reliable.

He’s also being intentionally mysterious. God is refusing to describe Himself in terms that humans can fully understand. Our language and our categories cannot fully capture the essence of God.

This name also says something about God’s active presence. He is eternal and faithfully present with His creation.

Finally, this name is tightly connected to the name Yahweh that God gave to Abraham, because it uses the same consonants and God uses that name again in the very next verse.

But how does this connect us to Jesus? In John 8:58, Jesus is speaking to a group of religious leaders, and He says this: “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Immediately they picked up stones to try and kill Jesus. Why? Because Jesus was claiming to be the God of the burning bush! That was either blasphemy of the worst kind, or Jesus is really the God of Abraham and Moses.

Now, let’s talk about the burning bush. Throughout the Bible, fire is used to represent the presence of God – from the bush to the pillar of fire to fire and smoke on Mount Sanai to the fire that consumes offerings to the tongues of fire that appeared among the disciples in Acts 2.

The bush is significant because it burns but the fire doesn’t consume it. Why? It’s actually a powerful symbol that speaks to the calling and mission of Moses.

Moses is the bush! Moses should have been consumed by the holy presence of God, but instead God preserved him and used him to complete an important mission.

Likewise, God’s church today is the bush. Jesus is the Holy One who came down from heaven to walk among His people. We should have been consumed by the presence of God, but instead we are empowered by Him to accomplish His mission.

When Jesus walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, what did Luke say about them? He said their hearts burned within them! That’s it! That’s the image!

And just like Moses, we are called to a holy mission. He calls us in our weakness to carry His presence. We are not consumed by it, because Jesus has already suffered and died in our place. God is present with us. He is not distant from our suffering. And He chooses to use the Church to reach the nations.

Listen to these words from Hebrews 3:

1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,

2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.

In many ways, we have it better than Moses did. We already know how the story ends! We know what God was doing and what He has done.

And like Moses, you may feel disqualified—too old, too broken, too weak, too sinful, too ordinary. Maybe like Moses, you’re haunted by your past, or maybe you’re just comfortable in Midian and don’t want to be interrupted.

But I want you to know, God calls unlikely people to holy ground. He reveals Himself not to the strong, but to the humble. He meets us not in the palace, but in the wilderness. And He doesn’t call you because you’re great—He calls you because HE IS.

The great “I AM” has sent you.

The burning bush was not consumed because God’s presence is not here to destroy you—it’s here to dwell with you. Jesus bore the consuming fire of judgment on the cross so that you could walk into the flames and live.

And the question if not like the one Captain Miller asked Private Ryan – “Will you earn this?”— because you can’t. But rather, “Will you follow Him?”

Will you follow Him on this mission—to go, to speak, to serve, to weep with the hurting, to love the lost? And you will never go alone!

The bush is still burning! I AM still IS.

So, take off your sandals. This is holy ground. And God is sending us.