Our God Communicates With Sinners!

3rd Sunday in Lent, 3/7/10
Exodus 3:1-8b, 10-15


Our God Communicates With Sinners!
I. He reveals his holiness.
II. He promises his rescue.
III. He proclaims his name.


I’d like you to take a few seconds and think about the people with whom you communicate on a regular basis. Do you have them in mind? Now I want you to analyze those people on the basis of one criterion. In general, are they people who mostly think like you do or are they people who don’t think much at all like you do? I’m certain the answer is nearly universal. We tend to communicate with the people who think like we do. It’s just natural. Oh, sure, there are exceptions to that rule. We might participate in a classroom setting in which the students and teacher are trying to expand the views of all involved, to get them to drop their preconceived notions and stereotypes. Or we might be part of a brainstorming session at work that draws out ideas from all sorts of viewpoints. But as we live our daily lives, we tend to communicate with people who live and think and act and talk in ways that are similar to our own. In social situations, at school and at work we gravitate towards people who share our viewpoint and we avoid those with whom we share very little.

But that’s not true with our God. Thank God it’s not true with our God! That’s what his written word is all about. The only reason we know anything about him is due to the fact that he has communicated that word to us. In fact, there were times in history when he communicated that word very directly to his creatures and we have one of those events before us this morning. Exodus 3 relates the familiar event of the Lord appearing to Moses in the burning bush. The mere fact that our God would appear and communicate with Moses at all is an astounding event. But that’s what our God does. He communicates with sinners. Our God communicates with sinners. Please follow along with me and see what he communicates and why.

Part I.
We spoke a moment ago about how we tend to communicate with people most like ourselves. Take that analysis one step deeper. Isn’t it true that most of your communication is with the people that are closest to you? We want to communicate with our friends, our buddies. Nearly every sit-com on TV involves the communication between buddies and the ridiculous ways they handle daily situations. In our own lives we want to share our daily experiences with our family members and friends.

But when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, it was not his attempt to share his thoughts and opinions and experiences with his buddy. This was not a conversation between two similar

individuals. This was not anything like two old friends meeting at their favorite watering hole to fill each other in on what was happening in their lives.

This was the holy God who was on a mission to share some important information with a sinner. The pecking order was clear here. There was no question as to which person was in charge. God wasn’t meeting with Moses as his buddy. He was Moses’ holy God. And he made it perfectly clear that they had little or nothing in common. When Moses wanted to take a closer look at this burning bush that wasn’t consumed, the Lord told him, “Moses! Moses! Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” The Lord set up a barrier between himself and Moses. Now that might sound like the absolute wrong way to begin this communication, but it was absolutely proper. We sinners are not God’s buddies. And as good as we might think we are, we are not even close to being equal with God. We need that reminder. Moses received it.

In fact, it made him afraid. Again, fear doesn’t sound like the proper frame of mind in which to have a meaningful communication, but it was absolutely proper in this case. Our text says, “At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” Now the Lord had Moses right where he wanted him before he began sharing his communication with him. Moses got the message loud and clear: this was the holy God speaking to the sinful Moses.

Our God communicates with sinners! He reveals his holiness.

I hope you’re not saying to yourselves at this point, “Is that all you want to tell me this morning, pastor? I sure hope not, because you’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know.” I’m aware of that. But you need the reminder. I need the reminder. Because everyone of my sins—even my sinful thoughts—are a communication to the holy God that what I think and do is just as valid and important as what God thinks and does. We daily place ourselves as the creatures right next to or even above the Creator. And the holy God won’t put up with it. That’s rebellion and he’s not going to stand for it. So he communicates his holiness to us. He blinds us with his holy requirements so that we see the darkness of our sins. And then he communicates something even more astounding. He shares his holiness with us. He reminds us of our Savior’s sacrifice for sins and the amazing truth that by faith in Jesus we are clothed in God’s righteousness or holiness. Our God communicates with sinners!

Part II.
When someone makes a promise to you, how long do you wait for them to fulfill it? A day? A month? A year? We don’t wait long. And we all reach a particular point at which we’re certain that the promise has been broken. It’s no longer going to be fulfilled.

But that never happens with our God and he wants to communicate that to you this morning. Not even when 430 years pass by.

Did I just happen to pick 430 years out of a hat? Not at all. That just happens to be the number of years between the time that Jacob moved his sons and their families to Egypt to be with Vice-Pharaoh Joseph and the time that the Lord now appears to Moses in the burning bush. 430 years! Before Jacob left for Egypt, he was torn about going or not. He knew that the Lord had promised the holy land to his grandfather Abraham. For that reason he was reluctant to go. But the Lord communicated to him the following promise, “I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again” (Gen. 46:4).

Much had happened during those 430 years. Eighty years before this burning bush incident the Pharaoh had ordered all baby Jewish boys to be drowned in the Nile, but a cute little boy in a reed basket was spared by Pharaoh’s daughter and she named him Moses. Forty years later Prince Moses figured it was time to lead his people out of Pharaoh’s bondage. He took matters into his own hands and murdered an Egyptian. But it was a power grab that went wrong and Moses fled into the wilderness. During the 40 years in the wilderness the shepherd Moses learned humility.

And now the Lord was ready to act. He told Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…and to bring them…into a good and spacious land.” He promised to rescue them. He was going to act on his promise he made so long ago to Jacob and bring them physical rescue. He was going to lead them to the Promised Land.

Our God communicates with sinners. He promises his rescue.

What type of rescue from your God are you looking for? A relationship rescue? A financial rescue? An employment rescue? A health rescue? We all need rescuing from something. But more often than not, the rescues we’re looking for from God are rescues he has not promised. He never promised to rescue us and bring us into our own Promised Land. But he did promise to rescue us to his. And he did that. At just the right time. During Lent we focus on that rescue ever so intensely. That rescue cost his Son his life, but it costs us nothing. You have the received the greatest rescue ever! Your God communicates that message to you through his word and sacrament. Our God communicates with sinners. He promises his rescue.

Part III.
God’s plan to physically rescue his people involved the leadership of Moses. But Moses wasn’t an eager leader. In fact, in the next chapter of Exodus Moses lists one excuse after another. We can understand Moses reluctance, but isn’t that an awfully precarious position to take—a sinner opposing the will of the holy God?

And the holy God was not impressed. He wasn’t fond of his creature resisting the Creator’s grand plan. But God didn’t crush Moses. He didn’t scrap the plan. We don’t even hear some anger-filled words as we might expect.

Instead, we hear the Lord proclaiming his name. Now that may sound odd at first. His response to Moses’ resistance was, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” What good would it do to tell the people “I AM is the God who sent me”? The short answer is, “Everything.”

That’s because all of God’s revelation is contained in that name I AM. That name indicates several truths about the only true God. First, he is I AM. He is not “I WAS” or “I WILL BE.” He lives in a timeless present. He’s eternal. Second, he is dependent on no one and nothing for his existence. He is over and above all things. Third, he is faithful. The name I AM in Hebrew is a word with four letters. They also form the name LORD—all upper case letters. It’s the name God uses for himself to indicate that he is the God who is faithful to his promises to save sinners. The LORD accomplished that salvation by sending his Son to live and die for sinners. That’s the greatest thing that God could communicate to any sinner.

And he has communicated it to you. He has proclaimed his saving name to you. By that proclamation he has brought you to faith in Jesus and now he keeps you in your faith through word and sacrament. And what a privilege that now he uses you and me to proclaim his saving name to others, to our world! All these truths spring from the fact that our God communicates with sinners.

Thank God he does. And please don’t take that communication for granted. Make it your greatest treasure! Amen.

We've Seen This Before!

4th Sunday in Lent, 3/14/10
Judges 10:6-16


We’ve Seen This Before!
I. An unfaithful people
II. A faithful God


If a movie is good, I’ll watch it more than once, sometimes even 10 or more times. How about you? I won’t pay to watch a movie more than once, but I’ll watch it more than once on TV. I’m sure you do the same. And why is that? Because in your opinion and mine, it was a good movie. There were parts of it that we thoroughly enjoyed. We loved watching the thriller again and being thrilled once more. We loved watching the comedy again and laughing at the scenes and lines that made us laugh before. Sometimes we’re so familiar with the movie that we can speak the famous lines right along with the actor or actress. What’s more, each time you watch the same movie you probably notice a detail or two that you missed all the previous times you viewed that movie. In other words, you get something new out of it every time you watch it. We don’t mind watching some of the things that we’ve seen before.

But that’s not always true. There are some things we’ve seen that we never want to see again. Talk to battle tested veterans. They’re trying to forget some of the terrible things they’ve seen and never want to see them again. Decades ago I watched as a car full of people pulled out in front of a semi going 55 miles an hour and five people were instantly killed. I never want to see that again. I’ve watched life support being withdrawn from a 6-day-old infant and I pray I never have to see that again.

Judges 10 presents a biblical scene to us this morning that might before unfamiliar to you, but it’s still one we’ve all seen before. The story of God’s dealings with his Old Testament people Israel is one we’ve seen over and over again. And there are parts of it we never want to see again. But there are also parts we hope and pray we’ll see every day of our lives on this earth.

We’ve seen this before! Join me as we take another look at it this morning and what it means for us as God’s people.

Part I.

Are you familiar with Garrison Keillor’s radio show, Prairie Home Companion? For decades it’s been broadcast on public radio each Saturday. On every show he reports the news from Lake Wobegon, a fictional town in Minnesota where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” That characterization brings smiles to our faces, but isn’t that the way people often think about themselves? In fact, psychological studies have been done which confirm that people often think of themselves as above average when they’re really at or below average.

But if there were ever truly a people or a place which we would assume to be a good place with above average people, wouldn’t it be among God’s people of the Old Testament, the Israelites? After all, look at the advantages they had. They had watched as God’s angel of death struck down all the firstborn among the Egyptians. They had watched as God parted the waters of the Red Sea for them. They watched water flow from rocks and manna and quail fall from heaven. They watched the walls of Jericho come tumbling down. They had God’s law inscribed by the finger of God himself. Not only would we think their women were strong, their men good looking and their children to be above average, but we would think all went well for them in their daily lives and in their relationship with the one true God.

But we couldn’t be more wrong. This event in our text takes place between the leadership of Joshua who succeeded Moses and Saul, Israel’s first king. At this point God was serving as the king of Israel. You would think that with God as their King things couldn’t get much better.

But actually things couldn’t get much worse. This 400 year period of Israel’s history known as the time of the judges (who were more like rulers than judges) was nothing other than a downward spiritual spiral that swirled faster and faster to hell as the decades passed by. The lives of God’s people were stained with violence and immorality. Jews committed atrocities against their fellow Jews and thought nothing of it. And they were God’s people?!

But this story before us was nothing new. In fact, in this book of Judges this event marks the 6th apostasy. In other words, this is the sixth time that God had to deal with a nation that had turned completely against him. They were rank heathens.

And the words of our text reveal the sordid details. “They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Aram and the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines.” Perhaps these names don’t mean much to you. Picture Israel in the middle of the Holy Land. The people I just mentioned lived in every direction around the Israelites. In other words, the Israelites, God’s people, turned their backs on the Lord and embraced the false gods of every nation around them. And it wasn’t pretty. It was filthy ugly. With children present this morning I can’t describe all the sordid things the Israelites did in the name of worship of these false gods.

So what did the Lord think about all this? He leveled the boom of his righteous anger. He said, “You have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble.” A previous verse spoke of 18 years of oppression at the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites. Things got so bad that the Jews actually cried out to the Lord, but he gave no words of love to the people who were so unfaithful to him.

We’ve seen this before. God’s people being unfaithful to him.

One response to what we’ve seen would be, “How could they act this way after all the Lord had done for them? How ungrateful and spiritually foolish could they be?” But is their foolish history of unfaithfulness to the one true God really so unusual? Is it really so far from our own history? I realize idol worship may not be in our past, but idolatry in the heart certainly is. Can we count how many times we told God to take a back seat in our lives or even shoved him out of our life’s vehicle at least momentarily while we had our fun? Are we more concerned about what others think about us than what God says to us in his word? You don’t have to have an affair with the neighbor’s spouse to be unfaithful to your own and that applies to our relationship with our God as well. We haven’t been completely faithful to him. We’ve seen this before, sadly to say, in ourselves.

Part II.

And what is our God’s response to the unfaithfulness of his people? In this instance, it’s what we wouldn’t expect. It’s his eternal faithfulness.

But if we think about it a little more, we’ve seen this before, even in our own lives. If you are currently raising children or have raised children in the past, you’ve seen this before. And even if you haven’t raised children, think back to your relationship with your parents. As a parent, do you always mete out punishment exactly on your children? As a child, do you recall an instance in which you were expecting your parents to come unglued because of your sinful ways but they didn’t? Some of that may have been due to parents’ inability to carry out discipline correctly in every situation. In other cases, it’s because the heart of a parent is moved by love for a child that doesn’t deserve it.

And that’s what occurs here in our text. We’ve seen this before. “The Israelites said to the Lord, ‘We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think is best, but please rescue us now.’ Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.” On the one hand our God is perfectly just and holy. He cannot and he will not tolerate sin. On the other hand he is gracious, loving and forgiving. He is faithful to his promise to forgive.

And so he rescued them. The next verses after our text describe how God raised up another judge to lead them into victory over their enemies and thus end the 18 years of oppression. He accomplished that rescue through a man named Jephthah. That made this the sixth time God rescued them. We’ve seen this before.

And we’ve seen it before in our own lives as well. That’s what this Lenten season is all about. It’s about God’s rescue of a sinful world. The story of Jesus going to Calvary’s cross doesn’t belong with the other great tragedy stories ever written. This was a rescue—the greatest rescue ever undertaken because it involved freeing your soul and mine from eternal punishment in hell. The cross of Christ was not simply a nice gesture on God’s part for you. It was absolutely necessary. Without it, we have no life with God.

We’ve seen this before—a God who is faithful to unfaithful sinners.

And that truth just doesn’t make sense. God is faithful to unfaithful sinners. In fact, he sacrifices his Son on a cross for them. In the eyes of the world that’s foolishness! It’s preposterous! But that’s God’s saving wisdom. You and I by God’s grace have seen that saving wisdom before. By God’s grace we believe it and are rescued. We’ve seen it before. We have an opportunity in the next 3 weeks to see it all over again as Jesus staggers to Calvary’s cross, dies, and then rises again. We’ve seen this before. May we see it over and over again and praise our God for it. Amen.