YHWH

Praise God, hallelujah! So beautiful to feel the presence of God and to worship God with the reverence and awe that he deserves. So thankful to be worshiped with all of you. Warm welcome to all the guests that are here with us this afternoon, especially Pastor Joseph Memana is here with his wife Irene and children. He’s ministering as associate pastor at ICA New York. He taught our Sunday School classes tomorrow afternoon, and we’re so grateful that you’re able to worship the Lord with us. So thankful for God’s provision and continued providence in each one of your lives, especially those who are traveling. We thank God for bringing you back safely home. We especially remember those who will be traveling today and in the upcoming week as well. 

We’ve been going through our series on the names of God, “I Am.” Let’s turn our Bibles this afternoon to the Book of Exodus 3:10-15. Exodus 3:10-15. God’s word reads like this: “So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The god of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”

We come to a very familiar passage. Amal has already spoken half of my sermon this afternoon, but I know the Spirit of God can speak even through repetition. So here we go into Exodus 3:10-15. Every single one of you knows the context of when this was written, a very familiar story that we have read in God’s word. But oftentimes we forget the mindset of this man who is encountering God upon this mountain. Forty years is a very long time. A lot of you sitting here are not even 40 years old, but some of us are, but most of you are not. And so, 40 years is a very very long time. Oftentimes we read these passages of time and we think very quickly about Moses being in Egypt and suddenly we see him on this mountain, and we forget the years and decades that have gone by in the midst of it. Think about all that could happen in a span of 40 years. Think about all that, how long forty years is. That is a very long time, and all these years brought about a lot of regret, a lot of confusion, a lot of uncertainty. And I really do think, as I’ve told you before, that by the time he came to be 80 years old, he had resigned in his own mind to be a shepherd for the rest of his life. He knew that God had a certain purpose for him for delivering him from the hand of all the great deal of destruction that came upon his peers in Egypt during that time. But probably by the time he was eight years old, he was absolutely terribly confused as to why the purpose for God rescued him like that. Probably missing his family back in Egypt, once a wanted fugitive in all of Egypt, does not even know what is really going on back in Egypt. They do not have news or social media like we have today.

In a far away desert, he is very content, probably, by being a shepherd and probably looked at his life and thought, “What if I did not do what I did 40 years ago? What if I remained in Egypt? Surely the glories of Egypt, the great grandeur that I experienced.” The word of God tells us in the book of Acts that he was learned in all the best that Egypt had to offer. I want to remind you even this afternoon, Egypt was the greatest country in the world on that day, affording its citizens the greatest existence in the world today. Being the Prince of Egypt was no small feat. He had everything going for him. A lot of regret, a lot of mistakes in the past, wondering why, what was the purpose behind all this. We don’t really have much of a glimpse as to a spiritual state until this point. In fact, we do not even know how much he knows about the God of his mother, the God of his upbringing. A lot of times, you’ve heard sermons that his mom probably taught him as he came to feed him about the God who rescued him, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but it is debatable how much understanding Moses has about God that he would encounter in that burning bush on that day.

He’s an experienced shepherd by now. God had been training him without even knowing, God had been teaching him meekness and patience he did not have during the first 40 years of his life. And he comes and he sees a sight that he had never seen before. A bush that is burning, which is a very common sight in the wilderness with forest fires and wild ravaging fires. But something very distinct and unique about this bush, it was burning but it was not being completely destroyed. He comes close to it and the word of God says to us at first that it was the angel of the Lord that was in the burning bush. Then the Bible makes it very clear it was God, the pre-incarnate Christ, who appeared to him in the burning bush. And he says to him, “the place that you’re standing is holy, take off your sandals.” And then he gives instruction, “I’ve heard the cry of my people back in Egypt,” and the words that we read told him, “I want you to go back to Egypt, the place where you ran away from, and I want you to bring my people out of that land into the place, the land that I promise to their ancestors.”

He asked a very logical question in verse 13. It is this, Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelite.” He’s not agreed to it yet, in fact, as you read through your Bible, he will come up with all excuses under the sun not to go. But then he asks, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The god of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they asked me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I tell them?” See, here one thing you need to really understand is that Moses is not asking really for a name here. Moses is actually asking, “What kind of a God is sending me on this mission?” Because it would have been enough for Moses to come back and say, “The God of your fathers has sent me,” that would have been enough. God, the word itself tells them who is sending them. But when he asks the question, “What is his name? What shall I tell them?” You know what he’s asking, “What kind of a God is sending me? What do I communicate with them about the character of this God that is sending me? It is not enough for me to go and tell them if God has sent me. Egyptians have thousands of gods in all the land of Egypt. What is it about you that makes you special? What is it about you that makes you believable? What is it about you that I should stake my life and go back to the land where I am the number one wanted fugitive and risk my life to send a message which has no guarantee of any kind of success? These people have lived in slavery for many years. Who am I, I cannot even speak properly, that I would lead these people out?”

And then God answered to him in a way that we find very difficult to understand, and rightfully so. God says to him in verse 14, “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you.'” I am who I am sounds absolutely cryptic. In fact, in the original Hebrew, this is what he reads: “ehyeh asher eyeh,” I am who I am. What does that mean? It does not make any sense at all. In fact, the translation that we have in our Bible is the best that we could come up with because there is no word in your English Bible that can properly translate these three words. The “who” is easy. The first and the last one, we have no idea how to translate it.

Let me try to explain to you as best as I can. My knowledge of language is very primitive. My understanding of how to explain language is also very very primitive. But I’ll do the best that I can. One of my weaknesses even in studying English was learning what verbs were, nouns were. I still don’t get all of that correctly, and I struggle with learning languages. But here is my understanding of the words ehyeh asher ehyeh. The word “ehyeh” and the word we’ll talk about in a minute, Yahweh, is a verb. A verb is something that communicates something that happened in the past, in the present, and in the future. So here’s an example of it, “The boy ran to the store.” That is an expression, “ran to the store” is something that happened in the past. “The boy runs to the store today,” let’s talk about something that happened today. And then if you say, “The boy will run to the store,” you are talking about something that happens in the future. Ehyeh and Yahweh are verbs just like that, that talks about someone doing something. But the Bible goes even further, this word is what we call an imperfect verb. If I were to say, “The boy is running to the store,” that is an imperfect verb. What it means is this, I am watching the boy run. I’m looking at him and I’m saying he is right now running to the store. That’s the word ehyeh. The right way to translate this to English is this, “I am-ing is who I am-ing.” The problem is we don’t add -ing to the end of I am-ing, or we don’t ever say I am-ing. That is not something that we find in God’s word. Why did God use an imperfect verb to describe what he’s about to do?

God was communicating to Moses one thing, “I am the god of the past, I am the god of the present, and I am just as real a God of the future. And what I’m doing today, right this moment, is as real as anything that has happened in the past, in the present, and even happens in the future.” To us, the past, present, and future are difficult to comprehend. We understand the world as that, but God is not bound by space and time. What God is communicating to him is this, “When you were a baby boy, just three months old, thrown into the River Nile, I was there. When you were growing up in the Palace of Egypt, guess what, I was still God. When you were being kicked out of Egypt, I was still God. When you were tending the sheep in the wilderness, I was still God. On this mountain, I am still God. Guess what, when you go back to Egypt, I am still God, hallelujah! And because of that, you can tell them I Am is sending you. Because the God of Abraham, the god of Jacob, the god of Joseph, the god of Moses does not change.” Hallelujah! Not bound by space, not bound by time, self-existent, uncaused, ungenerated by anyone, uncontrolled by anyone is the God of the universe that we worship. It is really hard for me to explain this to you because I am bound by space and time, and so are you, but God is beyond all that. And he is saying to him, “I am everything that you want me to be in that moment.” Guess what, the God who was there in the past will be in the present and will be in the future as well.

Then God goes even further. It kind of makes it in language we can understand. In verse 15, he says to him, “God also said to Moses, say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name you shall be from generation to generation.'” In the English Bible, when you read it, it all sounds the same. The Lord sounds the same to you, the God sounds the same to you. There’s no distinction here, but here is exactly what God said. If you look at the next slide, here is what God is saying, “God (Elohim) said to Moses, say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord (Yahweh), the God (Elohim) of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'”

God is saying, “I’m going to give you a new name by which you have never known me, and I’m going to make you understand what I meant when I said, ‘I am who I am.’ See, you know me as Elohim, the Creator, the sustainer, the provider of everything. You also know me as the Lord Almighty, the one who appeared to Abraham, but I’m going to now make you know something that you’ve not known before. I am not only Elohim, I’m not only El Shaddai, I am also Yahweh. And I want that to be the name that you remember me by by all generations.” Why? Elohim is a distant God, El Shaddai is an Almighty God somewhere in the universe. Yahweh is not like that. Yahweh is a personal God. Yahweh is a God who wants to have a relationship with us. Yahweh is a God who wants to dwell with us. Yahweh is a God who wants to speak to us. Yahweh is a God who wants to do things for us. He is a personal God. That’s what the Yahweh of the Bible is.

So the Bible repeats this name more than 6,800 times. In your Bible, in other than three books in the Bible, you find the name of Yahweh. Yahweh is not found in Esther, Yahweh is not found in Ecclesiastes, Yahweh is not found in Song of Solomon. In all the other books of the Bible, you find the term Yahweh or a translation of it. And here is what we see beautifully in God’s word, 6,800 times. Now, if you look at this slide, it will tell you that I have spelled Yahweh wrong. That is not by a mistake that I made. This is the way it is found in the old Hebrew Bible, not spelled all the way, YHWH, why? Because the Hebrew, the Jew, would not even dare write the full name of the Bible above God on a piece of paper. God is so holy, God is so amazing that he does not even want to write the full name of God on a piece of paper.

How do we feel about our God? What is my reverence and your reverence towards this God? Do we have the reverence that the Jewish person had in the Old Testament towards God? Only the priests were allowed to even say the name of God, and that also in the temple. After the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, they have never said the name of Yahweh in any of their prayers because Yahweh is such a holy name, meant to be only pronounced by the priests of God in the temple of God. And not only that, when a scribe of the Old Testament would write the Scriptures, and he would come to the name of Yahweh, he would take the quill, the writing instrument that he was using, and he would throw it away, and he would take a new quill, and he would write YHWH, then he will break that quill off, and he will throw it away. Because to him, the pen that I use to write the name of God should not even be used to write any other name on the scroll.

What I’m trying to impress upon you is the way in which God was revered by the people of  old. In this day and age, because of grace, we have lost that sense and awe and wonder of how great God is. But remember, Yahweh is the same God. Yahweh hasn’t changed. Yahweh still needs to be worshiped. Yahweh still needs to be revered. Yahweh still needs to be adored. Yahweh still needs to be lifted up. Yahweh is the only one that is worthy of praise. Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh, He is worthy. 

God said to Moses in Exodus 6:2-3, “God also said to Moses, ‘I am the Lord (Yahweh). I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name the Lord (Yahweh) I did not make myself fully known to them.'” This is kind of a difficult to understand passage in the service because when you look back in Genesis, Noah addressed God as Yahweh, Abraham addressed God as Yahweh, at least in one place. So why is it the Bible says that I did not make myself known to them, but I will now make myself fully known to them? But read the last sentence very carefully. God is not saying that they did not know Yahweh, but what God is saying is that I am going to start revealing myself more clearly to my people than ever before. 

See, Abraham knew Yahweh, Noah knew Yahweh, but they knew him as a distant God. Now God is about to enter into a covenant relationship with his people. He’s about to come down into the land of Egypt and deliver his people. He is going to now provide them with the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, every single day. He’s going to provide the manna, every single day He’s going to provide the protection, deliverance from their enemies. And God is going to say, “You will know me as a personal God who gives your daily bread, and every single day you will know me as clearly as I need to be known.” Even though they know the name Yahweh, they don’t know who I am, but I’m going to make myself fully known to them.

So here’s where we come to Yahweh. Here’s the definition of Yahweh: he’s a self-existent God who is near to us, a self-existing God who is near to us. There are a few things that I want to say about this name Yahweh, what it communicates to us is this: his nature is self-existent, it is eternal, it is incomprehensible. A common name is not enough to adequately define him, and that’s why he said, “I am who I am.” It is not enough to call him any name, he had to come with a name that communicates his ongoing, personal, divine relationship with his people, and he came up with the name Yahweh.

Secondly, remember this all the time: God is independent and does not need anyone or anything, and is completely whole within himself. Oftentimes we say, “God resides on the praise of his people,” that is a true statement, the Bible itself says that. But then a lot of people think that if I don’t praise God, he is going to fall down. No, God does not need your worship, God is not one who requires you to worship him for him to feel satisfied at the end of the day. See, God does not need you, but you need God, and that is the truth of God’s word. He is independent, he is not dependent upon anyone. A lot of people walk around this world, “I am independent.” In fact, America, the entire culture thinks they’re independent. They think, you know, the independent mindset, and you are probably living in the most independent state out of all the union, the state of Texas, where people say, “My way or the highway, I do my own way, I’m the captain of my soul.” No, you are not, you are dependent upon someone for everything, every single day. You’re dependent upon God for your breath, you’re dependent upon things, material things every single day. When you open that tap and water comes out of it, you know how many people work behind the scenes to make that happen? Ever thought about that? No, we don’t think about that, right? And when you drive on the roads, we don’t even think about the roads they’ve been paved, but you are dependent upon someone for every single day, even if you live off the grid on a mountain. You still have to eat, where do those fruits and vegetables and everything come from? You might say, “Well, I grow them myself,” well, who allowed you to grow them? The God of the universe gave you that fruit. You are always, human beings, are dependent upon someone. God is the only one who is independent.

Thirdly, this is a great truth of God’s word: in his great love and mercy, He makes himself available to us and is present as the unchanging one. God does not need us, God doesn’t have a reason to come to us, but the story of God’s word is this: Yahweh, this great God, the I am, coming down to us, to make us to know him, and to make us to be children of him. Look at John chapter 8:56-58, that Amal referenced earlier, that conversation where we’re talking about the greatness of Abraham, and Jesus said to them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not even 50 years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham?” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am.” He could have used a lot of words in that sentence to describe what he was saying. In fact, even if he had said “before Abraham was born, I was” that would still be a true statement. But that’s not what Jesus did. He said “before Abraham was born, I am.”

And if you have any doubt about what he was saying, look at the next words: at this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. Before you blame the Pharisees, Jewish people for doing what they’re about to do, imagine if somebody walked in here next Sunday, stood before me and said, “I am Jesus Christ.” We may not throw stones at them because we are Christians, but we will gently come and escort them out of the building. But they were very, very serious about the name of their God, remember what I told you, they would not even say the full name of their God nor would they write it down. And here is a carpenter’s son, an ordinary man, standing in front of them and saying, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” Are you kidding me? See, it’s no surprise they tried to do what they do because he was claiming equality with God. See, the I Am had come into this world, the I Am of the burning bush had made himself known to us in a flesh, in the body of a carpenter’s son.

Look at Luke chapter 17:20-21, they were all wondering. He was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst,” talking about himself, the God of the ages. The kingdom of God has come down. See, and he is the unchanging one, the I Am who came down. Hebrews 13:8 reminds us so beautifully that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The I Am of the Old Testament was Jesus Christ who had come, and now word of God says the I Am who did things in the past, is the one that does things today, he will do things for you tomorrow. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He can trust in him, you can not count on him to take care of him.

In the psalm that we read today, in Psalm 19, the first six verses, God used the term Elohim to describe himself. Starting in verse 7, when it talked about the word of God, he used the word Yahweh. Why? Elohim created everything, but Yahweh is the one who has made this covenant with you. So as you read through Psalm 19:7 all the way to the end of that chapter, what we find is Yahweh telling you, “My commandments are worth following, my decrees are worth following, because I have made this covenant with you.” In Genesis 1, God’s name is Elohim all the way to chapter 2:4. Elohim created this, Elohim did this. Starting in verse 4, in the relationship with Adam and Eve, suddenly he is known as Yahweh Elohim, God who is the almighty Creator who longs to have that personal relationship with him.

In 1904, Pastor W. Stillman Martin was a well-known Baptist teacher and evangelist. He was teaching at a Bible School in New York. One evening, he prepared to go out and preach, but his wife became desperately ill, so he attempted to cancel the preaching engagement. He didn’t want to leave his wife’s side while she was ill. Then his son said, “Dad, don’t you think if God wants you to go preach, he can take care of Mom while you’re away?” His son’s comment struck him, so he went away to preach. When he came back, his wife was better than she had ever been before. In fact, she began writing about the care of God. She wrote, “Being not dismayed whatever betide, God will take care of you. Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you. God will take care of you, through every day, over all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.”

A year later, while watching one of her friends suffer, she was reminded of the passage in God’s word in Matthew 10:29-31, where Jesus asked the question, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth so much more than many sparrows.” With this thought, “I know a God who is watching over the sparrows, so the problems of my life are nothing when compared to the fact that God even watches the sparrow falling to the ground,” in the context of that verse, she wrote this famous hymn. It goes like this, “Why should I feel discouraging, why should the shadows come, why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home, when Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is he. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. So I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”

That took more courage than I ever had in my life to do. I am mortified of singing in public. If I can stand before you and sing, some of you who have never preached before should start preaching in the days ahead. Preaching doesn’t scare me, by the grace of God, singing does. See, I was supposed to start that song at a much lower pitch, but I get very emotional, so when I sing, I start at a very high pitch, and then the rest of the song is a struggle to stay at that key as I go through it. It was supposed to start at a much lower pitch. I sounded a lot better at home, didn’t I Liza. She said,”Let not your heart be troubled, his tender word I hear, resting on his goodness, I lose my doubts and fears; though by the path he leadeth, but one step I may see.” See, oftentimes the path he leads you, you can only see the one single step in front of you. “But remember, his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”

I don’t know what kind of trouble is troubling your heart today, but I can say with all the confidence that God’s word gives to me, the God of the Bible is your Yahweh. He said, “Not a single sparrow will fall to the ground without my knowledge. Are you worth not more than they are?” Remember, when Satan brings doubt into your heart, when troubles come bringing doubt into your heart, remember, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches over me.” So you know what we’ll do, we sing because I’m happy, we sing because we are free, free from all the care, free from all the doubt, free from all the pessimism, free from all the anxiety, because we know we have a God who cares. That’s why the psalmist says this to us, Psalm 30:4, “Sing the praises to the Yahweh, you his faithful people; praise his holy name.”

I pray that you will never stop worshiping him, that you will never stop singing his praises. Yes, he is the Great I Am of the Old Testament, but he is also the God of your life, the Lord of your life, the one who cares for you, who is present with you. His eye is on the sparrow, his eye is on our church, his eye is on your family, his eye is on your life, his eye is on every moment of your life, and he watches over you. May that comfort strengthen you, lead you. Remember, he is Yahweh, worthy of our adoration.

Heavenly Father, O Lord, we come to you, oh we worship your God, we are not worthy to take your holy name upon our lips, other than for the cross. And, oh God, we praise you that you made us to be worthy to be known as the children of God. So we come rejoicing in who you are, rejoicing in who you are in our life. For God, that personal, immutable, unchanging, or ever-present God. Lord, I pray that in the lives of your people, oh God, this word that they heard today will continue to minister them, strengthening them, encouraging them, leading them to higher heights of faith like never before, by your power and by your spirit. We thank you for hearing our prayer.