Have you ever encountered something that became a defining moment in your life? Maybe it was an experience – a place you visited or an activity you engaged in for the first time. Maybe it was receiving unexpected news – either the kind that thrilled you or the kind that devastated you. Or maybe it was encountering another person. Perhaps the first time you saw the person who would become your spouse. Or maybe the moment you first locked eyes with your child.
These life-changing encounters mark us in a way that we’re never the same again. I want us to look at an encounter that became such a defining moment.
Exodus 3:1-14 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.” When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 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.’”
We have a God who reveals Himself.
Moses had known about God, but he had never known God like this.
God knows where you are.
Moses went from the palace to the pasture. He fled for his life. Moses assumes that no one knows where he is and that no one cares where he is. But there is one who both knows where Moses is and cares where he is. This is the God who sees where you are, knows where you are, and cares about where you are.
God wants to get your attention.
God uses a burning bush to get Moses’s attention. He will use different things to get yours. He might use something very difficult so you’ll pay attention to Him. He might come to you in a dream. He might use your child or your parents or your boss or your friend or someone here at Epic that you don’t even know. Shauna and I were in Maui in July of 2021. It had been a hard year + living and leading in lockdown. One of those seasons where I’m wondering, “God are you still here? Are you still working in my life?” So we’re in Maui and we decide to go for a walk and ended up standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. There were only 3 other people on the cliff, all women who were there together. They start pointing to something in the water. We asked what it was and we discovered there were some huge turtles in the water. It was a fun moment that quickly became a God moment. One of the women looked at me and said, “Are you Ben Pilgreen?” I said, “I am.” She said, “You baptized me.” Now we have baptized hundreds of people at Epic, but I couldn’t place her. She went on to say this – “I was a student at The Well, the college ministry you led at the University of Alabama. That night I was supposed to be baptized in the early part of the service. But when I told you my parents weren’t going to arrive on time, you allowed me to be baptized at the end of the service.”
Remember it was 2021 at the time. I led that college ministry between 2005-2008. God knows where you are and He knows how to get your attention.
What might God be doing in this season to get your attention?
When God reveals himself to us, he wants us to respond to his revelation.
This doesn’t mean we have to do a bunch of religious activities or performances. It doesn’t mean we have to convince God of something. I love how Moses responds to God’s revelation of Himself. God says, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses simply responds with, “Here I am.” I actually like incorporating this language into my early morning prayer time. “God, you are here. And God, I am here.”
Where the presence of God is, ordinary places become holy places.
“Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” So if the presence of God makes ordinary places holy places, what would be true if you and I became full time carriers of the presence of God, wouldn’t that cause all of our ordinary places in life to become holy places? Imagine living with that perspective. Ordinary meals around your dining table becoming holy meals. And the train or bus you commute on becoming a holy train or bus. And how you show up for the class at your gym. And what you do with your mind and body on a first date could make an ordinary date night a holy date night.
1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.
A God who lives in us. A God who empowers us. A God who calls us into what He’s up to in the world. While it’s true that God sees you and knows where you are, part of the reason He wants to get your attention is because of what else He sees and knows about what’s happening in the world. He tells Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them and bring them into a good and spacious land.” God says I have indeed seen the misery of my people.
When we are in the presence of God, what’s on his heart gets downloaded into our hearts.
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Moses knows the history well. He’s aware that the Jews have been enslaved for 400 years in Egypt. He’s very well-acquainted with the fact that he had to flee Egypt for his life. He knows who has all the power in Egypt. And now God’s told him to go to Pharaoh and bring his people out of Egypt. Moses asks what is the most obvious question if you think you have to carry out God’s assignment all by yourself: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
God doesn’t break into a self-help seminar to build Moses up by telling Moses about how he’s been preparing his whole life for this moment or that he has what it takes to handle Pharaoh all by himself. How does he answer Moses’s “who am I” question? He simply says, “I will be with you.
Tomorrow we will celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If you and I could ask him how he could give himself to the heavy work of pursuing justice and racial reconciliation, he would tell us that like Moses discovered, he couldn’t have done this on his own. After receiving a threatening call one night, he was afraid and unable to sleep. He opens himself up to God and here’s what happened:
“I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I have come to the point where I can’t face it alone.” At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced him. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears passed from me. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything. The outer situation remained the same, but God had given me inner calm.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What if we begin to assume the presence of God is our daily reality, rather than assuming the absence of God in our lives?
Back to Exodus 3. And this will be the sign to you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship on this mountain.”
Worship is our response to God revealing himself to us and worship is our response when God displays his power in our lives.
Moses – the sign won’t be a victory dance. Or a medal. Or a crown. The sign will be Worship. Suppose I go to the Israelites and they ask me about you, “What is his name?” What should I tell them? “I AM WHO I AM.”
There’s so much to this revelation from God. God is saying, “I am self-existent. And I am who I am and who I will always be.” In other words, “You can always depend on me to be who I will always be.” This God revealed himself to Moses and he’s revealing himself to you today. Encounter and revelation cause response. What is your response?
Holy Ground. Anything unholy that needs to be confessed to a holy God who is also a merciful God?
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
How do the ordinary places in our lives become holy ground?
What is on God’s heart that he’s putting into your heart?
Is there anything you feel like God has been asking you to do, but you don’t quite feel up to it? And you’ve been looking at your own capabilities and gifts, rather than the presence of God to empower you and to do what you can’t do and don’t have to do? Hear these words from him today – “I will be with you as you carrying out the assignments I am giving you.”
One more invitation: If you believe God is worthy of worship, then don’t hold back when it comes to your worship of Him. Join in when we pray and when we sing. I don’t know exactly what Moses did with his body (besides take off his shoes) when God revealed himself to him, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an arms crossed, disinterested face, “I’m bored” response.