He is the God who always is, whose Word is true, and never fails. He is a God who acts and always does what he says he’s going to do.
Moses’s encounter with the burning bush is one of the most iconic images not only in Scripture but also in pop culture, having made several appearances in film and television. From Charlton Heston’s 1956 characterization of Moses in The Ten Commandments to an early episode of The Simpsons to the 1998 DreamWorks film The Prince of Egypt, you no doubt have a very clear idea of what this moment looked like. But I wonder if we’ve ever stopped to think about what’s really happening here?
The God Who Calls the Unlikely
The fact that God is speaking is, in and of itself, an epoch-making event, especially since it had been roughly four hundred years since the death of Joseph, which was the last time anyone heard from the Lord. But now, he’s speaking again, and he’s speaking to a shepherd, of all people, in the middle of nowhere, of all places, through a shrub that’s on fire but never burns up, of all things. As strange as some of this seems or sounds, it’s precisely here that God not only reveals his plan to bring his people out of Egypt, but also invites Moses to be a part of it. And don’t gloss over that last part.
We should be a little gobsmacked that God bothered with Moses. By the time of the burning bush encounter, Moses was a weathered eighty-year-old (Acts 7:30) who had grown comfortable with his quiet, obscure life as a sheep herder working for his father-in-law. This isn’t the same Moses from decades prior, the one who hastily involved himself in conflict, seeing himself as a vigilante peacemaker, of sorts. There’s something to be said about his willingness to stand up for the oppressed, especially in the scene by the well in Midian (Exod. 2:16–22), which ushers him into a new chapter of life. And yet, it’s Moses’s “fiery compassion” that God intended to utilize for his sovereign purposes. The point is that God uses Moses despite his flaws and apparent shortcomings.
Living as a follower of God doesn’t mean you have your life all figured out and everything all put together. Every single one of us is flawed, in some way, shape, or form. But despite all those flaws, shortcomings, and failures, God has chosen you. He wants to use you in ways that you can’t even fathom right now to bring glory to his name (1 Cor. 1:26–31). What this means is that the church is a community of inadequate people who’ve been filled with God’s sufficiency so that we can serve him.
Learning Our Inescapable Inadequacy
This is one of the hardest lessons to learn, especially since no one is chomping at the bit to acknowledge how inadequate or insecure they are. In other words, the reason Moses spent forty years as a farmhand was so he could learn to be nothing. When the Lord visits the former prince of Egypt, he has sloughed off his royal upbringing and fully embraced a pastoral life (Exod. 3:1–3). This doesn’t prevent God from retrieving him, as he calls out to Moses from “a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” As God makes himself known through “the angel of the Lord,” Moses is invited to come closer and receive insight into God’s plan to deliver his people from slavery (Exod. 3:7–10), which is where we hear the first of Moses’s many excuses as to why he isn’t the right guy for the job (Exod. 3:11).
Overwhelmed by what he might say, we are introduced to a Moses who has been sufficiently humbled by the last four decades. Gone is his wide-eyed idealism that led him to believe he could bring change through sheer show of force. Instead, Moses is reluctant and insecure. He’s unfit, unqualified, ineffective, and unwilling. His constant refrain throughout this scene is that he’s the wrong guy for this assignment. “Who am I?” he cries (Exod. 3:11). “What would I even say?” (Exod. 3:13). “What if they don’t believe me?” (Exod. 4:1). “I’m not a good talker!” (Exod. 4:10). “Please send anyone else but me!” (Exod. 4:13).
It’s safe to say that killing a man in cold blood really did a number on Moses’s self-assurance, not to mention the fact that he’s eighty years old now. But for every excuse Moses has to offer, God has a better answer, drawing his attention to who he is and not what Moses can or can’t do. The best of this occurs when Moses professes his ineloquence (Exod. 4:10). Of course, the prospect of standing before the world’s most powerful potentate and convincing him to let your people worship their God freely was daunting enough, let alone for someone like Moses, who may or may not have had a speech impediment. “Slow of speech and tongue” suggests it was a burden for Moses for words to come out of his mouth. He could never find “the right words” or think of what to say. He was a clumsy talker.
The God Who Qualifies the Called
What’s so fascinating, though, is how God responds to his inadequate servant. “Who has made man’s mouth?” the Lord inquires. “Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Exod. 4:11–12). With these words, Moses’s gaze is redirected from his own inescapable inadequacy to his God and Creator, the one who put every star in its place, formed every blade of grass, and fashioned Moses’s lips. He can make a withered hand whole again, turn a staff into a snake, and the Nile River into a river of blood (Exod. 4:1–9). God’s “signs” for Moses aren’t parlor tricks, nor is he just showing off. Instead, God is giving his weak and feeble servant demonstrable evidence that nothing is outside the scope of his power.
God’s “signs” are tokens of his patience. He knew what he was getting when he chose Moses. He wasn’t surprised by his faults, failures, or insecurities, and he’s not surprised by yours either. Significantly, though, God doesn’t resort to giving Moses a pep talk, nor does he encourage him by telling him about all the good qualities he possesses. In fact, the Lord never tells Moses that he’s going to turn him into a world-changing orator or promise to give him the superpower of speech. “The Lord did not take away — or even promise to take away — Moses’ nervousness,” J. Alec Motyer comments, “or impart boldness to him. He did, however, call him to a position of trust.” [1] Instead, God answers Moses’s confession of inadequacy with, “You’re right, you’re not up to the task. But I am, and that’s all that matters.”
Much like Gideon (Judg. 6:11–18), Isaiah (Isa. 6:5–7), and Jeremiah (Jer. 1:4–8), God’s call of Moses confirms the old saying is true: God doesn’t call the qualified; he qualifies the called. “The Lord does not call us because of our adequacy,” Motyer continues, “nor is his presence conditional upon us becoming adequate; it is rather promised to those who are inadequate.” [2] In other words, your weaknesses, insecurities, and inadequacies are no barrier for God to use you to accomplish his purposes. Rather, they are the canvas on which God displays his power and glory (2 Cor. 12:9–10).
The God Who Always Is
The gist of God’s message to Moses was that his plans to deliver his people were never tied to Moses’ abilities, or lack thereof. It was always about God alone, who he is and what he is capable of — about his constant sufficiency and his absolute sovereignty. This is what comes to the fore when he reveals his name to him. “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”’” (Exod. 3:14). Without getting caught in the weeds in a lengthy digression concerning the pronunciation of God’s name — Is it Jehovah? Is it Yahweh? Are we even allowed to say this name out loud? — focusing on storied superstitions that emerge out of the moment misses the point.
He is the God who always is, whose Word is true, and never fails. He is a God who acts and always does what he says he’s going to do.
Yahweh, of course, wasn’t a new, never-heard-before name for the God of the Hebrews. Folks were calling on that name as far back as the days of Seth (Gen. 4:26). Moreover, it was Father Abraham who believed in Yahweh and was, thereby, accounted as righteous (Gen. 15:6). What the Lord does here, though, is deepen the meaning of his name by disclosing, “I Am who I Am,” or “I will be who I will be.” This is no mere label; this is a revelation of his nature. He is the God who always is, whose Word is true, and never fails. He is a God who acts and always does what he says he’s going to do. This is why he promptly proceeds to repeat what he had promised to Abraham ages ago (Exod. 3:15–17). What he was for Moses’s predecessors, he still is, and always will be, for Moses: he is the I Am.
The Israelites, you see, were about to discover that theirs is a God who not only makes promises but who sovereignly and sufficiently keeps them. “They were about to learn in a most dramatic and visible way,” Michael P. V. Barrett affirms, “that deliverance is by Yahweh.” [3] He is the God who comes down to where his people are, hears their cries, sees their suffering, and brings salvation to them (Exod. 3:7–8). He is the one who was, and is, and is to come. He’s the God who actively involves himself in our situations to demonstrate his all-sufficient grace and power. Where his people are weak and inadequate, he is more than adequate and more than enough. He is everything and then some.
Yahweh’s Unending Sufficiency
It’s no accident that the first thing God says to his insecure servant is a reminder of his ongoing presence with him and for him. “I’ll be with you, no matter what” (cf. Exod. 3:12; 4:12). God invites Moses to take a step of faith with the assurance that he wouldn’t be alone in doing so. It’s the same word of assurance he gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In all of their troubles and difficulties, they were never without the presence of God, a promise that remains true for us today, too. After all, the God who revealed himself as the “I Am” to Moses is the same one who reveals himself to us in the person of Jesus, who is God with us (Matt. 1:23; Isa. 7:14). “Before Abraham was, I am,” he decisively declares (John 8:58). Christ’s promise to his apostles, and to us, is, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20), a promise he embodies and seals through his death and resurrection.
Christ’s promise to his apostles, and to us, is, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20), a promise he embodies and seals through his death and resurrection.
His promise to us is to be with us wherever he sends us. There’s no place we can go where he is not (Ps. 139:7–12). And the point is that this same all-sufficient God and Savior, who is always with us, calls us to serve him and follow him, right where we are — not by relying on our own strength or ability, but by holding fast to his. In and through his unending sufficiency, all our inescapable inadequacies are swallowed up. Although we’ll never be enough or ever measure up, ours is a God who is always enough and who stands in solidarity with us. That’s what the church is — namely, a community of weak and insecure people who are carried along by the presence of an all-sufficient God. And just as the bush burned but was never burned up, our God, Yahweh, is a God of unending sufficiency, whose promises never wear out. The fire of his sufficient and sovereign grace hasn’t run out yet, and it never will.
