God the Lord

At the end of the day, all will be well. He is all sufficient. His promises will come true,

he really cares, he is willing to save you, and he will never, ever leave you, and never forsake you.

That is one of the reasons we should study Scripture and learn truth theology. It anchors us in

the truth of who God is. It's not to pass a theology exam, although that's a good thing. It's to

know who God is. Welcome to the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham.

We've been studying theology this week as we feature messages for you from

Sinclair Ferguson's new series Theology for All, and it really is for all. Dr. Ferguson is warm

and pastoral, and so clearly teaches and explains these key areas of doctrine. And when I listened

to this message for the first time, I had to text clips to my family as it was so edifying and

encouraging. So I do encourage you to share today's message and to request access to all 36 messages

along with the study guide and a Renewing Your Mind journal when you give a donation before midnight

tomorrow at RenewingYourMind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Well, let's get into today's

study. Here's Dr. Ferguson on God the Lord. We're still really at the first section in our study of

Christian theology doctrine, the teaching of Scripture on every aspect of what we need to know about

God and what we need to know about ourselves and our world. And in the last session, we

tackled this great doctrine of the Trinity. And we were thinking there at the end about the practical

application of God as Trinity to our Christian lives, to our worship, to our fellowship together.

I want to focus more narrowly in this study on the fact that God is the Lord. You know, in the Bible,

there are various names by which God is known, but there is a special name that we find. I think

it's used about 6,000 times or more in the Old Testament scriptures. It's the Lord. And usually,

in our modern English versions, you can tell that the same Hebrew word is being used for the Lord,

because Lord is usually in block capital letters. And that's an indication in our English translations

that what lies behind the translation is the name Yahweh, sometimes called the Tetra Grammaton,

the name with four letters. We know it as the name of God, but of course, whenever the Jewish people

use it, this name Yahweh is so holy to them that they refer to Him as Hashem as the name

to me. It's one of the great paradoxes that God says, this is the name by which I am to be known,

but we don't pronounce that name. So much so, actually, that you would find even Hebrew scholars,

Old Testament scholars, pronouncing those four letters in slightly different ways,

which gives you a sense that there has been a long time when among God's own people that name

ceased to be pronounced. And it's a name that seems at first sight to appear, and it will only be

when we move on to later studies that I'll explain that statement. It appears first of all, of course,

when God meets with Moses at the burning bush, and Moses is attracted to this phenomenon in the desert,

it's a bush that's on fire and yet doesn't seem to be consumed. He goes near to it, wondering what

this is, and in the course of his engagement with God, as he asks God what his name is, God says,

I am, who I am, I am is my name. And when you go to your people and they say, well, who has sent you,

you say to them, I am, has sent you. Now, it's always been interesting to me that in the narrative of

Exodus chapter 3, two things happen. The first is that there is this bush that's on fire that

attracts Moses' attention. And he comes near and the voice says, take your shoes off your feet

because this is holy ground. And intriguingly, I think that's the very first time in the Bible,

the word holy is actually used. As Moses comes, as it were, face to face with this staggering

manifestation of who God is, then in a way, Moses is a bit like Isaiah in the temple, or perhaps

even like the seraphim there, who cover their faces and cover their feet in the presence of this

infinitely holy God. And Moses, interestingly, is attracted to this. There's something in a way

that repels us about holiness because we're sinful, but there's also something that attracts us

because it's beautiful. God is infinitely beautiful. And Moses is being attracted to engage

in him. But the thing that really fascinates me is this. At the end of the day,

when God says, I am, that I am, He is saying there is actually nothing like me.

Everything else comes into being and eventually ceases to be. There is an entropy in life.

But that is not true of me. I had neither beginning nor ending. I am not a creation.

I simply am. And when we try to think about that, it just gives us a headache, doesn't it?

We know nothing that simply is without it being dependent or derived from something else or someone else.

But God does something amazing. He attracts Moses' attention by an illustration of himself.

A bush that has a fire in it, but the fire is not dependent on the bush for its energy because

the bush is not being burnt up. This fire seems to exist simply as fire. It's independent.

It's fire that has its energy from fire. And it's a staggering illustration to Moses.

It is just an illustration, a created illustration of the sheer majesty of God

that He has uncreated. He is independent. And so as Moses comes near,

this is his first real encounter with the majesty of the great God.

And he's given a kind of bridge into understanding who God is by this illustration God gives to him.

It's like a minister giving a children's address and holding up an object to the children

to help them to understand some great biblical truth. And in order to help Moses understand,

in order to help Moses who will be the author of the opening books of the Bible,

the foundation for everything else we find in the Bible. It gives him this very gracious illustration

of a God who is no beginning and no end, who is absolutely independent, who possesses self-existence

or as the theologians say, ah, say it. He has his being from within himself

and not dependent on another. He is simply the great God without beginning, without end. He is

as we would say absolutely transcendent. And yet he is also wonderfully imminent.

He is transcendent and other than ourselves. And yet what Moses is experiencing here as we experience

in our own Christian lives is that this great God and not another has become imminent.

He has come near. You see, when we speak about the transcendence of God that he is above us

and beyond us, and then speak about the imminence of God that he is near, what we are actually saying

is it's the transcendent God who is imminent. This is the wonder of what happens in Moses' experience,

and then if you fast forward, this is what happens at the incarnation, isn't it?

This is the miracle of the incarnation that the Son of God takes our human nature

and yet remains the Son of God. But the baby who is lying in the manger is still the Son of God,

the transcendent Son of God who is upholding the universe in which he himself lies by the word

of his power. He is the imminent one. He has come near to his people. The fire is not dependent on

the bush for its burning energy. But the fire is nevertheless present in the bush.

And this is the great lesson that Moses is to learn about his God, about Yahweh, about God,

the Lord, that he who is utterly transcendent, who is all together other than we are,

is yet one who comes near to us as the transcendent God to show his grace and his mercy.

And if we had time together to work our way through this section in Exodus, especially Exodus

chapter 3 verses 1 through 12, I think we would see the ways in which God comes near in five different

ways. And I think it is at least worth mentioning them. First of all, when he comes near, he comes near

and he says to Moses, I am a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. And you may remember how he

refers back to the ways in which he had come to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and how he had

made covenant with them. And he says to Moses, I am that same covenant-making and covenant-keeping

God. And what I've come to do, Moses, is to keep the promises that I made to your fathers.

I will not let you down, but will keep my word. So this is the first way God comes to us. He comes

to us and he says, you can trust my word. Second, he says to Moses, I understand what's happening

in the world, because I am omniscient. I know all things. And this is a wonderful thing to think

about, isn't it, as a Christian believer, especially in those times when you feel nobody knows,

nobody understands. And it is true, isn't it, that even although we have very intimate relationships

with other people, we remain a kind of secret and mystery. I don't think I've ever met a husband

who would say, I fully understand my wife. And of course, you can't. You can't even fully

understand yourself. Never mind your wife or your children or your best friends. You can't fully

understand, but to think that he fully understands. What a blessing this is, he especially,

it's true isn't, especially when you're in difficulties to say, Lord, nobody, nobody knows,

even my nearest and dearest don't know. There are things I couldn't tell them. It might break

their hearts if I told them, but you know, you know. So he is a covenant making and keeping God. He

is an omniscient God. And then, thirdly, he is a compassionate God. He says, the reason I'm coming

to you, Moses, is because I've seen the suffering of my people. And it's drawn out my heart

if we could use human terms. It's drawn out my heart in compassion towards you because I care

for you. And then, fourthly, he says, and not only that, and this is the great thing about God,

it's not true about us, we can feel compassion for others, but then we feel absolutely helpless.

God says, I have come to rescue you. I have come to save you. I've come to deliver you. He is

a redeeming God. And then, fifthly, God says to Moses, I am the God who is with you.

I am who I am will be with you. You know what the word for that is, don't you? It's the word

Emmanuel. God with us. It's the word that Isaiah uses, isn't it, in his prophecy of the coming

Messiah? He will be Emmanuel, God with us. It's the prophecy that is remembered in the new

testament. He'll be called Jesus because he'll save his people from their sins. He'll fulfill

the prophecy of Emmanuel because he will be God with us. And so you can see the connection between

this wonderful experience that Moses has at the burning bush with the incarnation of our Lord Jesus

Christ. It's almost as though what Moses is experiencing is a kind of, well, not trial run

of what is to come, but an indication to him of the kind of God, his God is. And that God will

only fully and finally reveal himself to us in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When people ask you who has sent you, then Moses say, I am has sent you. I am who I am.

Just because of the way verbs work in the Hebrew language, some scholars have thought that those

words I am who I am might be translated or at least nuanced, I am who I will be. Not in the sense

of I am something I'm not just now, but I will be soon. But Moses, if you want to know who I am,

keep your eyes open on what I'm going to do. And whether that's a right translation or

interpretation or not, it's a real truth, isn't it? That this is actually how we come to know God.

We come to know God in the way he reveals himself to be in the things that he does.

And of course, when you think about this experience of Moses, you can't help fast forwarding from

the book of Exodus through, for example, the actual Exodus, where God showed his people

who he was, a God of majesty and might in delivering them, a God of providence in providing for them,

a God of judgment in judging them, a God of salvation in redeeming them, a God of providence in

protecting them, and a God who always keeps his promises in saving them. So there was this pattern

in the Exodus that God was establishing. And it's interesting that that pattern of the Exodus

is picked up in the prophecy of Isaiah when he thinks about the people being in bondage in Babylon

and about being restored to the promised land. He sees that event as a kind of further indication

of the God who brings his people redemption in the Exodus. But Isaiah sees something very interesting,

doesn't he? He understands that the restoration to the promised land that Exodus from Babylon is not

the Exodus people really need. The Exodus people really need is an Exodus from the bondage of sin.

And so he sees a figure who is clearly much greater than Moses appearing. Moses was the servant of

the Lord, but Isaiah sees another servant of the Lord beginning to appear. He doesn't fully understand

who he is or when he will come, but in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and then of course most famously in

Isaiah 52 to 53, the passage about the suffering servant. Isaiah sees, I said, we're looking into the

future that God is going to bring about another Exodus. In a sense, a real Exodus, of which the

original Exodus was only like a picture pointing forward to the reality. And in this Exodus,

it wouldn't be Moses who would be directed by the God who was with his people. It would be Jesus

who is God with his people, who would lead his people out of their bondage and into the promised land

of grace. You know, after Moses died, he appeared once.

He appears during Jesus' ministry, you remember, on the Mount of Transfiguration.

And among the things the Apostles remembered, James and Peter and John were there,

and among the things they remembered, they were sleepy, and so they probably missed a good deal

of the conversation and the action. But one thing they remembered was that Jesus spoke with Moses

and Elijah about literally, this is in Luke, this is the word Luke literally uses in the Greek text.

Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah, and they with him about the Exodus he would accomplish

at Jerusalem. And so you see this pattern that begins with the Lord saying, I am who I am,

and I am, keep your eyes on what I will do, because by watching what I will do, you will

discover more of who I am. But this pattern of the Lord being a manual, God with us,

comes to fulfillment when a manual himself is indeed with us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he comes to bring us the final redemption.

Now back to Moses' question, in a sense it is Moses' most important question,

Lord, who are you? Remember there was someone else who asked that question,

Saul and the Damascus Lord, when he met with the manual the Lord Jesus Christ. He asked the very same

question that Moses had asked, Lord, who are you? What can I say about you? And the answer to that

question? Well, it's found in 13 letters the Apostle Paul wrote, and all that he discovered of

what it means to know who God really is, and to recognize, as he says, that Jesus is Lord.

So what is the take home from this? Well, for Moses it is that the answer to who are you, Lord,

is that he is like the fire burning in this bush. He is eternally self-sufficient.

He makes and keeps his covenant promises, and he has made and kept his longest standing and

most difficult to keep covenant promise in sending his Son. He cares about us because he sees us in

our frailty and in our weakness. He wants to save us and he has sent his Son to effect a new

Exodus, not from a land of bondage, but from a life of bondage into the promised land of his grace.

And he is the Lord who promises that he will be with us, going to all the world and preach the

gospel. And lo, I am with you, always, even to the end of the age. You know, I wonder if it's true

that we fail so many challenges and tests in the Christian life because we simply forget who he is.

And many things go wrong in our Christian lives because we have a diminished view of God.

So remember these five things about the Lord and at the end of the day all will be well.

He is all sufficient. His promises will come true. He really cares. He is willing to save you

and he will never, ever leave you and never forsake you. No wonder when Moses met with God,

he knew for all his failures, he could never be the same man again and neither can we.

Thank God that he is the true and living Lord.

True and loving. Amen. And what a promise. He will never leave us all forsake us.

I'm Nathan W. Bingham and this is renewing your mind, the Daily Discipleship Podcast of

Ligonier Ministries. Sinclair Ferguson was a dear friend of our C-Sprall and he now serves as the

vice chairman of Ligonier Ministries and is one of our teaching fellows. He has recorded many

teaching series with us and his latest this week series is called Theology for All.

You can gain access to this new release when you give a donation and support of renewing your

mind at renewingyourmind.org. You can also call us at 800-435-4343. In addition to all 36 messages,

you'll have access to the study guide and will send you a special renewing your mind notebook

to thank you for your support. So visit renewingyourmind.org today or use the link

in the podcast show notes. And if you live outside of the US and Canada, the entire series

and the study guide are waiting for you at renewingyourmind.org slash global. Thank you.

Well here's a question for you. What is the single most important thing about Genesis chapter 1?

Is it the days of creation? Many would say yes. How would Dr. Ferguson answer?

What joined us tomorrow is we continue Theology for All. Here on renewing your mind.