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Mark Wheeler
Exodus 3:1-15
04/07/2024
Who is God? – “Self-Existent (Aseity)”
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
Welcome to Worship, friends, on this first Sunday after Easter – a week after the Resurrection – the disciples, scared that maybe they’re next in line to be crucified, hiding behind locked doors and shuttered windows, in a dark room, whispering. And in this sealed cell, these closed quarters, this vacuum-packed accommodation – the risen Jesus shows up, appears, transcends the traps!
How does He do that?
Today we begin a seven-week study on theology – who is God? How does God do what God does? Is He real?
Spring break is over tomorrow morning, so students, let’s start our learning today! In this theology laboratory, we learn what may be a new concept – and what for 90% of us is a new word! (This may come in handy the next time any of us are actually on the Jeopardy Game Show – so pay attention!)
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Pastor Kathy calls us to worship, today, and prepares us for Communion:
4-7 And our Prelude of Praise and Worship ––– #66 … The God of Abraham Praise –
8 Good morning Friends! Welcome to worship at Lidgerwood!! Shalom Aleichem! May the PEACE of Christ be with you!
Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.
9 This morning our Chancel Choir leads us in worship with this Communion-themed anthem: “Lest We Forget”
10 Who can guess our “new word”?[Aseity] Children’s Message
11 Pastor Kathy opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving
12 Gloria Patri
13-16 Praises, thanksgivings, adorations, concerns and prays [The Lord’s Prayer]
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18-20 Song of Devotion and Preparation to receive God’s Word – #336 – God Is My Great Desire –
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Today we begin a series of theological studies – as I said in the April Newsletter, quoting from a great pre-Reformation era Christian theologian, St Thomas Aquinas, “Theology proceeds from God, teaches us about God and leads us to God.” Theology is what unites us as followers of Jesus, and sometimes divides us as sinners who major on the minors, fight over the little things that we disagree on and forget the big things we have in common.
And, as I said a few minutes ago, Spring Break is just about over – that’s why Johnny is not here today – so we’re learning a new word, and having a pop-quiz on God’s proper name.
You have perhaps seen a poster like this one:
22 Open-poster pop quiz: What name did God tell Moses was God’s name? Do you see it in here? “I am” or “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” or “YHWH” (theologians sometimes call this “the great Tetragrammaton” (Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey).
Today we read the Old Testament story where God tells Moses His name – but before we read it, let’s consider this name for a minute: I am, or I am what I am, or I will be what I will be, or I am what I will be, or something else just as benign and baneful. I mean, we all say things like, “it is what it is”, and every time we hear it, we throw up a little in our mouths …. But, you know, it is what it is….
But – is that really God’s name? Is that what we call Almighty God, creator of the universe? “He is what He is”? (Or, equally as possible, “She is what She is”?)
Listen to the context of what this name really means. Hear the time and place where God reveals His own identity. Exodus 3:1-15 – Moses was born in Exodus 1, and two chapters later he is nearly 80 years old, being called by God to deliver God’s Chosen People from slavery in Egypt …. —-
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1 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. 2 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. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
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4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” Moses said, “Here I am.”
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 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.
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7 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, & I am concerned
about their suffering. 8 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 & Jebusites.
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9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
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12 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.”
13 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?”
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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.’”
15 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 call me from generation to generation.”
Did you catch the context of God giving Moses this name? It is God’s promise to deliver Israel from bondage in Egypt! Moses cries out his own in-ability to do the saving work, his self-insufficiency – so God declares His perfect self–sufficiency to save His people!
His name – YHWH – I am who I am – shouts out the reason He is reliable.
God does not tell Moses I am good, or I am strong, or I am able – He tells Moses, “I am who I am!”
“I am good” or “strong” or “able” makes us wonder, is God good enough? is He stronger than the forces of bad? how able is He? But I am who I am is just that – there’s no comparison or competition.
This is why we can trust God. God is who God is – we learn who He is in Scripture. We learn who God is by testing Him. When we pray, do we pray boldly? This is the lab work in the class of Christian living. Putting faith to practice. God is – and God is beyond our every imagination.
God is – and this truth means God is not dependent on anything or anyone else. God is completely self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-dependent. Nothing else, no one else, can say that. If this were not true – if God were dependent on anything beyond Himself – all our confidence in Him would actually be confidence in the next thing in line.
A few years ago, our dear friend Joanne used to corner me after Bible study and pin me down to an answer. She would ask about the origin of creation – and the answer was God; the origin of the stars – God; the origin of the universe – God; and then she would ask, “And where did God come from?” What is the origin of God? What came before God?
And the answer is “God’s name is ‘I am who I am’ – present tense, never beginning, never ending!”
Some of us remember one of our later 20th century US Presidents asking, before the Grand Jury and the world’s public opinion, what “the definition of the word is is…” Exodus 3:14 gives us this answer. God does not have existence – like you and I do – God simply just is!
The word we are learning today is the word theologians give to this attribute of God – aseity – self-existent – in a way that only God is! And if that is true – we can put our full and complete trust in Him, and in Him alone! This word comes from Latin a-se – from-himself or of-himself. Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck, died a little over 100 years ago, once said, “When God ascribes this aseity to Himself in Scripture, he makes himself known as absolute Being, as the One who Is in an absolute sense…. By this perfection He is at once essentially and absolutely distinct from all creatures.”
It’s like this: creatures, because they are creatures, because we are creatures, depend on causes of our being – we have birthdays, because we have parents; we depend on food to sustain our bodies, we depend on water to stay alive, we depend on oxygen, we depend on others. We cannot exist without the cause of others. But this not true for God! God does not exist with any such dependence or reliance on causes. Toward the end of the book of Job God reminds Job that all of creation is caused by God, but that God is not caused by anything!
The aseity of God suggests that God is not made up of many different parts – the Trinity, Father ,Son and Holy Ghost, is not three different parts that combine to make one magnificent Holy God. James Dolezal, professor of theology at Radius Theological Institute, says, “Because God is not composed of parts, He cannot fall apart on us. There just are no parts into which He might fall. It is because He is ‘a se’ … that we can cast ourselves on Him and His Word utterly and unreservedly.”
I don’t think I have the ability to satisfy all the questions of this theological theme, of this attribute of God, but I hope I have pricked some wonderings. So, for all the mystery that attends the doctrine of aseity, let me assure you that God would not be God if He were not perfectly self-sufficient and uncompounded. This is what makes God totally trustworthy.
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As we approach the Lord’s Table, come to Communion, enjoy the Eucharist, we approach the Table which represents this aseity, self-sufficient existence, sacrificed for our sake. Receive Him and Believe this Good News.
I invite our Communion Servers to come forward. In our Church we recognize that there is no fence guarding this Table – it is open to all of receive Christ, who believe Jesus – and we invite you all to partake of the blessings of God’s presence made real in this sacrament.
30-32 Communion Hymn #770 – As We Around the Table of Bread Together! –
33 Sacrament of Holy Communion –
34 Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Offering (4449 N Nevada St., Spokane, WA, 99207; click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
35-38 Expedition Song #741 – The Battle Is the Lord’s! –
39 Benediction:
May we Grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. And give glory to God, today, and forever! Amen.
“May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”
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Announcements
- Breakfast Fellowship – Saturday, 9am, at Frankie Doodles
- Ezra 3 Initiative –
- Furnace Fundraiser
Resources:
Dolezal, James E.; “Aseity and Simplicity”; TableTalk; May 2022; Pp. 4-7.
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