[Sermon] The God Who Still Burns Bright

Guest Preacher Jeff Tobin

September 28, 2025 + Tales from the Holy Imagination, Week 4

When Moses turned aside to see the bush that burned without being consumed, he encountered the God whose presence endures through every season of life. In that holy fire, God called Moses by name and promised to deliver his people. This was not just a moment in history, but a revelation of God’s eternal character. God is the “I Am”—the One who is always present, always faithful, always near. Like Moses, we too are invited to turn aside, to notice, and to listen. The God who set a bush ablaze in the wilderness still burns within our lives today.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Good morning, friends. I'm Jeff.

The day finally arrived. Forest Gump dies and goes to heaven. He's at the pearly gates, met by St. Peter himself. However, the gates are closed, and Forest approaches the gatekeeper. St. Peter says, "Well, Forest, it's certainly good to see you. We've heard a lot about you. I must tell you, though, that the place is filling up fast, and we've been administering an entrance examination for everyone. The test is short, but you have to pass it before you can get into heaven."

Forest responds, "It sure is good to be here, St. Peter, sir, but nobody ever told me about an entrance exam. I sure hope it ain't too hard. Life was a big enough test as it was."

St. Peter continued, "Yes, Forest, I know. But the test has only three questions. First, what two days of the week start with the letter T? Second, how many seconds are there in a year? And third, what is God's first name?"

Forest leaves to think about the questions and returns the next day. He sees St. Peter, who waves him up, and he says, "Now that you've had a chance to think the questions over, tell me your answers."

Forest replied, "Well, the first one—'Which two days of the week start with the letter T?' Shucks, that was easy. That would be today and tomorrow."

St. Peter’s eyes opened wide. "Forest, that's not what I was thinking, but you do have a point, and I didn't specify. So I'll give you credit for that answer. How about the next one? How many seconds in a year?"

"Now, that one was harder. But I think, and I think, and I think, and I guess the only answer can be 12."

Astounded, St. Peter says, "Twelve? Forest, how in heaven's name did you come up with 12 seconds in a year?"

And Forest replied, "Shucks, there's got to be 12: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd..."

"Hold it," said St. Peter. "I see where you're going with this, but that's not quite what I had in mind. However, I have to give you credit for that one, too. So, let's go on to the third and final question. Can you tell me God's first name?"

"Sure," said Forest. "It's Andy."

"Andy?" exclaimed the exasperated St. Peter. "Okay, I can see how you could come up with the answers to the first two questions. But how in the world did you come up with the name Andy for the name of God?"

"Well, that was the easiest of all," said Forest. "I learned it in a song: And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own."

St. Peter opened the pearly gates and said, "Run, Forest, run."

The text this morning involves another man on the run. Leading up to our story today in Exodus 2, we are introduced to a fellow named Moses. We read that this Moses intervenes in a dispute between an Egyptian and a Hebrew. Defending the Hebrew, he slays the Egyptian, looks this way and that to see if anyone has noticed, and he buries his victim in the sand. Soon, however, Pharaoh gets wind of it all, and he seeks Moses' life.

In effect, Pharaoh says, "Run, Moses, run." And run he does, hundreds of miles away to the land of Midian, which geographically is to the east and to the south of Egypt. And there, according to Exodus 2, we find that Moses marries a Midianite woman and starts life over as a shepherd.

Remember the backstory of Moses' life recorded in the first two chapters of Exodus. Pharaoh felt threatened by the growing population of his Hebrew slaves. Fearing that they would soon outnumber the Egyptians, he instructed the Hebrew midwives to kill all the baby boys, allowing the girls to live. The midwives, however, outfoxed Pharaoh. So Moses was born and survived. But that birth could only be kept secret for so long.

So Moses' mother and sister hatched a plan to keep the infant alive. They hid him in a basket and floated him in the Nile, in a place where one of the Egyptian princesses was known to bathe. As planned, the princess noticed the basket, found the baby, and adopted him as her own.

Tradition says Moses grew up and spent 40 years in the royal household. Now, 40 years in biblical language is not a calendar reference. Rather, it implies a long, though indefinite, period of time. It was at this 40-year moment in Moses' life that he slew the Egyptian and had to run for his life. He became a fugitive.

Tradition also tells us that he spent another 40 years in Midian. And during this time in Midian, we read in Exodus 2 that Moses married a woman named Zipporah, who bore him a son named Gershom. The name Gershom is based on the Hebrew word meaning "stranger" or "alien." And in scripture, Moses names him that name because he says, "I have been an alien residing in a foreign land." It appears then that Moses never really belonged in the land of his escape.

But in Exodus 3, we're going to see all that change. God is going to encounter Moses in the burning bush, and he's going to give him a change of life.

This encounter with the burning bush is going to alter not only Moses' life, but that of his brethren, the Hebrew slaves. Whenever we read stories in the Bible—stories of holy imagination—we need to realize that the text has more than entertainment in mind. There's always a larger purpose. These stories, like last week's story from Genesis about Joseph and his brothers, while wonderfully entertaining, are meant to remind Israel—and us—who God is and what the character of this God really is like.

Scholars tell us that these Old Testament stories were collected in the form we now have them during the time of Israel's defeat at the hands of the Babylonians and their subsequent sixth-century exile. In other words, these Israelites, like Moses, were aliens residing in a foreign land. The function—the larger purpose—then, of this burning bush story and the ensuing Exodus under Moses' leadership, would have been to reassure the exiles that they could still have hope. Jerusalem was under enemy control. The temple had been destroyed. But if the God of their ancestors could deliver them from Pharaoh's enslavement and bring them into the land of promise, then maybe they could see some light in their own darkness. Maybe this same God could do something similar for them in their current desperate situation.

And by the way, if you want to find out how desperate it was, take a few moments when you have a chance to read the five small chapters from the book of Lamentations, and you'll find out how desperate it was. Lamentations is right after Jeremiah in the Old Testament.

So, one ordinary, probably mundane day in Midian, while shepherding sheep, Moses' attention is arrested by one of God's most famous special effects: a bush that's on fire but doesn't burn up. In theological language, this is called a theophany—an appearance of God in an outward visible form. Moses hears a voice and sees not a being, but fire. And in scripture, fire is often a symbol of God's presence.

In Exodus 3, the voice of God says to Moses, after he appropriately removes his sandals (maybe so he won't run away again), "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—your ancestors." Even though Moses spent 40 years in Egypt and 40 years in Midian, God reminds him that neither of those identities is his true self. He is an Israelite, who is now being called to return to the land where he committed homicide, and there to become God's agent for setting his brethren free.

This is sometimes called the commissioning of Moses, but I wonder if it might also be called the redemption of Moses. In biblical language, to redeem means to rescue or deliver someone from a state of alienation, bondage, sin, or death. With this theophany and the call, God is now redeeming Moses from his shady past, freeing him into a new chapter in his life. Theologian James Sanders reminds us that there is no evil which we commit that is beyond the power of God to redeem. This Moses story is proof of that. And now God will redeem all Israel through the leadership of this redeemed man.

Old Testament scholar John Goldingay, who is a Christian, has written a book with the astonishing title, Do We Need the New Testament? Let that sink in. He's a Christian. We're Christians. Of course, we need the New Testament.

What's Goldingay on about? We Christians sometimes stereotype the Old Testament as law and the New Testament as grace. But what Goldingay wants us to appreciate is that the God of the Old Testament is the God of grace. Think about last week's Joseph story. Think about today's Moses story. These men are redeemed, and it's all God's grace. That's gospel in the Old Testament.

When God identifies himself to Moses at the burning bush as the God of your fathers, he's reminding Moses that he once made a covenant—a relational promise—with Israel and their descendants, and he's going to keep that promise with Moses' help. Or, in the words of Jewish Old Testament scholar Nahum Sarna, God is emphasizing an unbroken historical continuity between the present experience of Moses and the revelation received by his forefathers, the patriarchs.

In Exodus chapters 2 and 3, we read that God has taken note of Israel's suffering because he says, "I have observed. I know. I have heard their cry. I have seen their slavery." In Exodus 3:8, God says to Moses, "I have come down to deliver them and to bring them up." I have come down to bring them up. That's gospel. That's a premonition of Jesus' incarnation.

Now, we read that Moses is a little skeptical at this point because, in the next 20 verses or so, Moses says to God five times: "But God, what if I'm not taken seriously? But God, I'm not a good speaker. But God, couldn't you just send someone else?" When Moses says to God, "But what if I'm not believed by your people—the ones you're sending me to—and they ask me, 'Okay, what's the name of this God? What do I tell them?'" here come some of the most cryptic, mysterious verses in the Bible.

God says to Moses, "Tell them, 'I AM has sent you. I am who I am.'" In Hebrew, this is indicated by the four letters YHWH, which in some English translations is rendered as Yahweh. This name can also be translated, "I will be who I will be"—cryptic and mysterious.

Nahum Sarna says God's pronouncement of his own name indicates the divine personality can only be known to the extent that God chooses to reveal himself. Both God's freedom and sovereignty are at work here. God identifies Godself on his own terms. There are no boundaries or limits to this God. "I am the one who causes things to come to pass. I will be what Israel needs me to be. I alone write the story. I am. I be. I exist eternally."

Civilizations and empires were—I am. Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Babylon, Greece, and Rome—all part of the biblical history—were. But God is.

We try to wrap our heads around all this by employing theological words like transcendence and immanence. Transcendence refers to that which is above and beyond us.

The psalmists reach for poetic imagery seeking to grasp the otherness of this God. Psalm 19:1, from the Voice translation, says, "The celestial realms announce God's glory. The skies testify of his hands' great work." The Jerusalem Bible renders Psalm 113:5 this way: "God is enthroned so high he has to stoop to see the sky and the earth." How good is that?

The other side of God's transcendence is his immanence. That is, the God of the Bible isn't only distant, high, and lifted up, but actually near and personally involved in his creation—including his human creation. Again, from Psalm 19, the Voice translation says, "The Eternal One's law is perfect, turning lives around. His words are reliable and true, instilling wisdom in open minds."

How near, how imminent is God? We read in Acts 17 that Paul the Apostle is addressing the philosophers in Athens at the Areopagus, and he tells them, using words from one of their own poets: "God is the one in whom we live, in whom we move, in whom we have our very being."

This transcendent and immanent "I AM" is the God who now addresses Moses from the bush and, in effect, says, "Run, Moses, run. Run from Midian back to Egypt where you once ran away. You've got work to do for me." This is both commission and redemption for Moses, and ultimately for his people.

In closing, I'd like to suggest, by way of application, that the function of this story for us might be to help us recognize, in times that we feel are desperate, that this God is a God who is faithful. But maybe, a little more personally, we can recognize also that maybe we're not so very different from Moses.

Haven't we all buried past deeds in the sand, hoping no one noticed? Haven't we fled from others and from ourselves? Haven't we experienced alienation—being a stranger physically, emotionally, psychologically? And has God needed to use the equivalent of a burning bush to get our attention?

As theologian James Sanders has said, God's providence works in and through human error and sin. Again—God's providence works in and through human error and sin, even ours. And that, friends, is good news. That's gospel in both the Old and the New Testaments. Amen.