September 16, 1984 (Morning)
Bethlehem Baptist Church
John Piper, Pastor
Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 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.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, '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 for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."
For the next seven Sundays I hope to preach
a series of messages which was inspired last August when I read
Psalm 9:10, "And those who know thy name put their trust
in thee."
The aim of all my ministry is the advancement
and joy of your faith to the glory of God (Phil. 1:20,25). Preaching
is one means to that end, and therefore when I ponder what to
preach I look for things that will stir you up to trust God with
all your heart. Psalm 9:10 says that people who know God's name
will trust him. It seemed to me therefore that the Lord would
strengthen our confidence in him for the future of our life together
if I could help you know the name of God better. "Those who
know thy name put their trust in thee." So for seven weeks,
leading to a climax during our missions conference, I hope to
unfold a different name of God each week.
The reason knowing the names of God will help
us trust him with our daily affairs and with our eternal destinies
is that in scripture a person's name often signifies his character
or ability or mission -- especially when the name is given by
God. Adam names his wife Eve, because she is mother of all the
living (Gen. 3:20). God changes Abram's name to Abraham to show
that he had made him the father of many nations (Gen. 17:5).
God changed Sarai's name to Sarah (Gen. 17:15). He changed Jacob's
name to Israel (Gen. 32:28). And when the Son of God came into
the world his name was not left to chance: "You shall call
his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
I have four sons. The first was born in Germany.
So we sought out a German name related to the word Christian
and put our prayer in his name: Karsten, in the confidence that
God would bring him to faith in Christ. Then came Benjamin whose
birth announcement was a paraphrase of Moses' blessing on the
tribe of Benjamin in Deuteronomy 33:12,
Beloved of God he dwells secure
Upon a cosmic boulder;
Though small and to the world obscure,
He rides on Yahweh's shoulder.
Then came Abraham and we put the hope of Romans
4:20 in his name -- that someday he might grow strong in his faith
like Abraham of old and give glory to God. And finally came Barnabas,
our son of consolation, and we took a name from a great man of
encouragement who was full of the Holy Spirit and faith. In other
words, we have tried to give our sons names that will be their
destinies and their character. We have given them names to grow
into and to strive for and pray for.
Now there is a big difference between me and
God. When I name someone, I don't have the power or the authority
to make the person fit the name. I give names in hope and prayer
that my sons will become what their names imply. But God has
the right and the power to cause anyone he names to become what
the name implies. The names he gives are sure indicators of the
destiny of those he names.
And when he names himself, we may be sure the
name is packed with who he is and what he intends to do. God
does not choose names for himself at random, say for the sound
or for an ancestor or to avoid embarrassing nicknames. He chooses
names for the sake of revealing things about himself that will
deepen our love for him and enlarge our admiration and strengthen
our faith.
So my prayer is that these seven messages will
open our eyes to God's glory, and enlarge our acquaintance with
his magnificent character, and fan the flames of our love, and
strengthen the fiber of our faith. My hope is in the word of
God: "Those who know thy name put their trust in thee."
The most common and the most important name
for God in the Old Testament is a name that in our English versions
never even gets translated. Whenever you see the word LORD in
all capital letters you know that this name is behind it. In
Hebrew the name had four letters -- YHWH -- and may have been
pronounced something like Yahweh. The Jews came to regard this
word with such reverence that they would never take it upon their
lips, lest they inadvertently take the name in vain. So whenever
they came to this name in their reading they pronounced the word
"adonai" which means "my lord." The English
versions have basically followed the same pattern. They translate
the proper name Yahweh with the word LORD in all caps.
This is not a very satisfactory thing to do,
because the English word LORD does not communicate to our ears
a proper name like John or Michael or Noël. But Yahweh is
God's proper name in Hebrew. The importance of it can be seen
in the sheer frequency of its use. It occurs 6828 times in the
Old Testament. That's more than three times as often as the simple
word for "God" (Elohim -- 2600. El -- 238). What this
shows is that God aims to be known not as a generic deity, but
as a specific Person with a name that carries his unique character
and mission.
(Note: The word Jehovah originated from an
attempt to pronounce the consonants YHWH with the vowels from
the word adonai. In the oldest Hebrew texts there are no vowels.
So it is easy to see how this would happen since whenever YHWH
occurred in the text the word adonai was pronounced by the reverent
Jew.)
The most important text in all the Bible for
understanding the meaning of the name Yahweh is Exodus 3:13-15.
God has just commanded Moses to go to Egypt and to bring his
people Israel out of captivity. Moses says to God in verse 13,
"If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The
God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What
is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 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.'" God also said
to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, "The LORD
(that is, Yahweh!), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this
is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout
all generations."
Now notice that God gives three answers to
the question, "What shall I tell them your name is?"
First, in verse 14 God says, "I AM
WHO I AM."
Second, in verse 14 God says, "I AM
has sent me to you."
Third, in verse 15 God says, "Yahweh
… has sent me to you … this is my name for ever …"
So two facts persuade me that this text provides
an interpretation of the name Yahweh. One is that the name Yahweh
and the name I AM are built out of the same Hebrew word (hayah).
The other is that Yahweh seems to be used here interchangeably
with I AM. "I AM has sent me to you" (v.14). "Yahweh
… has sent me to You" (v.15). I think it would be safe
to say that God's purpose in this meeting with Moses is to reveal,
as he never had before (Ex. 6:2), the meaning of his personal
name Yahweh. The key is in the phrase I AM and especially in
the phrase, I AM WHO I AM.
So here is where we ought to spend a lot of
time meditating. What does it mean when you ask your God, Who
are you? and he answers, I AM WHO I AM? I hope you can begin
to feel this morning how important these words are. There aren't
any words more important than these. Any words that you think
might be are important only because these words are true. The
more you ponder them the more awesome they become. I know I can't
do them justice. But perhaps the Holy Spirit might take my stammering
attempt and open some vista for you.
I want to try to unfold at least seven implications
that I see in the divine name, I AM WHO I AM.
First, God exists. Or as Francis Schaffer
never tired of saying, God is there. At first this may seem so
obvious and so basic that we wouldn't need to mention it. Well,
it is obvious and it is basic, but the reason we should mention
it is that most people live as if it were not true, or as if it
were a truth that makes no difference in life.
Suppose the President of the United States
invited you and a few of your friends to the White House for a
reception. As you enter the cozy green room the President is
sitting by the fire place and you walk right by him without a
glance or a greeting. For the whole evening you neither look
at him nor speak to him nor thank him nor inquire why he called
you together. But every time the one reporter asks you if you
believe in the existence of the President you say, Of course.
You even agree that this is his house and that all this food
came from his kitchen. But you pay him no regard. Practically
speaking you act as if you do not believe he exists. You ignore
him. He has no place in the affections of your heart. His gifts,
not himself, are the center of your attention.
The vast majority of people who say they believe
in God treat him this way. He is like hydrogen. You learned
once in school that it is in the air you breathe, but after that
your belief in it has made no difference in your life. Every
time someone takes a poll you say, Of course, hydrogen exists.
Then you return to things that matter.
Put yourself forward a few years to the day
when every human being will give an account of himself before
the living God. God will say to millions of people, "Now
it is my understanding that you said often during your life that
you believed in me. You affirmed my existence. Is that right?"
"Yes." And is it not true that in your life the more
honor and importance and virtue and power and beauty a person
had, the more regard he was paid and the more respect he was shown
and the more admiration he received? Is that not the case?"
"Yes." "Then why is it that I had such an insignificant
place in your life since you say you believed in me? Why didn't
you feel more admiration for me and seek my wisdom more often
and spend time in fellowship with me and strive to know the way
I wanted you to make all your every day decisions? Why did you
treat me as though I were like hydrogen?" What, I ask you,
what is the world going to answer? What are thousands of so-called
Christians going to answer, whose faith in God is virtually the
same as their faith in hydrogen?
O how easy it is going to be for God to condemn
the world at the judgment! Sometimes in our self-asserting pride
we actually think that God is going to have trouble finding enough
evidence to be just in sentencing people to hell. But if you
allow yourself to think clearly for a moment about the overwhelming
implications of the statement, "God exists," you will
see that it is going to be very easy for the Judge on that day.
The defendants will be utterly speechless because of the manifest
inconsistency of their lives. The portfolio of the prosecuting
attorney will not have to be opened beyond page one where it says,
Defendant affirmed that God exists; personal life lived as though
God made no difference.
Contained in the name Yahweh is the first and
most important truth about God: he exists. And for those who
will stop pursuing their own glory and their own private pleasure
long enough to consider it, that makes all the difference in the
world.
The second implication in the name I AM WHO
I AM is that God's personality and power are owing solely to himself
and to no other.
Push back with me before there was any earth
or any solar system or galaxies or universe at all. Push back
in your imagination to when there was only God. Then, if you
can, push back behind God. Where did he come from? How did he
get to be the way he is? If you asked me how I got to be the
way I am, I would answer that my father and mother gave me a set
of genes and they reared me a certain way and I have been surrounded
by thousands of influences in my environment -- that's how I got
to be the way I am.
But when we ask God how he got to be who he
is, he answers, I AM WHO I AM. In other words, nobody gave me
a set of genes. Nobody and no power brought me into existence
or shaped my personality. I had no beginning. There is no reality
outside myself that did not come from me. And so there is no force
or influence upon my character and power except what comes from
me and is controlled by me. I am utterly absolute. Behind me
there is no reality.
Asking the question, Why is God the way he
is? is like asking me, When are you going to stop beating your
wife? It is unanswerable because it assumes a state of affairs
that does not exist. I am not beating my wife and so I cannot
stop. And there is nothing behind or outside God that could be
an answer to the question, why he is the way he is. The utterly
self-determined character of an everlasting God is the endpoint
of all our questions. There comes a point when you stand face
to face with absolute reality and realize that he simply is who
he is.
A third implication of the name I AM WHO I
AM is that God does not change. In Malachi 3:6 God says, "I
Yahweh do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not
consumed." Within the name Yahweh is the affirmation I AM
WHO I AM. But if who God is is not determined by any forces outside
himself then he is not subject to the changes we are. People
change their mind because of unforeseen circumstances or weak
resolution. God foresees all circumstances and has no weaknesses.
Nothing in all creation takes him off guard and backs him into
a corner where he might have to act out of character or compromise
his integrity.
He is who he is, and therefore, as James says,
"With him there is no variation or shadow due to change"
(James 1:17). He is the same yesterday, today and for ever.
His absolute name is the granite foundation of our confidence
in his ongoing faithfulness.
The fourth implication of the name I AM WHO
I AM is that God is an inexhaustible source of energy. Isaiah
40:28 says, "Yahweh is the everlasting God, the Creator of
the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary."
If God is the everlasting absolute Reality, then he is the Creator
of the ends of the earth and of the universe. And if he is the
Creator of everything, then all energy -- all motion and combustion
and fusion and fission originate in him. Somehow all the energy
in the universe must get started. And since God is the first
and absolute reality it all starts in him. He is an inexhaustible
reservoir of power.
This must mean that he is energy. He
is power. His personality is radiant with infinite energy.
He never needs recharging. He never needs a back up system.
There is nothing for him to plug into. Everything in the universe
plugs into him. If he ever shut down there would be absolute
nothingness. In him we live and move and have our being. He
cannot faint or grow weary. He is an unending river of life and
the source or our strength every morning -- and will be for all
eternity.
The fifth implication of the name I AM WHO
I AM is that objectivity is crucial. What I mean is that it is
very important that we believe in objective truth that is more
than our own subjective feelings or desires. We may desire God
to be a certain way. We may feel that he simply can't be the
way some people say he is. But what we feel or what we desire
does not make God what he is.
When God says I AM WHO I AM, he summons us
to humble objectivity. He puts an end to the notion that everybody's
view of God is as good as everybody else's. God is who he is
and nobody's opinion of him makes any difference. Therefore,
our calling as his creatures is to strive to know him for who
he is, not for who we would like him to be.
The sixth implication of the name I AM WHO
I AM is that we must conform to God, not he to us. If children
should learn their manners from their parents and not the parents
from the children; if players should learn their moves from the
coach and not the coach from the players; if soldiers should learn
their strategy from the general and not the general from the soldiers;
then surely it is plain that creatures should conform all their
lives to the will of their Creator!
But O how few of God's creatures follow this
path of reasonableness. The vast majority of God's creatures
go their own way with little or no thought of conforming their
lives to the daily will and character of an absolute God. And
when they think of God they picture him arbitrarily in images
of their own making, to suit their own desires. But if God simply
is who he is and not who we make him out to be, then it is we
who must conform to God and not he to us.
One final implication of this magnificent name,
I AM WHO I AM, is that this infinite absolute self-determining
God has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ. In John 8:56-58 Jesus
is answering the criticism of the Jewish leaders. He says, "Your
father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and
was glad." The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet
fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to
them, "Truly, truly! I say to you, before Abraham was, I
AM."
Could Jesus have taken any more exalted words
upon his lips? When Jesus said, "Before Abraham was I AM,"
he took up all the majestic truth of the name of God, wrapped
it in the humility of servanthood, offered himself to atone for
all our rebellion, and made a way for us to see the glory of God
without fear.
In Jesus Christ we who are born of God have
the unspeakable privilege of knowing Yahweh as our Father -- I
AM WHO I AM -- the God
This is the name of God: I AM WHO I AM! And may those who know the name of God put their trust in him.
© Copyright ©1984, 1998 John Piper.
Used by permission.
Piper
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