I am Who I am (Monday Morning)
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Social
Me and We
Me and We
If I were to say to you, “Hey I want you to meet my brother. My brother is so cool man, he is awesome sauce.” And you would be like yo, so what’s he like? Tell me about him! And I would say well, check this out, He is 65% Oxygen, 18.5% Carbon, 9.5% Hydrogen and he’s got 3.2% Nitrogen! Would you know my brother?
Of course not! Because I gave you information that was meaningless!
I didn’t give you anything that was helpful.
What would you need to know instead?
Who might want to know what makes him interesting. Like the time he had to run for his life from furious chihuahua dogs!
My brother and I love to ride bikes. When we were growing up, we would ride our bikes everywhere. We would ride them to school and all over town.
Well one afternoon we were riding our bikes and we passed this house. The moment we passed the house, a whole herd of little tiny chihuahua dogs rushed out and started chasing us. There was no way the dogs would catch us on our bikes if we rode fast enough! But my brother was so frightened that he jumped off his bike, and started running!
Luckily the little, furious, dogs just wanted to lick his ankles and not bite his face off.
You see, isn’t that more helpful than talking about all the chemicals he has in his body?
You might want to know what his favorite foods are.
You might want to know what he does for fun.
You would need to know stories. Because stories paint pictures.
We
We
Stories help us understand people and experiences.
Here at summer camp we are here to have fun! But also to learn about Jesus and how we can live with confidence!
We aren't going to learn about Jesus through His chemical makeup. We need something more. That’s why the Bible uses stories.
The same is true with God, if we want to know who God is, we don’t need to know his chemical makeup, but we need to know stories about him.
That’s what we are going to do all this week, we are going to discover stories that paint a picture of who God is and why we can have confidence in him.
God
God
They felt alone. Slaves in the desert. Everyday they did the same thing, they built bricks with straw. Day after day. But you know it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Their parents and their grandparents had told them story after story about how God had promised to give them a land of their own, where they were not slaves. Yet here they were slaves in the desert. So they waited.
For over 400 years.
No peep from God. Not a time that God would even say, “Hey don’t worry I’m working on something and its going to be great!”
Nope. Nothing.
Sometimes it feels like that. Like no one can hear us. Like no one understands what we are going through.
But then something did happen, the adopted prince of Egypt ran away from home and knew he couldn’t come back.
He ran away because he did something terrible. He wasn’t a good person. He was a failure.
But this man who had no confidence in himself would soon be used in a powerful way.
Moses was no longer a prince but a shepherd.
The only ones he could disappoint were sheep and not kings and rulers. He liked it that way. Sheep don’t complain, they just eat and eat. Sheep were easy. But God had a bigger plan for Moses.
You might think you are like Moses. Nobody knows anything about me. I’m little! But God can see your heart and just how great you can become. God has a plan for you that is bigger than anything you could ever imagine.
One day, he saw something strange!
Moses got a glimpse of a bush that was caught on fire! But the flames were eternal.
This bush was God.
Wait, God is a bush?
No, God used the bush to catch Moses’ attention.
(Story about God catching your attention)
God wants to have conversations with us. But sometimes we don’t want to have conversations with him. God doesn’t always use a burning bush to catch our attention either. For Jonah it was a whale. For Saul it was knocking him off his horse. For me, it was a ride to the hospital.
I had just been in a car accident. Except I wasn’t in the car. I was on a bike. I wouldn’t had survived if my angel didn’t catch me. Everyone from the reporters to the doctors to my parents who both work in the medical field told me, it was a miracle that I had survived such a crash.
That will open your heart up to God, that’s a way God can catch your attention.
While I was getting x-rays done, God and I had a conversation.
God wants to have a conversation with you too. Don’t put it off until He has to do something drastic.
God has already been trying to talk to you. Its up to you to listen.
It was there that God and Moses had a conversation.
God told Moses that he wanted Moses to free God’s people, the hebrews from slavery.
God even told Moses that had heard their cries and seen their affliction.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,
If God was able to see and hear the struggles of the Hebrews, do you think he can see and hear you? You better believe it!
Guess what, you are not alone, even if it feels like it.
Moses then said thats all great and dandy, but what if the people don’t know who you are? What shall I call you?
Then God said, you shall call me steve! The almighty stevie! No, not at all right?
God’s name isn’t stevie. Wouldn’t it be easier if God had a name like Steve or Samantha? Maybe.
But God wanted Moses to introduce God to the Hebrews in a different and important way.
14 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 said, I am Who I am.
What does that even mean?
Check this out.
You feel lonely? God is your friend.
Do you have a hurtful family? God is your family.
Are you sad and empty? God can be your happiness.
Do you need a deliverer, a comforter, a savior, a friend?
Whatever and whoever you need. That’s God. Thats what it means when God says, “I am Who I am. God is whoever you need.
You
You
Why does God want to be all of this for you? Because God is love. Isn’t thats what our memory verse says?
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is love. Love is other centered. Its focused on others not itself. This must mean that God is focused on others. If that is true, He must be focused on you and me. God cares so deeply about you that he wants to become a part of your life.
We
We
The more we get to know God the more confidence we can have knowing that we have a powerful and loving God right there by our side the whole way.