All sorts of things can get in the way of us moving forward in life. Things like past failures, personal doubts, fears of the unknown. The way we fight through these things and move forward is by knowing who God is. This is what God does for Moses in Exodus 3, and in particular in Exodus 3:14-15. In this passage God reveals his name to Moses. God refers to himself as Yahweh, which literally means "I AM," or more fully, "I AM WHO I AM" (Yahweh is usually translated as LORD in our English Bibles). God's name reveals two things about him.
1. God's name describes God's unique existence
This point is strongly hinted at with the uniqueness of the burning bush and even more strongly shown by the instruction that Moses was now on "holy ground." To be in God's presence is to discover that God is holy, in other words, he is wholly distinct and separate from us. God is someone who so uniquely is who he is, Moses could not even look at him directly and had to stay at a distance from him.
But also in God's very name itself – "I AM WHO I AM" – it becomes clear that God is a unique being. God is the one who always IS. He has always been who he is and always will be who he is. God is fully self-existing, self-sufficient, and self-sustaining. Certainly there is a bit of a paradox here. God invites us to know him by revealing his name to us. But in so doing God shows us that really he can't be fully known by us. He is utterly unique and completely incomparable to anything in all creation. A truth like this should fill any honest person with great awe and reverence for God.
2. God's name highlights God's special presence
God not only just IS, he just IS especially for and with his people. Several times in chapter 3 God is described as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" or as the "God of your fathers." God is showing Moses how he was especially present with his ancestors. The promise now is that just as God was with them he now will be especially with Moses and later with all of Israel (v.12 – "I will be with you."). God then is a God who personally and particularly involves himself with his people. He is a God who exists with all his full GODness alongside his people no matter what they may face.
This is a wonderful thing to consider, but it also presents a problem for us. If God is as fully GOD as he has revealed himself to be, then none of us will be able to stand in his presence. We would be overwhelmed by him in an instant. Fortunately for us, God knew of this problem and then addressed it by essentially changing himself. God came down to earth and took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was very clear about who he was. Before a crowd of Jews he proclaimed himself to be "I AM" (John 8:58). This was a clear statement by Jesus that he was Yawheh, the great I AM WHO I AM. Indeed, in Jesus what we have is God himself personally coming to mankind so that each of us might have the opportunity to experience the full unique existence and presence of God in our lives.
This gracious act of God should lead us to three responses.
1. Faith in Christ – We can approach God
As Jesus says in John 8:24, "You [will] die in your sins…unless you believe that I am he." Our sins which keep us locked in place and away from God will end up eventually kill us. There is an alternative however. The alternative is to take the journey, or an exodus if you will, out of the living death of sin and to enter into life with God. The only way we can begin to take these steps forward and begin this relationship with God is by faith in Jesus. By "faith in Jesus" we mean to say that one must believe Jesus to be the LORD God and to acknowledge him as the LORD God over one's entire life.
2. Security in Christ – We stay with God
When Jesus was born it was the fulfillment of the ancient Jewish prophecy that there would one day be one who would be to humanity "Immanuel," which means, "God with us" (Matt 1:23). In Jesus we experience God with us in all of his GODness. Before Jesus God was with people, but there was nevertheless the constant reminder that there was still a fundamental separation between him and mankind, as seen in the tabernacle and temple system. In Jesus there is no longer any separation (cf 2 Cor 3:18, Heb 10:19-22). God is fully with each person who has acknowledged Jesus as their Yawheh.
This gives us great security and peace. All our past failures and present and future doubts begin to shrivel and fade away when you realize that there is only one timeline that matters – God's timeline – and in Christ you are forever tied into that timeline. To be with him means no longer being enslaved to the past, present, or future – you now view all things from his eternal vantage point.
3. Purpose in Christ – We now GO with God
Like Moses many of us might think, "Who am I? I'm a nobody." God tells us, "It's not about who you are but who I AM!" Things don't depend on our understanding of ourselves, they depend on our understanding of God. This understanding of God should then motivate us to get going and doing the things God wants of us. God revealed who he was to Moses so that he would then get going to Egypt. So also God reveals himself to us in Christ so that, after being encouraged and strengthened, we might then get going! In large part, in order for you to know for sure that God is with you, you will need to first step out in faith. Notice for instance in Exodus 3:12 that the sign that God was really with Moses would come after he had gone to Egypt and then led his people back to the Mount Horeb/Sinai. In Exodus 3:18-12 the full sense that God was with his people would come after everything had occurred in Egypt according to how God had predicted it would in these verses.
Thus, the best way to get the assurance that in Christ God is with you, with all his eternal GODness being behind you, is to go and start doing the big, radical, hard things that God wants done.
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