Advent: He Reveals Himself

Advent is a time of preparing ourselves for Christmas and the birth of Christ. There are many ways this can be done, and many themes that can be looked at as we prepare ourselves, and this year we will be look at seeing what God does. God can do a lot of great things, but we need to take time to stop and pay attention.

First, we see how God reveals Himself. Let's read from Exodus 3:

Moses and the Burning Bush

3 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.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And 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.

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, and 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 and Jebusites. 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?”

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?”

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.”

Ok, so imagine that you are God. You created all things – including human beings. You made humans in your own image and you want them to relate to you in a special way.

Wouldn't you tell those humans about yourself? Wouldn't you tell them what you expect of them? Wouldn't you tell them how to come into the relationship you want to share with them? Sometimes our parents do that, or we find that we do that to our children. We want them to know about us. Then others will understand why we are how we are, or to make a connection with you.

People who believe that God is unknowable assume that God hides himself from his creation. But God does reveal himself, through his creation, in history, in the pages of the Bible, and through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Creation reveals God in many ways. King David and Job are some of those who marvel at God’s creations. They, among many others, talk about how great and beautiful all of God's creation is.

History reveals God in communication. Adam & Eve, Noah and Moses directly communicate with God. We can still communicate with God if we take the time to stop and listen.

The Bible record reveals God. The Bible tells us who He is, what He is doing, what He has done. The Bible is full of God revealing His plan, his thoughts and Himself.

God had revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the human form of God. He came to Earth to show us how to live and what He expects from us. 

Of course, we are unable to know all there is of God, but we are able to understand what he has revealed to us. God is:

• self-existing
• not restricted by time
• unbounded by place
• unlimited in power
• unlimited in knowledge
• transcendent (having his existence beyond the physical universe)
• immanent (involved with the universe)

What did God intend when he made all things and gave us life? Paul explained to the Athenians: "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring' “(Acts 17:26-28).

Much of our information came from here.