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Early in the 17th century, Rene Descartes, considered by many to be the father of modern thought, advanced an argument that he felt proved God's existence.

First Questions for God: What is Your Name? - Exodus 3: 13-22 - July 19, 2009­

Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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Early in the 17th century, Rene Descartes, considered by many to be the father of modern thought, advanced an argument that he felt proved God's existence. Human beings, he said, are imperfect beings. We are incapable of having a perfect thought.

God, by definition, is perfect. Because our minds are incapable of imagining something perfect, the fact that we can think about a perfect God must prove that God really exists ­we could not possibly have dreamed God up.

In 1999, Larry King asked the physicist Stephen Hawking if he believed in God. Hawking said, "Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the laws of the universe." Mikhail Gorbachev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, when asked a similar question, said, "I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples, and forests are my cathedrals."

If I wanted to do the research, I could fill this whole sermon time with such statements from people of all walks of life about what they have figured out about God. The three I gave have some popular notions in them: Descarte's statement suggests that God is an idea to be proven logically; Hawking believes that God is the sum total of everything in the universe; Gorbachev believes that God is the beauty and spirit of the world of nature around us. Each of those three possibilities captures some of the beliefs about God you might hear around the water cooler at work, or in the coffee shop down the road. Probably they ring at least partly true for many of us here today, including myself.

The problem with these statements, from a Christian perspective, is that our faith tells us to look first to the Bible to know who God is, and none of these ideas does justice to the God who is described in the Bible. In the Bible, God is more than an idea to be proven, or the sum total of things, or a spirit in the world of nature. God is a Person who has introduced Himself to humankind, and has involved Himself intimately in human life.

Picture the difference between hearing about a person - maybe someone famous, like the president, or someone who plays a part in your life, like your future mother-in-law­ and meeting that person. Before you actually meet them, they are like an idea in your head. You hear about them; you wonder about them; you learn some things about them by observing their effects on others; you might imagine what they are like in person; they are both bigger than life, and lifeless. But you don't know them. And until you really meet them, and have the chance to spend time with them, you may have it all wrong.

This is the difference between certain views of God. Many of the major faiths in this world, and many individual thinkers, imagine God as an idea or a force or a spirit - they have an impersonal deity. But our faith, and the faith of all people who trace roots back to the Bible, knows God as a person. And that has taken our faith-life in a very different direction. One way to summarize the whole Bible, I believe, is to say that it is an invitation to get to know God personally.

So, today I begin a series of sermons entitled, "First Questions for God." When we first meet somebody, there are some questions we ask to help us understand who they are. Those questions start simply, but get more and more probing as the conversation continues. And it seems to me that in the Bible, God has answered the questions we would ask to know God. Those are questions I'll ask in my next few sermons. Today I'd like to begin with a very basic one - what is your name? Our name is a very individual and personal possession, and the way we share it can open the door to a deeper relationship.

I learned about sharing names, as some of you have, on mission trips to Texas. Down in Sabine Pass, Texas, they want to get friendly real fast. So you meet people with great names -- Rocky, Rowdy, J. R., Curly, Boo-Boo, and Dub. I had the impression that in many cases, they have no clue what someone's birth name might be. Your nickname is who you really are. So I'd say, My name is Everett. And they'd say, What do you go by? And I'd say, Everett. And they looked at me with pained expressions. Poor guy doesn't even have a real name. So I might say, "But my pardners call me Ev," and they'd laugh and slap me on the back. The way you share your name is pretty important. It's a personal thing.

And that's exactly what Moses asked of God in this morning's scripture lesson. I'm going to stretch this story a little bit to fit it in with what I've been saying. When Moses encountered the burning bush, he had an idea about God - one that he had heard from the elders of his people. God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the patriarchs of the Israelites. But the Israelite people, overwhelmed as they were by the burdens of slavery, didn't feel a close connection with this God. Their experience was one of isolation and distance.

God wanted to be more than an idea. God had heard the groaning of the Hebrews in their slavery, and God wanted to introduce Himself and free the slaves. So God sent an angel to get Moses' attention with a burning bush. And when Moses turned aside, God spoke to him out of the bush, and told Moses that he had a very special job - he would lead the Hebrew people out of slavery into freedom.

Moses had heard of the God of Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob - but that was an idea from the distant past. He wasn't going to risk life and limb for an idea. Moses wanted to know who was asking him to do this crazy thing. And so he said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, ‘What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" Maybe he was saying was, "These people, totally disheartened by the press of slavery, aren't going to follow me because of some vague memory about the God of Abraham. They will want to know that a living, active Person is calling them. And a Person has a name. What is yours?"

And God introduced Himself to Moses, and through Moses, to all of us.  God's name, says the scripture is, I AM.  The most popular expression of the original name is "Yahweh."  The God who spoke to Moses was named Yahweh.  And that name for God is used throughout the Old Testament.  And the people who translated the Bible into English did us a real disservice, I believe - they took away God's name. Most everywhere that the name Yahweh was used, they simply translated it "The Lord." And when they did that, they took one step away from the personal identity of God. Maybe they got uneasy about making God so personal - as if that took away from His holiness.

But to say God is personal is to say that God is more than just an idea, or a force, or a nature-spirit. God is an active agent in the world; God has a personality, and personal attributes; God has a will, and decides how things will be; God decides when to act, when to hold back; God is Someone that we have to reckon with in this life. A lot of people are trying to avoid that. Atheism is a strong voice these days. But the very fact that there are so many atheistic manifestos coming out shows that God doesn't go away. You can deny God, but you can't ignore God. God is a central part of this world.

When Yahweh shared His name with Moses, Moses had met a Person that he would need to know intimately for the next forty years. Because Yahweh was going to divide the sea; Yahweh was going to send bread from heaven; Yahweh was going to bring water from a rock, and declare the Law on stone tablets. The real God had introduced Himself, and things would never be the same for Moses and the Hebrew people.

This is so important to us, because at the heart of our faith is the belief that God continues to introduce Himself - in fact, God found an even more personal way to do that - he sent His Son. Through Jesus, God took on flesh and blood, and lived and died among us, with a human name. And then Jesus taught us to pray to God as Abba, which translates out as Daddy -- letting us know that this Divine Person who has introduced Himself through the ages; who has sent His own Son to draw even closer to us; now desires to relate to us on the most intimate terms.

There are, in our lives, many forces that act upon us. The forces of government, the forces of nature, the forces of society, the forces of compelling ideas, the forces of history and science, and so on. Many people put God in that category - a force that acts upon our lives in some distant, impersonal way. That is not the God described in the Bible. And that is not the God that millions upon millions have come to know and love.

That God is a Person who has introduced Himself, and desires a relationship with you as intimate as any relationship could be. God has done everything to open that door, even taking on flesh and blood, even experiencing the pangs of death. He stands ready to draw close to you, to talk with you, to empower you with love.

As with any relationship, it's a two-way street.  What will God be to you?  Friend?  Savior?  Abba?  The answer to that is what, to a large degree, will determine the ultimate direction of your life.  God can be an idea in your head.  God can be the sum of all existence.  God can be a spirit in nature.  In any of those cases, God is an It that can be doubted, categorized, taken or left.  But the real God of the Bible is not an It.  God is Someone you know by name.  Someone you walk with and talk with, Someone Who knocks on the door of your heart.  That's different, isn't it?  To have a real Person standing at your door.  That means you have to decide how to answer.