The I Am Sayings of Jesus Exodus 3:13 14, John 8:56 58, John 14:1-7. Matt Reynolds. September 22, 2013 SPUMC

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1 The I Am Sayings of Jesus Exodus 3:13 14, John 8:56 58, John 14:1-7 Matt Reynolds September 22, 2013 SPUMC Good morning! Today we continue our series Jesus: Up Close and Personal as we try to highlight some of the major ways that Jesus is revealed to us through the Gospel of John. Last week I looked at a couple of the miraculous signs of Jesus and how John uses them to reveal a deeper truth about Jesus identity. This morning we are again going to kind of lump together a theme that runs throughout the book as we look at some of what Jesus actually says. So today we are looking at the I Am statements of Jesus. I want to try to dig into the overall theme a little bit and see the meaning. Because certainly if the miraculous signs of Jesus told us something about Jesus identity, these statements give us a crystal clear look into who Jesus really is. Remember that is John s main question that is trying to help you understand. Who is this Jesus, really? So we will look at the overall theme and then I want to look at just one of these in a little more detail. We could do a whole sermon series just on these incredible statements but we will just kind of introduce them today. 1

2 But I want to begin today just by reading together the seven major I Am statements of Jesus in John. I have listed the reference, we won t read those, but let s just read Jesus words together. Jesus said I am the bread of life. John 6:35 I am the light of the world. John 8:12 I am the door for the sheep. John 10:7 I am the good shepherd. John 10:11 I am the resurrection and the life. John 11:25 I am the way, and the truth, and the life. John 14:6 I am the true vine. John 15:1 Let s pray. Lord Jesus, we believe you the light of the world, you are the good shepherd. You are the way, the truth and the life. Illuminate our minds and transform our hearts here this morning as we again encounter your life-changing truth. We give you this time. Amen. I am going to start this morning by giving you a nice theological term. The word is Christology. Christology is the study within theology of the person and nature of Jesus Christ. Now in theology sometimes we might say a particular 2

3 theologian or writer has a high Christology or someone else has a low Christology. Basically what that means is that if someone has a high Christology they tend to focus on the diety of Jesus Christ they have a high view of him being divine or God. Someone with a low Christology may tend to focus on the humanity of Jesus Christ and examine him more through that lens. Now, when you read the New Testament there might be no other book that has a higher Christology than the book of John. There is a tremendous emphasis on Jesus being one with God in John s gospel. He really wants to help us understand that Jesus is God. And we are going to hear that come screaming through in these I Am statements. Do you remember the story of Moses at the burning bush? In Exodus 3 God shows up to Moses and is calling him out as the one whom he has chosen to send to set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt. And God shows up in this incredible bush that is on fire and yet not getting burned up. And they go back and forth and basically Moses says, No I think this is a bad idea. But God can be pretty convincing, especially when he shows up in burning bush. So Moses agrees and then says, But who should I say sent me. Now let me read those two verses at that part of the story. Exodus 3:

4 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? 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. Now in the polytheistic culture, where Moses found himself, where many gods were believed to exist, it makes sense that Moses asks him, well which god is this, who should I say sent me? Moses wanted to know. And God answers in a peculiar way. Tell them I AM sent you. I AM. This is the personal name of God. What does this name mean? God is saying I am existence itself. I am life itself. Everything that exists is contingent on God. All that has being came from me. Everything in your body derives its existence from God himself I AM. In the Hebrew this personal name for God, I AM, is pronounced Yahweh. And this is a big deal for God to have revealed himself in this way. In fact Jews hold this name with so much reverence that many never pronounce it out loud. Here s a quick Hebrew lesson In Hebrew language there were originally no written vowels, only consonants. Because it was an ancient language preserved through oral tradition everyone knew originally when you wrote the consonants what word they meant and automatically inserted the vowel sounds. Here is the name YHWH in Hebrew with no vowels like it would have originally been written. 4

5 (SHOW Yahweh slide 1.) Well between the 5 th and 10 th centuries a group of Rabbis known as the Masoretes began trying to preserve the language more in written form and started a system of vowels. At that time this personal name for God I AM Yahweh was so sacred and never to be pronounced that instead of adding the correct vowels to the word they added the vowels from a different word, Adonai, which means Lord. Here is Yahweh with the vowels added you can see the sort of dots below the letters. (Show Yahweh slide 2.) This was in order that whenever the name was read aloud in a synagogue the reader would be signaled to read Adonai and never actually say Yahweh. Whenever you see the word LORD in your Bible in all caps that is meant to designate that Yahweh, God s personal name is being used there. One interesting side note, if you have ever heard the name for God, Jehovah, that name is actually a mispronounced version of Yahweh from the middle ages because if you pronounce Yahweh with the Adonai vowels you get Jehovah. Ok are you tired of the Hebrew lesson yet? I say all that to say this. The name for God, I AM, is so special, so sacred, that Jews have gone to great lengths over the years to make sure that it gets preserved in all its reverence. And in the Jewish faith this name that God reveals to Moses is so sacred that you are never to actually say it out loud because you might use it in vain. Keep all that in the back of your mind as we now look back at John and read from John 8. 5

6 Read John 8: Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad. You are not yet fifty years old, they said to him, and you have seen Abraham! Very truly I tell you, Jesus answered, before Abraham was born, I am! At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. This is huge. In this one statement in verse 58 Jesus makes a startling claim. Obviously the Jews got what he meant because they get ready to stone him. Remember how sacred the personal name of God is to the Jewish faith. Jesus goes all the way back to that first time when God revealed his personal name to Moses. And Jesus says about himself, I AM! If you ever have thought to yourself that Jesus is a really nice guy, maybe the best teacher that ever lived, but not necessarily God himself, it is verses like this that won t let us have that view. Because here in John, in Jesus own words, he identifies himself directly as God himself! You could try to argue that he is a liar and that is not true, but you cannot say that Jesus never claimed to be God. He did, and the Jews wanted to kill him for it because they saw it as blasphemy. 6

7 In John, he makes no mistake about it. Jesus is God come in human form. 70 times I am is on the lips of Jesus in John s gospel. Many of them are just normal Greek construction, but often you are meant to hear the oneness of Jesus with Yahweh. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, and the truth, and the life. I am the true vine. Each one of these statements reveals something unique about Jesus nature and mission. But in each we hear a little reminder that Jesus is God. Now I want to look a little more at one of these statements. Perhaps it is the one of the most popular of these seven. Look at the beginning of John 14. These are some powerful words in scripture. I use this at almost every funeral I have ever done because of the truth and power it contains. Jesus is preparing his own disciples for his death. And then he says this in John 14:1-7 7

8 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don t know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Let s just look at a few of the phrases here. Jesus starts by saying, Do not let your hearts be troubled. Essentially Jesus is saying, Don t be shaken up. When you experience tragedy, lose a loved ones, etc. your lives are going to feel shaken. The disciples were about to encounter a change that would leave them feeling shaken. Why not be shaken? Next he says because you trust in God and believe also in me. This idea of believe is always a verb in the Gospel of John never a noun and it appears 98 times in John s gospel. This is a really big idea. You know it from the most famous verse, John 3:16 that whosoever believes in 8

9 him. There is something about believing/trusting in Jesus that allows us to not be shaken. There is something about believing in Jesus Christ that is the key to life. This past week, Heidi and I decided to watch the Rick and Kay Warren interview on CNN about the suicide of their son, Matthew. Did anyone else get to see that? It was really powerful. I was left thinking that in that interview you saw the truth of these verses. Rick and Kay were real and honest about their emotions. They shed tears, they asked hard questions, they wondered about if they could have done something different. And yet in the midst of their tragedy they displayed a sense of peace that truly passes all understanding. It was evident that they had been crushed and experienced an almost unfathomable loss and yet they were not shaken. How? Even though they didn t have all the answers they still clung to their belief in Jesus Christ and he allowed their hearts to be unshaken. It was a poignant testimony to the power of Christ at work in tragic times. Trusting in Christ is the pivotal decision of our lives. And it s one that even after we have experienced salvation and have given our lives to Christ the first time, we have to continue to choose every day what we will trust. In our own lives we trust in all kinds of things. Intellect. Spouses, family. Money. Too many times we put our trust in those things. 9

10 Because here is what I know there are times when people lose their minds. There are moments when spouses leave. People go who through bankruptcy who never thought they would. And when you strip everything else away what do you trust then? Jesus is inviting us to trust him. He continues on saying, In my Father s house there are many dwelling places. And he has gone to prepare a place for us. What a wonderful image this is! Don t you love that the Father s house, a house with many rooms. In Greco-Roman homes often it was all the extended family who would live together in a house that was divided into different dwelling places for each person or family. Grandparents, parents and all the extended family formed the basic organizing unit of society. And so Jesus is saying, by trusting in me you have been made a part of God s family. You will dwell with us now. I am going to prepare a place for you. A place where loved ones will be reunited and all are joined together in the family of God. And then Thomas, who sometimes gets known as doubting Thomas. Thomas says, whoa, wait a minute we don t know the way to the place you are going. And then we get one of the most clear and concrete I am statements of Jesus. Can you hear Jesus respond? Thomas, Thomas, friends I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. 10

11 Jesus is clear. If you want to get to God he is the way. Throughout the scriptures there are always two ways, two paths available to people. The way of light or the way of darkness. The way that leads to the promised land or the way that leads to destruction. Life or death. Psalm 139 ends like this, Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Jesus comes and says I am the way this is what it means to be human this is God s way and purpose and all of that is found in me. If Jesus is the way have we accepted that? Have we trusted that? There are lots of ways the world offer us telling us this is the way to go. Somewhere along the path you have to decide which way you are going to believe. If Jesus is not the way for you, what is your way? You are either following the Way or you are lost. And when you follow Jesus, you ll never be lost. In this one little statement of Jesus we find the key to life. Which way should I go? How I am I supposed to live in this life? Follow Jesus he is the way. What is the truth? What I am supposed to believe with all that swirls around me in this world? Trust Jesus he is the truth. All that is right and true is found in him. What is life really about? How can I experience meaning and purpose in 11

12 life? Keep your eyes fixed on Christ he is the life. He is the one who opens up all that is meaningful in life. Friends, in John we learn that Jesus is not just some nice guy. Not just a good teacher. No he IS God. Come to earth as a human. And in him we find all that we are looking for in this life and in him we find the way that leads to eternal life in his Father s home in heaven. So today the choice is before you once again. What or who will you trust with your life? We all live our lives trusting something. Either Jesus is the center of your life or he s not. And if you want to know the way to abundant life now and eternal life in the future trust Jesus Christ and follow him. Let s pray. 12