I AM Jesus
Celebrate the deepest love poured out of the greatest sacrifice in history. A love that heals. A love that forgives. A love that welcomes.
Transcript
Good morning RiverLife family. I’m Kong, the Brooklyn Park campus pastor. I’m joining you all via recording because I’m currently somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean on a Disney cruise with my family. I miss you all, but I’m glad I can still connect with you here, via video.
First off, thank you for an amazing Easter last week. Between both campuses, we had a RiverLife record-breaking turnout for service. Across both campuses, we had over 500 people total! And we had almost 2,000 people come through the egg hunt. So, thank you for contributing in all the ways you did. Thank you for donating candy, taping eggs, bagging candy, volunteering at service, volunteering at the egg hunt, cleaning up, dressing up in Easter bunny costumes, and most importantly, being hope, healing, and growth to our community! We couldn’t do this without you, and we wouldn’t want to do it without you. I hope that Easter is a reminder encouraging us to continue to love God and others more and more.
Today, we’re kicking off a new series called “I Am Jesus” where we will spend the next 2 months looking at some of Jesus’ most profound, bold, and even controversial statements about himself. Each of these statements helps us better understand who he is and we can find all of them in the gospel of John and they are:
I am the bread of life
I am the light of the world
I am the door
I am the good shepherd
I am the resurrection and the life
I am the way the truth, and the life
And I am the true vine.
Now, they might not seem all that profound, bold, or controversial right now. I mean, if we’re honest, some of these statements might even sound kind of silly. Identifying with bread, a door, or a shepherd feels kind of ordinary, dull, or irrelevant. I’d imagine many of us like to identify with something or someone unique or powerful. But, while these may not seem to be that significant to us, they were to the people who heard it from Jesus. In fact, the simple phrase, I am, was so significant that it almost got Jesus killed.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PHRASE, I AM:
In John 8, Jesus debates with a group of people who claim to believe in God. The group claimed that they believed in God because their ancestor was Abraham. Now, Abraham is the example of what it means to be a faithful person. Abraham sets the example of what it means to believe in God. You can read more about this in Genesis 14. The group associated their belief in God with Abraham’s belief in God. Essentially, they thought that Abraham’s faith in God transferred to them simply because were his descendants. Jesus differentiates that their familial connection with Abraham doesn’t mean they share Abraham’s faith in God. If they were truly faithful like Abraham, their actions would reflect their faith. Jesus knew that this group had evil intentions of wanting to kill him because he confronted their incorrect beliefs and he pointed out the discrepancy. The group responded by mocking Jesus, saying he was demon-possessed and asking if he thinks he’s greater than Abraham. Jesus responded by telling the group Abraham would have been glad to see him, which caused them to inquire with Jesus how it would ever be possible for them to meet. Seeing that Abraham existed about 2,000 years before Jesus, there was no way Abraham would even know of Jesus’ existence. But, this is how Jesus responds. This is what he says in John 8:58,
“Very truly I tell you before Abraham was born, I am!”
Essentially, Jesus proclaimed that he existed before Abraham. Basically, Jesus was proclaiming that he was greater than their ancestor, Abraham who was the patriarch of the ethnic and religious culture. It would be the equivalent if someone in the Hmong community claimed that they were greater than General Vang Pao. It might even be like the “my daddy is better than your daddy” arguments we had on the playground in kindergarten. Jesus’ proclamation in verse 58 was so controversial that the group picked up stones implying they were going to kill Jesus. What was the big deal?
I AM in the Old Testament
I am. This phrase has significant meaning because it almost cost Jesus’ life when he used it to describe himself. We know that there are Old Testament references based on what we talked about in John 8. For us to understand the significance of the phrase, I am, we have to see where it shows up and that’s in Exodus 3. Earlier, we read this during our scripture reading and we’re going to read some of it again. This is what it says,
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.
The phrase, I Am, was first used by God when he appeared to Moses as a burning bush. Moses came upon the burning bush because he was tending his sheep. Before he was a shepherd, he lived in Egypt with Pharoah and the royal family while his people were slaves. He ran away from this life because he killed an Egyptian official after he witnessed the official mistreating one of his fellow Israelites. Moses was scared Pharoah would punish him, so he fled. Although Moses left his life and his people in Egypt, God didn’t. Instead, in Exodus 2, we’re told that God heard their cries for help, saw the cruel conditions they were living under, and remembered the promise he made to them, so He set out to liberate them and he planned to use Moses.
In Exodus 3, we’re told that God selects Moses to liberate the Israelites from Egypt. Moses objects to God’s plan not wanting to bear the responsibility, but God assures him that He will be with Moses. Moses then asks that if he does go back, what should he tell the Israelites, so they believe him, so they believe that truly it was God who was liberating them. Moses specifically asks for God to provide a name. God responds by telling Moses to tell the Israelites that it is I AM who is liberating them.
What’s in a name?
For some, names are practical and simple. You find a name you like, and they simply distinguish your child or your pet from others. For others, names might have more significance. Maybe you were named after someone or something important. Maybe you’ve carefully chosen a name for someone because there’s a special meaning associated with that specific name. That’s the case with God’s name, I am.
When God told Moses to refer to him as “I Am” to the Israelites, it was significant because it was God’s personal name. God used this name to differentiate himself from all other gods. Often we use God, Lord, and Father interchangeably to describe the person that we believe in, but in the Bible, these names are very specific. In Exodus 3, notice the 2 different names used to describe God. We get God and LORD in all caps. These 2 names uniquely describe God in two different ways. God is a general word describing any god or ruler. It describes anyone with some sort of power. LORD on the other hand is a unique name designated to specifically describe the God we believe in and in the Hebrew language, LORD is pronounced Yahweh. This was God’s unique name separating him from all other gods revealing to us who he is and how we can relate to him. God’s name, Yahweh, is based on the word for “being” and it holds significant meaning. It speaks of God’s self-existence and self-sufficiency and how he is not dependent on anyone, but everyone and everything is independent on him.
If we go back to John 8, people were outraged with Jesus when he identified himself “I am” because he was using God’s name and declaring himself to be God. But we’re reminded that Jesus is indeed God, completely self-existent and self-sufficient and the person we depend on for our well-being. And here’s the parallel that I want to draw for us between John 8 and Exodus 3 with Jesus’ I Am statement.
Before God tells Moses to go rescue the Israelites, we’re told that God heard the Israelites cry for help. God remembered his promise with them, and he was concerned about them. What does this tell us? God hears us. He remembers the promises he makes for us. He is concerned about us. We have a God who hears us. We have a God who cares for us. We have a God who is concerned about us. God’s name, I Am, isn’t just a unique descriptor that differentiates him from other gods. It’s a name that embodies who he is. “I Am” is the personal God who cares for us deeply. He makes himself known to us by revealing to us that he is who he is and fixes the situations that make us feel like it is what it is. Our God, Yahweh, I am, is there with you in any situation that you’re in because he cares for you. Let’s pray.