Dear First Baptist Family,
I have enjoyed participating in Leadership Knoxville this year. It’s been a great opportunity to get to know people from various backgrounds and types of good work in our city.
During our opening retreat, we were instructed to not tell anyone what we did for a living. For two whole days, we couldn’t talk about where we worked or even the type of work we did. Instead, we only shared about our interests, our families, and so on.
This was an amazing (and difficult) exercise that highlighted how often we often first talk about what we do, rather than who we are.
Jesus was certainly known for His works. He preached, healed, performed amazing miracles, and ultimately went to the cross. But Jesus didn’t want us to believe in Him based on His miracles alone. He wanted us to believe in Him for who He is.
That’s why Jesus employs a series of “I am” statements to identify Himself in the Gospel of John. In the Old Testament, when Moses was called to declare to the Pharaoh, “Let my people go” from the yoke of slavery in Egypt, Moses asked God, “Whom should I tell them sent me?”
God replied, “Tell them ‘I AM WHO I AM’ sent you” (see Exodus 3:14). Moses was to say to Pharaoh, “I AM has sent me to you.”
It’s the 4 letter Hebrew word YHWH (pronounced Yahweh). Whenever the word LORD appears in all capitals in the Old Testament, that’s the YHWH name for God. It means that God is the ground of all being. God is preexistent, transcendent, and eternal. God simply is.
The I am statements in John’s gospel link Jesus to the Old Testament revelation of God. When Jesus says things like, “I am the bread of life…I am the good shepherd…” He is helping us know who He is and how to understand His ministry.
If you’re wondering if this is an interpretive stretch, it helps to know that the religious leaders knew exactly what Jesus was doing. He was putting Himself on the same level as God. At the end of John 8, Jesus says in plain language, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” The religious leaders immediately picked up rocks to stone him.
He is who He claims to be and much more. His statements provide mere metaphors for the metaphysical reality of Jesus’ identity.
If that’s who He is, then who are you?
Are you clear on your identity as a child of God?
Do you live with reverence for the LORD over all of life?
This Sunday we will consider His statement I AM the door. He is the entry point for all of life. No one can enter the kingdom of heaven by any other means than Christ Himself.
This week, live as you are in light of the great I AM. In Him, you’ll discover abundant life.
With love,
Pastor Brent McDougal