November 2, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God Is Lord"

John 8:48-59

"Before Abraham Was Born, I Am!"

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Oswald Chambers wrote, "Today Jesus Christ is being dispatched as the Figurehead of a Religion, a mere example. He is that, but he is infinitely more; He is salvation itself, He is the Gospel of God" (as cited on SermonCentral.com).
    2. Context – We aren’t alone in our confusion about who Jesus really is. The Jews of His time had a hard time dealing with the reality of Jesus’ identity. Let’s read John 8:48-59 and find out more about who Jesus is.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. John 8:48-59 (from the NIV) – (NEW SLIDE) The Jews answered him, "Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?" 49 "I am not possessed by a demon," said Jesus, "but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. (NEW SLIDE) 51 I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." 52 At this the Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?" (NEW SLIDE) 54 Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." (NEW SLIDE) 57 "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" 58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
  1. Who Am I?
    1. As I was meditating on this passage, a question struck me: why was the reaction of the Jews who had followed Him loosely so different from that of the disciples? What was it that the disciples had that enabled them to accept Jesus’ words and receive Him for who He is? And they did accept His words and receive Him. In John 6, Jesus had given some very hard teachings and many of His followers had turned away. So Jesus asked the twelve disciples if they were going to leave too. (NEW SLIDE) In John 6:68, Peter answered, "Lord, to whom would we go? You alone have the words that give eternal life." The disciples were sold out on who Jesus is. They’d heard Him enough and seen enough proofs that they believe Him even before He said, "Before Abraham was born, I am!"
    2. Maybe we can find out what the difference was by looking at the arguments the Jews raised. We jumped into the middle of a discussion, because we aren’t going to read the whole chapter this morning. The argument went back and forth. First Jesus told them they were slaves to sin. They answered that they were Abraham’s free children. Then Jesus told them in so many words that their father was the devil and that they were not Abraham’s children. They protested that God was their only Father. Then Jesus again told them that God wasn’t their Father, because if He was they would love Jesus. That’s where we jumped in. They told Jesus He was a demon-possessed Samaritan. We read the rest of the argument.
    3. So what’s the gist of their arguments? Remember, these were Jews who had been following Him. They looked at surface issues. The most important thing to them was their ancestry, their physical heritage. Jesus was trying to get them to see that their spiritual condition was much more important than their physical heritage. He was trying to get them to see that they needed to open their spiritual eyes and receive Him for who He is. They couldn’t handle that. So when He made the claim of being equal with God, which is what He did when He used God’s name "I Am", they tried to stone Him. What is the missing ingredient? What did those twelve disciples have that those other Jews didn’t have?
    4. Faith. Those Jews had seen the same things and heard the same words that the Twelve had, but they did not move on to faith so they could receive and believe what Jesus was saying. (NEW SLIDE) Chip Ingram defines faith as "simply believing what God said is true to the point of doing what He says." Those Jews believed, but not to the point of doing what Jesus said. They didn’t have faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Jesus was explaining the rewards of having faith, but those Jews didn’t believe that they would get the reward from God if they earnestly sought Him.
    5. What does all that have to do with us? What impact can a two thousand-year-old argument have on our lives? It’s this: just as those Jews did not receive eternal life and many blessings in this life because they did not believe to the point of doing what God says, so we are in danger when we don’t believe God to the point of doing what He says. Let me explain that. (NEW SLIDE) Many of us have faith. We have faith in a God who does little things. The problem is that God has always wanted us to have faith in the true God, the one who does big things. What does Genesis 1:1 say? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Do we really believe that the God who created the universe can’t do big things in our lives and in the life of our church? Do we really believe that Jesus’ name is "I Am"?
    6. I know it’s hard for us to step out in faith in obedience to God’s will. I know it’s hard for us to stop adding up in our minds all the reasons something won’t work. I know we’ve all been burned before. And I know that we’ve all had times when we’ve stepped out in obedience and things seemed to blow up in our faces. Joseph could identify with that. After all, his brothers sold him into slavery and he wound up in jail on a trumped-up charge. Daniel could identify with that. He wound up in a lion’s den. David could identify with that. He spent many years on the run from Saul and the armies of Israel. Did God wind up coming through for those men and using them for His glory? You bet. Did He do big things in their lives, things that defied logic and common sense? You bet. (NEW SLIDE) The point isn’t that we recklessly run out after everything that comes our way and jump off every bridge that we see. The point is that we believe what God says is true to the point of doing what He says, where we lock arms together and step off and if God doesn't come through we’re going all the way down to the bottom. That’s what faith is.
    7. Now, my heart’s going, "Yeah! Let’s do it! When do we start?" And my mind’s going, "How practical is this?" I’m a fairly pragmatic person – I tend to think in terms of systems and organization and how to achieve specific goals. So my mind has a tendency to override my heart when it shouldn’t. It starts hammering me with things like, "We don’t have the time for this," "We don’t have the money," "We don’t have the warm bodies to pull this off," and the worst one, "What if we fail?" Or maybe a little closer to home, "What if I fail?" So too often I back off. I get scared to dream. Isn’t that funny – we spent eight weeks talking about daring to dream God’s dreams and I still get scared to dream. Part of it’s pride. Part of it’s not wanting to let people I care about down. And part of it’s being afraid that I won’t be able to pull of my part of it. So I get scared to dream.
    8. But faith requires things like dreaming, taking risks, and jumping with the only hope of making it across is God catching us. That’s what faith is and requires. (NEW SLIDE) Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I can’t wait until I get all the facts memorized before I act in faith. I can’t wait until I get that supercomputer program that will predict all variables and possible outcomes before I act in faith. Jesus said, "I am!" and if I truly believe that, I will believe that what He says is true to the point that I will act on what He says. That’s my struggle, and it’s more than my struggle, it’s our struggle. Believing that God’s will is true to the point that we act on it is our struggle.
    9. I was just looking through my adventure journal from Daring to Dream Again. One of the questions I read asked me why I identified with Thomas. I wrote, "I allow doubt to crush faith." Ouch! I’d like to say that a lot has changed since then, and maybe in some ways I exercise a little more faith than I used to, and maybe I dream a little more than I used to. I don’t know, but I do know that statement is still true about me. "I allow doubt to crush faith." I don’t want to do that anymore! I want to get past that and begin to truly act in faith constantly and consistently throughout the rest of my life. There’s another statement that’s in that adventure journal that I’ll paraphrase for you: "I don’t trust myself to do God’s will." I think we can all say that. We don’t trust ourselves to do God’s will. We know all the times in our pasts when we’ve failed miserably to do God’s will and wonder if we can ever trust ourselves to try it again. What if we fail? Can we afford another failure? How will we survive emotionally or physically or spiritually or financially if we fail yet again? What if we step out in faith and we fail? What if we didn’t hear God right? What if we blow it again for the umpteenth time?
    10. Every so often there comes a time in the life of a person or in the life of an organization where a line has to be drawn in the sand. Cross over it, and there’s no going back. We as a church are experiencing such a time right now. God is calling us to draw a line in the sand. If we stay on this side, we live with limited dreams and limited effectiveness for God’s kingdom because we refuse to believe what God says is true to the point that we act on what He says. If we cross over the line, we take an enormous risk because we will be believing what God says is true to the point that we act on what He says. It’s an enormous risk not because there’s any chance of God failing to come through. It’s an enormous risk because He will take us places we may be afraid to go. He’ll involve us in things we are probably going to be uncomfortable with. And He may require that we lay our favorite things and programs on His altar and replace them with His favorites. But remember what we talked about last week? (NEW SLIDE) Loving obedience will bring God’s results in God’s time. And stepping out in faith is an act of loving obedience to the great I Am. What great and mighty dream is God calling us to? What risks is He calling us to take? Jesus is telling us right now, "Before Abraham was born, I am!"
    11. There are a couple of ways I’ve been sensing that Jesus wants us as a church to act on who He is. But I’m scared to mention them because number one, I don’t want to mess up and look bad, and number two, I’m afraid we’ll allow fear to keep us from following through. (NEW SLIDE) The first way God wants us to act on who He is as a church is to pray. I know we keep talking about it and I don’t want to beat a dead horse. But if all we do is talk about prayer then we won’t ever get anywhere. The churches where the Holy Spirit is moving powerfully and transforming lives are those churches for whom the prayer meeting is the most important event of the week. People come in droves to pray, not because it’s easy or because it’s comfortable or because it’s the thing to do. People come in droves to pray at those churches because they are so hungry for God to act that they are willing to clear their schedules, get past their fear and discomfort, and come and pray. If you are serious about being a committed follower of Jesus Christ and your are serious about seeing the Holy Spirit move powerfully so that people will see their lives transformed, then you will come on Sunday night (unless you’re working with the kids or youth) or Thursday morning to pray. I’m not trying to put a guilt trip on you or make you feel bad, I’m just telling you the truth. More and more people in this church have to be involved in corporate prayer times if we want to see God act on who He is in the life of our church. Bottom line.
    12. (NEW SLIDE) The second way God wants us to act as a church is to jump whole hog into the Fifty-Day Spiritual Adventure that begins February 22 and runs through Easter. The theme - Standing Tall: Facing the Fears that Grip Our Souls. Now that’s really scary for us because we know that God’s going to want us to change. We’re going to be tempted to just sit through the sermons, do the homework, and let it roll off of our backs. But we’ve got to resist that temptation, overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and move on with Jesus. God wants our church to learn, apply and act on this adventure.
    13. (NEW SLIDE) The third way God wants us to act on who He is as a church is to use the Spiritual Adventure as a jumping off point for new ministry in our church and our community. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what that looks like. I’ve got a couple of ideas, and either of them will involve a major step of faith, but I’m still praying about them. I will probably bring them up for prayer and discussion at the council meeting. But because I’ve spent a lot of time praying and meditating about them, I know God wants us to do one of them. Please pray with me for a clearer picture. Pray that God will provide clear direction for either The Purpose Driven Life campaign or Alpha. And maybe the reason it’s not quite clear to me is because I’m scared. But I’m willing to act anyway. Are we as a church willing to act anyway?
    14. God does not desire merely for us as a church to act on who he is. Since each one of us is part of the body, part of the church, God is asking the same thing of us as individuals. How does He want each one of us as individuals to act on who He is? We’re going to take a moment right now and dream. No matter how outrageous it might seem, if it’s a God-given dream it’s a good one. (NEW SLIDE) Spend a few moments in prayer and then write down now (not later) on your bulletin insert two things. First, write down a dream that you know God has had for your life but you’ve been afraid to dream it because of fear or lack of faith. Second, write down a dream that you believe God has for our church but you’ve been afraid to dream it because of fear or lack of faith. Dream, and write those dreams down now.
  1. Conclusion
    1. God has given us dreams for our lives and for our church. The next step is to offer it up to Him in prayer. So please take those dreams, come up to the altars, and offer those dreams up to Him in prayer. (NEW SLIDE) Say something like, "Lord Jesus, I believe that You are the Great I Am, and that through Your Spirit You have given me dreams that are too big for me to imagine them coming true. But out of faith and loving obedience, I’m placing them at Your feet and asking you to make them come true in and through me." Spend some time praying over them, and then take them back to your seat with you. Our second act of faith will be to pray over them every single day so that God will be freed to work in our hearts and lives and bring them to reality. In a few minutes we’ll pray together. But spend some time praying over those dreams right now.
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