March 19, 2023 - Jesus Christ - I Am
Notes
Transcript
• So if you remember - last week, we looked at some of the Jewish Beliefs of the 1st Century that would have SHAPED the Jews EXPECTATIONS of the coming Messiah...
• We saw how those expectations would have literally COLLIDED with Jesus Christ...
• So let’s START today - by walking through a brief recap of those beliefs that we dove into last week...
slide:
Jewish Beliefs:
No Trinity
No Suffering Servant
National Salvation, Not Individual Salvation
The Law as Redeemer
Jewish Beliefs:
1. No Trinity (Deut. 6:4 ruled out the possibility of a Trinity)
2. No Suffering Servant (The Messiah was to come and free the Jews from Roman oppression)
3. National Salvation, Not Individual Salvation (point 2)
4. The Law as Redeemer (Law latter)
• And so this was 1st century Jewish Thought...
• These are some of the beliefs that shaped the Jew's expectations of who the Messiah would be...
• But let's shift gears now, and look to Christ.
• Let's look to what Christ had to say about Himself...
And how WHO He was - came into DIRECT conflict with Jewish thought.
• In order to do this we're going to linger over John 14:6 up until Easter Sunday...
• Let's read it together...
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
• So in this claim here made by Christ, we see Christ separating Himself as being - - EXCLUSIVE!
• Christ is saying to the world - I AM - REALITY!
• ...AND - - you MUST deal with Me!
• The words of Christ here in this verse - John 14:6 would have CONFRONTED Jewish Belief...
• Here was a man - in Jesus - who was speaking with ULTIMATE AUTHORITY....
• for as He says - NO ONE comes to the Father except through Me... (law latter - laid it down)
• "I AM the way, and the truth, and the life"
• For the next several weeks we'll be looking at Jesus in the context of this verse.
• In regards to the Jewish Beliefs that we walked through last week, the Jews would have replied with a FAT "NO YOU'RE NOT" to each one of Christ's claims in this verse...
• According to the Jew - Christ WASN'T the way - because He WASN'T the Messiah
• According to the Jew - Christ WASN'T the truth - because He didn't SPEAK the truth
• According to the Jew - Christ WASN'T the life - because He didn't bring it in freeing Israel
• To the Jew the answer would have been - NO, NO, NO...
• AND YET - Christ makes these claims of Himself...
• The 1st century JEW needed to deal with these claims....as do WE today.
• NOW, the way that we're breaking up this verse is to look at 4 aspects of Christ in this verse...
slide: Moving Forward
JESUS AS:
I AM
the Way
the Truth
the Life
• And so, points 2,3, and 4 can all be summed up in point #1, which we'll discuss today...Our THEME today...
slide:
JESUS as I AM
• As i just said, all the other claims of Christ in John 14:6, (the Way, the Truth, the Life)...
• they all find their ROOT - together - in this - JESUS AS - I AM
• what does that mean?
verse below:
*in context - here (exodus 3:13) - This is God calling Moses to go and free Israel...
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
• So here we see God - in responding to the question - What is your name....says this -
• I AM who I AM
• God says - Say this to the people of Israel - "I AM has sent me to you"
• GOD is - I AM
Now, how does Jesus connect Himself with being 'I AM'?
48 The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
49 Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.
50 Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge.
51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52 The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’
53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
55 But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
• *Flipping channels - baseball game (batter charging mound when I turned it on. I didn’t see what happened - but I KNEW what happened)
• You may read through this passage, not really have any idea WHAT Jesus meant in verse 58 when He said:
• "before Abraham was, I am"
• BUT, what you DO know, based on how the Jews responded, is that what Jesus said - the Jews took offense to...
• They knew EXACTLY what He was saying...
• Not only that, but the Jews actually try to KILL Jesus...BASED on what He said in verse 58.
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
• The Jews knew that Jesus was declaring Himself to be - the eternal God - incarnate.
• that He was equating Himself with the 'I AM' title that God gave Himself in Exodus 3:14...
• They KNEW this....that's why they responded the way they did.
• See Jesus could have responded differently...
• If He simply wanted to say that He existed before Abraham's time....
• He would have said - "before Abraham, I was."
• But that wasn't the word choice!
• The Greek words translated 'WAS' in the case of Abraham...
• ...and 'AM' in the case of Jesus....make it clear....
Before Abraham WAS - I AM!
• ...that Abraham was BROUGHT into existence, but that Jesus existed ETERNALLY...
• According to the Jews - as we saw LAST WEEK - This would have been blasphemy! -
Remember - God is ONE...
• And according to Mosaic Law, the punishment would have been death...(hence - picking up stones)
• BUT, as we know....looking back....it wasn't time for that yet.
And so for today, seeing the claim of Christ that He is indeed God in the flesh....
• ...what I want to do is focus on 1 specific attribute of Christ that was due to His deity...
• ...and then from there see how this Attribute manifested itself in Christ's life...and how it should in ours.
slide: Attribute
The Divine Authority of Jesus Christ
• Now, in thinking about the Authority of Christ, we want to start by looking to where this Authority came from.
• And we actually see this same question being asked of Christ....in Scripture...
27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
• I think we would all agree that the question itself...is a valid one.
• *Someone calls and asks you for some personal information (We ask questions)
• And so ON THE SURFACE, the question here is valid...
• BUT...
• as we keep reading, we see that the motives of the chief priests were shady...
• They wanted to try and TRAP Jesus...
• The problem is - Jesus KNEW what they were trying to do...
29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”
31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
• These chief priests and scribes...at the very least, they were LOOKING OUT for themselves...
• But Jesus KNEW that they knew the answer....
• They didn't want Jesus to think He was right, BUT they also didn't want to get beat down by the crowds...
• And so...
• When they respond by saying - "We do not know"...
• Jesus doesn't say - "OOOHHHH, well let me teach you then!"
• No, He says - You're not gonna tell Me the answer? ... "OK, NEITHER WILL I tell you by what authority..."
• These scribes were HIDING behind their question!
• They KNEW that Jesus had come from God...but they suppressed that truth in their wickedness!
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
• They KNEW Jesus had come from God...
• AND YET - they hide behind QUESTIONS to try and justify their position or stance...
*We see this VERY THING - in the ABORTION dialogue that's been going on the past DECADES or so (what about rape and incest?)
• DO WE DO THE SAME THING? (hide behind questions to justify our stance)
• Well, I see in Scripture the call for us to share the gospel...
• BUT what would i even say? - and so we say nothing
• Well, I see in Scripture the call for us to love one another as Christ loved me...
• BUT when am I gonna find the time to do that? - and so we do nothing
• Well, I see in Scripture the call for us to make a JOYFUL noise unto the Lord...
• BUT who would want to hear me sing? - and so we don't
• A lot of times, we hide behind the questions we already know the answers to...
• SO THAT we can try to justify our disobedience...
• This is what the Jewish Leaders had done in asking Christ about His authority, and so Christ doesn't respond to them...
• Because Christ knows that they WEREN'T REALLY interested in Christ's answer to begin with....
• NOW, If this exchange in Mark was all that we had, we'd be left WONDERING where Christ's authority came from...
• BUT it's not the only exchange of this sort....
• Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 28:18...
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
• So Jesus here....God - in the flesh...was GIVEN ALL authority...
• from who?
• What does scripture say?
35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
• So Jesus - is given ALL authority...over ALL things.... - in heaven and on earth..by the Father!
NOW - how did that authority manifest itself in Christ's life....?
SLIDE: The Authority of Jesus in Words: Jesus as I AM
The Authority of Jesus in Words
The Authority of Jesus in Words
• I think we all have experience with 'HEARING WORDS' in our lives that have AUTHORITY behind them...
• we've all been kids...who have had parents
• employees with bosses
• Students with teachers
• players with coaches
• citizens with governing authorities
• In all these situations, dealing with AUTHORITY in WORDS....
• And God has something to say about this...
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
• So God has an interest in how we handle even the civil, governing authorities in our lives...
• NOT ONLY for our good...
• BUT for the Lord's sake...
• And so we submit...
• NOT ULTIMATELY...but we submit.
• Not Ultimately, because as we see in the text, any submission to governing authorities SHOULD ITSELF be under it's own submission to God...
• And so in the Christian worldview, there is a HIERARCHY of AUTHORITY
• ...where Christians are to obey the laws of the land...WHILE AT THE SAME TIME...
• ...always filtering their SUBMISSION thru the framework of GOD'S ULTIMATE AUTHORITY!
• Now when it came to 1st century SCRIBES teaching in the synagogues, they would have always pointed to the prophets of old...
• ...saying - "As you've heard it said before from THIS prophet or THAT prophet..."
• so THEIR words were always in SUBMISSION to another's WORDS...
• BUT with Jesus, it was different! And the people noticed!
28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
• When the scribes would teach, those hearing KNEW that they weren't teaching as though they had ULTIMATE authority...
• BUT JESUS DID!
• We've heard it before - we heard it last week...
• At the sermon on the mount, we hear Jesus say - You've heard it said before, you shall not murder...BUT I SAY TO YOU..."
• "You've heard it said before you shall not commit adultery....BUT I SAY TO YOU..."
• They heard JESUS DEFINING the LAW (redefining it in their minds) - as one with AUTHORITY!
**"I tell you the truth"
• At another time, this happened...
3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
• Think about it, what would you say....if you heard someone look at another person, and say - "Son, your sins are forgiven"...
• I hope you would stand up and say - TIMEOUT!!!
• I HOPE that you would actually QUESTION what you were hearing.... "what do you mean by that?"
• NOW - this is exactly what the scribes did...NEXT VERSE
6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,
7 “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
• The scribes here - were CONFRONTED with the AUTHORITY of Jesus...
• And the way that Jesus responds to this particular event leads us to our 2nd point for today...which is this
SLIDE: The Authority of Jesus in Works: Jesus as I AM
The Authority of Jesus in Works
The Authority of Jesus in Works
• So Jesus just tells this paralytic that his sins are forgiven...
• And the scribes HEAR Jesus, and they start questioning in their hearts...."Why does he speak like that? Only God can forgive sins! He's blaspheming!"
• How does Jesus respond to their internal questioning of Him?
8 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?
10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—
11 “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”
12 And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
• What did Christ do here?
• He understood that mankind PERCEIVES the physical!
• Jesus basically says - WHICH IS HARDER to DO?
• to SAY to this paralytic "Your sins are forgiven"?....OR
• ...to say to him "Rise, take up your bed, and walk"?
• See JESUS KNOWS how miraculous it is to TAKE out a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh!
• Jesus KNOWS how miraculous it is to CALL a soul out from the grave and say LIVE - and it lives...!
• But He also knows that we CAN'T FULLY grasp this...
• Test yourself! -
• Are you MORE IN AWE that the wrath of God has been REMOVED from your account....
• OR - that your $150,000 student loan has been forgiven?
• Are you MORE IN AWE when someone walks up to you and tells you that they got SAVED....
• OR - when your friend walks up to you and says they just won the $50M lottery?
Be honest!
• We grasp the physical....
• And Christ knows this...
• HE says - SO THAT you know that I have AUTHORITY over the Spiritual....
• let Me perform this miraculous...PHYSICAL work....
• let Me show you that I have authority over the PHYSICAL....
• And so the PURPOSE of the work was to POINT to something GREATER!!
• As great as they thought the miracle was - of telling the lame to walk....
• HOW MUCH more miraculous it is when Christ CALLS THE DEAD to LIVE...
And so this leads right into our last point for today....
SLIDE: The Authority of Jesus in Us: Jesus as I AM
The Authority of Jesus in Us
The Authority of Jesus in Us
• So we see that Christ has ALL authority, but how does that play itself out in us?
• If we go back to a verse that we looked at earlier....
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Listen to this explanation of Christ speaking these words in the great Commission...
"Though invisible to the natural human eye, this is the unique perspective from which Christ speaks these words in the great commission. No king on earth nor creature in heaven has ever taken, nor could ever take, a more exalted posture than did the Son of God on this occasion. There is no pulpit or platform, in all the history of religious rulers or civil empires, that could ever be as spectacular as this. Christ has gloriously triumphed over all His enemies and made salvation available for all mankind by God’s matchless grace. Now He will grant to His disciples the privilege of sharing in His victory by their proclamation of the good news to all nations on the face of the earth."
• So every morning that we wake up...
• Every situation we find ourselves in...
• Should be an occasion for us to say - Ok, Let's go!
• Let's make disciples...Let's go...
• And we need to know that our going is SUPPORTED, HELD UP, by the Authority of Christ...
• He had defeated the Devil...
• He conquered the grave...
• He assumed dominion over all Spiritual forces in heaven and on the earth...
• And so when we GO, and we're standing before a friend who needs to hear the gospel...
• KNOW that the AUTHORITY of Christ holds up every word...
• know that every word you speak has DEATH CONQUERING POWER behind it...
• KNOW THIS!
• But also know this as well!
• Think back to the paralytic that we were just talking about...
• Jesus had told him that his sins were forgiven....and the scribes were thinking - Why does Jesus talk like that?
• ..."only God can forgive sins"...
• So what did Jesus do?
• He performed a miracle...a physical miracle....FOR WHAT REASON?
• SO THAT they would believe that Jesus did in fact have Spiritual Authority...
• DO you know what this reminds me of?
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
• What is this saying?
• It's saying:
• Works WITHOUT faith is SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
• Faith without works is DEAD FAITH
• When Jesus looked at the paralytic and said - "Your sins are forgiven"...
• Were his sins forgiven....? Or did Jesus have to perform the physical miracle before the forgiveness would kick in?
• NO - When Jesus said "Your sins are forgiven....his sins WERE forgiven"
• Jesus REALLY had AUTHORITY over the Spiritual Realm...
• BUT...
• THAT authority MANIFESTED itself in the physical miracle....
• JESUS showed them HIS authority - BY HIS WORKS
• WE ARE CALLED - - to SHOW PEOPLE OUR FAITH - BY our works...
• And i fear....that there are those of us who are content with MERE words...
• Whether merely HEARING words...
• or whether merely SPEAKING words...
And so here's a question i'd like us to ask ourselves....
If we took Christ's life out of Scripture (His deeds, actions), and replaced His deeds with your deeds, where He would have spoken the same words that He spoke, yet walked as you walk, would anyone have followed Him, or would they have cried hypocrite?
• Now, I know that we would all probably answer - hypocrite....BUT, something to think about.
• Is there anything in my life....that points to LIFE in JESUS...
And YES - we can point to THIS…coming to church...
But what about the times when we OFFERED GRACE...
TURNED the other cheek
Gave them our OTHER coat as well
WALKED in THEIR shoes
Walked TOWARD gospel suffering
• Is there anything to point to that displays a GROWING IN Christ...
• ...a deepening passion for HIM...
• ...a stronger PURSUIT of HIM....
• What have we seen today?
• Today we looked at "Jesus as I AM"
• and in doing so we focused in on the Divine Authority of Christ...
slide:
The Authority of Jesus in Words
The Authority of Jesus in Works
The Authority of Jesus in Us
• We looked at Christ's Authority...
• in words (He spoke as one with Authority - He forgave sins)
• in works (He performed physical miracles to help people believe who He was - His works pointed to a greater reality)
• in us (we should know that as Christians, we have the authority of Christ holding us up...AND because of that...we should pursue not only speaking truth...but living it out as well...)
if we want to have an EFFECTIVE witness, we must SHOW people our faith BY our works...
If we speak the truth of Christ, AND YET LIVE in contradiction to those words....Christ will NOT be glorified!
And so, as part of our Easter Series...we've seen 1st Century Jewish Beliefs...
• We saw what their expectations were of the Messiah...
• And now today, we've heard from Christ Himself...
• that He is - I AM..
• God Himself....
Remember that Jewish Belief we looked at - God is ONE…?
Now we believe God is one - but the Jews took that to mean - that Jesus COULD NOT be God...
Today - we’ve seen Christ COMBAT the JEW’S understanding of “God is One”...
As He displayed His DIVINITY.
• And from here, the next 3 claims of Christ that we'll look at will all flow from this truth today!
• We'll see Jesus as...
• the Way
• the Truth
• the Life
Let's pray