He Is Him

John 8:21–30 (NIV)

Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?” But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.” “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.

Introduction

How many of you know what a plot twist is?

It’s an unexpected twist in the development of a story. And it is my favorite kind of movie or story. I love movies that keep you guessing until the very end. Movies that are nothing like Hallmark Movies.

You all know what I am talking about.

Every Hallmark Movie has a stressed out woman who ditches her wealthy, fancy job working boyfriend for a guy who wears flannel and lives in the country.

You know it’s coming, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the predictable ending from coming.

One of my favorite movies was Man on Fire by Denzel Washington, because it has a massive plot twist. You don’t know how it is going to end until it ends.

And I say that because John 8 is layered with plot twists. There’s many, that we are going to read about, but I wanted to use the passages that we read as our foundation.

But let me take you to the beginning of John 8.

The Text

At the beginning of Chapter 8, religious leaders attempted to set up Jesus by bringing to him a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. They set this woman up just for this moment to bring her to Jesus’ feet and trap him in his words. Instead, Jesus revealed the sin in their lives and exposed their intentions.

He tells the crowd, let the person that has never sinned throw the first stone. He knew that if a person made that declaration it would be considered blasphemy. So one by one, they dropped their rocks.

This is the audience that Jesus is speaking to when he begins to tell them that they were going to die in their sins. This is the audience he was speaking to when he said, “Where I am going, you cannot come with me.”

So this begged to question...

So who are you?

Jesus’ response contains these words, twice - “I am he.”

I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he

When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he

But, Jesus is only teasing out the answer to them.

At this point the religious leaders are starting to understand what Jesus was implying, but they had not heard him say it yet.

As the conversation went on the person of Abraham comes up, and I’ll paraphrase what Jesus said, but Jesus says to them, I saw your father Abraham. And if Abraham was alive to see this day, meaning, if Abraham saw me as the Son of God, he would not be treating me the way you are treating me.

This prompted a response from the Pharisees. They laughed at him and said, “You aren’t event 50 years old! How can you say that you saw Abraham!”

And now Jesus deliver the punch line to the crowd.

John 8:58 (NIV)

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

Oh, OK, now we are going somewhere.

Jesus previous said, “I am he...”, or said in 2023, “I am him.”

But since they weren’t getting it, he had to tell them EXACTLY WHO HE WAS BY NAME, and he says them, I AM.

Who is the I Am?

Now you might be thinking, that makes no sense Pastor Josh. “I am” is not a name for a person.

And I would say, you are correct. It is not the name for a person, but it is the name for God. It was the name that God used to reveal himself.

Exodus 3:13–14 (NIV)

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.’ ”

This passage of scripture is not just the story of Moses who would become the deliverer of Egypt, but it is also the story of when God first revealed His identity to someone.

God told Moses my name is I AM.

Let’s break down what that means. I AM is two things, first it is personal. When I am speaking to someone and I need them to do something for me, “I” places me in relation to them. If I am talking to my son, I say I would like you to do this. I, your father, would like you to do this. If I’m at Home Depot and I need help I will say, ‘I am looking for an air filter’. I, your customer, am looking for an air filter.

So the I creates a relationship between God and His people.

God has always desired to be personal with us. In Genesis he talked to Adam. He talked to Noah. He talked to Abraham. Over and over we read about a God who was not an inanimate or impersonal being, but he was personal. He is a personal God.

And the second thing he communicates in his name is that he is present. He said I am, not I was and not I will be, but I am. God is eternally present. He is the beginning and the ending. We are bound by linear time, but God is not bound by linear time. That’s one of the many reasons we pray.

We ask someone who is already there which way we should go.

So when God speaks a prophetic word to you, it is in your future, but it is in God’s present.

So God reveals himself as I Am that I Am.

Now, in an attempt to understand what I AM means for today, it is as if he was saying, I will be what I am going to be.

That was the best definition that he could give to Moses, and throughout the course of time this is evidenced in how he related to humanity. He became many things in order to relate to them in a way that he needed to relate to them.

But none was more important than when God became flesh and dwelled among us. He related to us as he enters into the world and through Jesus revealed himself to us. That is why Jesus said, I Am Him!

And when they didn’t understand what he was saying, he finally had to tell them, I Am!

The 7 I Am’s

Now, if you’ve sat underneath our teaching of the Bible here at Lighthouse you know that we don’t form a theology around a single statement. You let the Bible interpret itself and all throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is telling them exactly who he is. John is the only Gospel that goes to great depths to prove to us that Jesus is the Messiah.

At the end of John, he literally writes that his gospel was written to show us that Jesus is the Messiah, and when we believe in Him, we will be saved.

But John also writes Jesus’ 7 I Am statements. Again, he’s the only writer who writes these.

John 6:35 (NIV)

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

I Am the Bread of Life

This was a reference to when Israel was in the wilderness and they didn’t have food. God began to supernaturally provide them with daily food called manna. It was a mysterious substance that appeared daily. They weren’t allowed to ration it. They had to trust that every morning, God would provide this mysterious bread for food from heaven.

Jesus said, in the same way God sent bread from heaven to feed you physically, He sent me from heaven to feed you Spiritually. When you come to Jesus, you’ll never go hungry.

John 8:12 (NIV)

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

I Am the Light of the World

Jesus will not only feed you, but he will also illuminate you. Without the light of Jesus in our world, we are left in darkness trying to figure it out on our own. But when Jesus comes, He lights our path and gives us direction.

John 10:9 (NIV)

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

I Am the gate.

Salvation is through Jesus alone. There’s only one way to the Father and that is through belief in Jesus. It’s not through you. It’s not through your efforts, or your good deeds. It’s through Jesus.

John 10:11 (NIV)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

I Am the good shepherd.

He is not just the gate, but he is also the shepherd. The shepherd watches over the sheep. He cares for the sheep. He protects the sheep. And when a sheep is lost, he finds the sheep.

John 11:25 (NIV)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;

I Am the resurrection and the life

Jesus is resurrection incarnate. We need to believe in Him, and live in Him. When we do, we experience the resurrection power of Jesus.

John 14:6 (NIV)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I Am the way, truth and life

Jesus knows the way, because he is the way. He is the truth. Not a truth, but the truth. You cannot know truth outside of Jesus. He is also the life. You can’t experience life outside of him. True life, or true living, is in and through him.

John 15:1 (NIV)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

I Am the true vine.

Jesus tells us that he is the vine because he wants us to abide in him, and produce fruit. When we are abiding in the true vine we produce fruit for others.

I Am that I Am

So Jesus tells them that I Am, and then seven times he shows them that as the great I Am he was whoever He needed to be.

He could be light, bread, the gate, the Good Shepherd, the resurrection, the life, the way, the truth, and the true vine. God did what he needed to do in order to reveal himself to humanity.

Now, let’s fast forward to the night that Jesus was arrested.

John 18:4-6

Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?” “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

John is telling us that when they said we want Jesus, he said I AM he.

As soon as Jesus said this, it caused the men to fall backwards.

At the revelation of who Jesus was, there was so much power that it caused the men to fall back.

In the same way, if you would allow the great I Am into your life, it would cause the things that are trying to arrest you to fall back.

Sickness falls back to Jesus.

Insecurity falls back to Jesus.

Anxiety falls back to Jesus.

Additions fall back to Jesus.

Stronghold fall back to Jesus.

Jesus, Takes our Punishment

Let me take you back to John 8 real quick… I told you that the chapter opened with the men who brought the woman to Jesus and they had rocks in their hands and they were ready to kill her for her sins.

But when Jesus had confounded them with his response they dropped their rocks one by one.

And then this discourse that we read in John 8 happens… and when Jesus says to that same group, I Am, the Bible says that they picked up the rocks to now stone Jesus.

And that is the gospel!

When the woman should have been stoned, it was Jesus that they instead tried to stone.

But it wasn’t time yet. Jesus wasn’t ready to lay down his life just yet.

Conclusion

Jesus lays down his life, because He is Him.

And as Jesus lay in a cold dark tomb, for 3 days the enemy thought that he had outsmarted God. When Jesus died on the cross the Bible says that the earth shook. The great I Am was then taken down and placed inside of a tomb in a garden. And when they finally closed the tomb, the enemy thought that this was the ending.

But how many of you know that when they closed the tomb, Jesus started counting.

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And on the third day, Jesus rose from the grave with all power in his hands, having conquered death, hell and the grave.

When we get to the end of the story, in Revelation. John tells us that he sees Jesus in heaven and Jesus speaks to him.

Revelation 22:12–13 NIV

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

What does this mean?

That the man who defeated the spirit of Goliath, and the man who said I Am Him, will be victorious in eternity. He will reign over everything.

With this being said what will your response be?