The Great I AM
The Great I AM
John 8:48-59
Main Idea: God’s children keep the Word of Jesus, the Great I AM.
I. When People Seem Big (8:48–50)
“1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us.
These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.”
~ Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man
1 Corinthians 3:19-20: For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
“That God may be better understood, and admired, and loved through our life …; that more hearts may be brought beneath His sway—be this our aim, at all costs to ourselves.”
~ F.B. Meyer
II. When Death Seems Near (8:51–55)
Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
“Those who believe in Jesus’ word already have eternal life; death is no longer facing them but behind them; when they pass away, they will not be handed over to death.”
~ Herman Ridderbos
2 Corinthians 4:17-18: For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
III. Because Jesus is the Great I AM (8:56–59)
Colossians 1:15-23: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
“As man, He fled from the stones; but woe to those from whose stony hearts God has fled.”
~ Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John