Jesus, the Great I AM

 

Consider these words of Christ as we think about Jehovah, I AM:  

Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.  (John 8:58) 

I am the bread of life. (John 6:35)

I am the light of the world.  (John 8:12)


I am the door of the sheep.  (John 10:7)

I am the good shepherd.  (John 10:11)

I am the resurrection and the life.  (John 11:25)

I am the way, the truth, and the life.  (John 14:6)

I am the true vine.  (John 15:1)


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  (John 1:l)


In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,  having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:2-4)  

He is!  The Alpha and the Omega, Beginning and End, is He.  

This Christ, who redeemed us by His blood, is the great I AM, Jehovah God Himself.  And what a God:  Bread . . . Light . . . Door . . . Shepherd . . . Resurrection, Life, Way, Truth, Life, Vine.  

He is Life itself, All in All, All we need.  

Oh, cling to Him this day.  He is all we have . . . and He is enough.   

Jesus, Our Jehovah God

Why does Jehovah God reveal His name to Moses at the burning bush?  He always reveals Himself because He wants us to know Him.  Awesome thought: the God of the universe wants His people to know who He is.  

What is He about to do?  

Rescue.  Save.  Pass over blood-sprinkled houses.  Bring out.   Destroy enemies.   Redeem.  

This is a holy God who must pour out His wrath on sin.  And He does that in Egypt.  But not against all sinners, only against the sinners who have enslaved His people.  The other sinners He brings out. 

Isn't that always God's plan?  To redeem some sinners while giving righteous judgment against others?  

And how does He redeem?  With blood.  The blood of the Lamb.  

His Lamb, our Savior, Christ.  

And then He calls us to Himself, to accept that blood sacrifice on our behalf.

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.  Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.  For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe."  (Deuteronomy 10:12-17)

He set His love on us.  Isn't that a beautiful thought?  And then poured out His own blood to rescue us from slavery.  Such love.  

The Holy God secured our rescue because He loved us sinners.   Walk in all His ways this day . . . because now you can.   And reach out to another sinner to accept His blood-bought mercy.

Jehovah, the Infinite God

Yesterday we saw the greatness of God in His holiness and judgment of sin.  Nathan Stone in The Names of God declares that "it is this righteousness of Jehovah against which men sin."  We sin against the God who is completely and utterly perfect and flawless, infinite and right in all He does.  

When we go our own way, every day, we declare to Him that our way is better than His.  We take our lives into our own hands.  Is that really where we want our lives to be?  These hands are so full of self-serving and idol worship.

Woe is me, I am undone.  I am a woman of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.

And that only begins to scratch the surface.  

And it is as Jehovah that God pronounces judgment against the sin we so brazenly commit against Him.  It is as Jehovah that He pours our His wrath.  

 

But it is also as Jehovah that God says this to Moses:

I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” (Exodus 6:2-8, ESV)

He is a God who loves, who planned all along to love.  

He planned our rescue from slavery. 

He planned to make us His people, 

and to dwell among us.  

He has heard our groaning.  Meditate on that. 

And think about the One over whom He poured His wrath. 

This is our Jehovah God. 

Oh our God, we worship You.

Jehovah God, the Holy One

Jehovah. Yahweh.  The Great I AM.  Holy LORD.

In the Old Testament, we see that name differentiated from "God" by the use of caps throughout.  Jehovah = LORD, God = Lord.  So watch this sometime when you are reading the Psalms; there are entire blocks of the Psalms that do not use the word Jehovah at all, but only God the Lord.  It's a fascinating study.  

Note Psalm 11 for a beautiful description of this Jehovah God:

 http://www.esvbible.org/Psalm%2B11

Note as well, the form of Lord used - all caps.  This is the Great I AM.  

Daniel 9:14 says this: Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 


Jehovah God is righteous when He judges and holy in all His ways . . . and we have not obeyed His voice.  What does this mighty Jehovah God do about that?  

Please think on that question, and we'll talk more tomorrow.  

The Great I AM

Pastor Jim once said that Exodus 34:5-7 contains the most complete description of God in all of Scripture. 

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious,

 slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

 but who will by no means clear the guilty,

 visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children

 to the third and the fourth generations. 

This is the God who identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush with the name I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you."  

I AM  . . . . self-existent God, content within the Trinity, from everlasting to everlasting He is God. 

This name, rendered Jehovah, is the one name of God not attached to His works, declaring simply who He is, and that He is, completely independent of His created works.  While the ancient peoples (and today's peoples for that matter) had many different Elohim, gods, this Jehovah  is the only true Elohim.  He is the one true and holy God.  

He is the God who is personal to His creation.  He spoke with Adam and Eve, and walked in Eden with them.  

This is God, our Elohim. 

Worship Him this day.  And be glad that He is your God. 

And One More Time - Adonai

Have you noticed that, while Jesus is the final expression of the name Adonai, the fullness of the Lordship of God, Lord in the flesh, He is also the ultimate expression of the word servant as well. 

Since He fulfilled all righteousness in the flesh, He became the final and necessary Servant.  No man has ever served like this One. See His love in John 13.  

Matthew 20:  The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.  Luke 22:  I am among you as one who serves.  Hebrews 10, quoting Psalm 40:  Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'  

Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.  (Philippians 2:6-7)  

This is the God to whom we bow and confess:  Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  This Christ is the One we follow.  This is the One who lived out the righteousness that we need and can't do, and then gave it to us.  He is the One who took the sins that we do accomplish, and bore them in His flesh on the tree.  What a Savior.  What a Lord.  

Call Him Adonai, Lord and Master, this day, and then, like Ananias in Acts 9 (read it and be encouraged and challenged) respond to His call with Here I am, Lord. 

Adonai . . . Again

 

Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord', and not do what I tell you?  These words of Christ to the crowds should strike us breathless like none other.  Why, indeed, do we call Him Lord, and refuse, neglect, can't be bothered to do what He says?  

Do we love our neighbor in the same way that we pamper, I mean love, ourselves?  

Do we truly love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength?  

Do we speak His name boldly and without reserve?  

Do we leave our idols outside of our hearts? 

His commands are not burdensome, His yoke is easy, He enables us every step of the way.  

So why do we call Him Lord, Lord, and not do what He says?  

When Isaiah's earthly lord, King Uzziah, died, he saw the eternal Lord of Hosts sitting on a throne, high and lifted up.  What was his response?  To cry out, Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! When God purified Isaiah's lips, the prophet's immediate response was Here am I!  Send me.  (Isaiah 6)  

God has purified our lips by His blood.  He has become our Lord, our Adonai.  One day every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  

In the meantime, let those of us who know His name, Adonai, confess Him as Lord and then, by His grace, do what He says.  

Slavery

Slavery.  

The word speaks volumes to us as post-Civil War Americans.  Even more to those descendants of slaves.  And more still to those for whom personal slavery is still a hard, very cold reality.  Our hearts ought to cry out to God on behalf of the 21st century's enslaved populations. 

And yet, we are called to this.  We are called to slavery, not to the world, but to the Lord.  Mary called herself the bondservant of the Lord, as did Paul.  Romans speaks of slavery to righteousness as compared to slavery to sin and passion and temptation.  The difference between slavery and bondservanthood is choice.  We make ourselves bondservants of Christ by His grace.  We choose service to honor Him.  

 

And what does He call us to?  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.  (Luke 10:27)

And:  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. (John 13)

Adonai

Who do you call lord?  Your husband?  Your boss?  Your parents?  

And what does that mean?  Steady obedience?  Honor and respect?  Doormatting?  

When Abraham first called God Lord in Genesis 15:2, he meant complete possession by his Owner, and complete submission to Him.  As a slave owner, Abraham knew better than we do today all that lordship involved:  "The slave had the right of the master's protection and help and direction.  Nor was the relationship devoid of affection.  In the absence of a son, a slave, Eliezer, is the heir to Abram's entire household." (The Names of God, Nathan Stone, p. 64)   

Think of Joseph as Potiphar's slave - much admired, much trusted.  Remember, also, Daniel, that slave of the king of Babylon, taken captive from his own country.  These are men who understood that slavery meant complete obedience to a master, along with complete care and protection from said master.  



Adon is the Hebrew word for master and lord.  Add the ai to it and you have a plural possessive master: the Trinitarian God possesses you.  He is a three-in-one God (hence the plural) and you belong to Him (hence the possessive).  Is that not a beautiful thought?  I belong to the Trinity.  By virtue of Christ's purchase of me at the cross, the great Three-in-One owns me.  

I have the right of the master's protection and help and direction.  I am an heir.  

Psalm 123 expresses it so well:  

To you I lift up my eyes,

O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maidservant

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

till he has mercy upon us.

He wants us so badly, He purchased us with His own blood.  Amazing love.  

Tomorrow we'll explore what that means for us.