Well, once again, it is indeed
a blessing to be here with you. And some time ago, we opened
up a series that we wanted to bring here on the I am's of the
Lord. And that series started in the
days of Moses before he was leading the children of Israel out of
Egypt. God Almighty appeared unto Moses
out of a burning bush. and it was not consumed. And
it tells us that Moses said, I'll turn aside and see what
this site is. I'll turn aside. So he did. And
in the book of Genesis, the book of Genesis chapter three and
verse 14, the one who spoke out of that bush, that burning bush,
God said unto Moses, now he's mentioning this name in this
verse of scripture, Genesis chapter three and verse 14, Because Moses
asked, when I go talk to the children of Israel, who shall
I tell them sent me? Moses has been herding sheep
for his father-in-law for 40 years. For 40 years, he grew
up in Pharaoh's household. And there were some things that
happened in his life, tragic things that happened in his life,
and he ran for his life. So he married, he's a sheep herder,
and 40 years of sheep herding, he comes upon this site. Now
Moses is gonna live for 120 years. We think that is a long, long
time. And it is. But he's gonna spend
40 years leading the children of Israel from Egypt over to
the promised land. He doesn't get to go in. But
this is the name that God said, you tell the children of Israel
who sent you. And this is it. And in our translation,
this name is all capitalized. I am that I am. Now that's an interesting name. I am that I am. And if we break that down, it
says, I am the self existent one. Now you and I are not self
existent. We depend on a lot of people.
We depend on people who produce food. Now, there was a time in
our country that you grew your own gardens and slaughtered your
own meat, and we were more self-sufficient at that time, but we still were
dependent upon other people. We're not self-sufficient, and
more and more we go, the less and less we are. But we find
out that God is self-sufficient, all-sufficient. He is absolutely
God Almighty, and there's nothing that can be added to Him and
nothing that can be taken away from Him. He is glorious in His
countenance. He is glorious in His purpose.
He is glorious in His salvation. And so this God spoke to Moses,
and He's gonna call him to go take the children of Israel out
of Egypt. Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. So he has good
authority. Now the children of Israel, like
most of us, didn't have much to do with him to begin with,
but he was used to carry the children of Israel out of Egypt
and out into the wilderness. Well, many, many years later,
the son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin in
Bethlehem. We celebrate that at Christmastime,
but I celebrate it every day. I celebrate the birth of the
Son of God every day because it was because of that he was
crucified, buried, and rose again. He came as a man many years later
than Moses during the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. He used this same word to describe
some things about himself. Now the Jews that were around
there understood what he was saying. We may not catch it all
because it was the Jews studied and learned Hebrew. And that's
what he is quoting here in Greek. He's quoting the Hebrew. So we
may not catch it, but the truth of it is when he said, I am,
he is telling those Jews, I'm that God that spoke to Moses
out of the burning bush. I am the living God. And so we
find that the Lord Jesus Christ, seven times in the book of John
alone, he uses this term to describe himself. The first one that we
looked at was, I am the bread of life. Now that is great significance
in that. I am the bread of life. He used
that illustration in the Old Testament about manna that came
down from heaven and fed the children of Israel physically.
But he said that manna, people could eat it and die. And they
did. But this manna, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the bread of life, when we partake of him, we have everlasting
life. It is an all-sufficient meal
that he gives us of himself. We don't literally eat him. We
spiritually partake of him in the new birth, and we have all
the bread of life. In that manna, in the Old Testament,
it had all the minerals, vitamins, everything that was necessary
for the promotion of quality life was in that manna. And everything, every quality
that we need for spiritual life is in the Lord Jesus Christ,
everything. He doesn't leave anything to
us because we'd add stuff that would be like we do in our food
today. You just list half of the ingredients
you can't pronounce the name of. So that's not really good
for us, we still eat it. But here, there's nothing in
this bread of life that has anything that would hurt anybody. He has
promised everlasting life. All right. that bread, Jesus said unto them,
I'm the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. So
there's no need to go somewhere else and find some satisfaction
if we have the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives his life for us. to dead sinners. That's his bread
that he's giving. Religion only has, we only have
by nature, pig's food. You know, there was a young man
and he wanted to leave home. The parable is of the lost son. He wanted to leave home, but
he wanted his inheritance before he left. So he talked to his
dad and his dad said, well, I hate to do this, but here it is. Here's
your inheritance. And he took off. And the Bible
tells us that he spent every bit he had on riotous living. And it wasn't very long, he was
broke. And there wasn't any food. And he got a job with a pig herder. And he ate the food that the
pigs ate. Now that's a really interesting
illustration that the Lord gives us. that naturally there's not
much sustenance in what we have, spiritually speaking. We'll take
almost anything until the Lord shows us the difference. We'll
take works, we'll take baptism, we'll take church membership,
we'll take almost anything, and there's no satisfaction in it,
but the Lord gives us himself and he says, I give unto you
eternal life. So it's not what we do, it's what he does for
us. And then, Jesus said, and in
the book of John chapter eight, this is the next one we'd like
to look at, John chapter eight, he brings us this wonderful subject
up about I am. He's going back to the burning
bush and sharing with us that he's the same God that appeared
unto Moses and instructed Moses. And here he's talking, and he
said here in this verse of scripture, I am the light of the world. Well, we think about that for
a minute and we find, I am the light. Now, when Adam fell in the Garden
of Eden, he disobeyed God. He had, I'm not sure it was a
perfect existence, but he had pretty close to it. He didn't
have anybody calling him up and saying, go ahead and eat that
apple. He didn't have any letters come to him, says it's okay if
you eat that apple. I'm using the word apple because it's accepted
as some kind of fruit. He didn't have anything that
we have. He didn't have a nature that
was opposed to God. God and him were on good terms.
God came down and visited with him in the cool of the evening,
every day. They were good on good terms. And then Adam, knowing exactly
what he was doing, ate the fruit that God forbid him to eat. And you know what? The lights
went out. He plunged himself and everybody that is ever born
to him into darkness. Now we watched the sun come up
and it was beautiful this morning and I saw the sunrise. these
clear winter mornings, the sunrise is absolutely gorgeous. So the
natural sun comes up all the time. We can just count on it. God has said, just count on it.
I'll bring you springtime and harvest until the end. So we can count on it, sun's
gonna come up. But spiritually speaking, we're thrown into absolute
darkness when Adam did that. The reason I know that is what
Adam did after he did that. He tried to hide himself from
his best friend. He went and hid himself in the
Garden of Eden. He covered himself with fig leaves. He did everything
that was absolutely wrong to do. And he was in darkness. And this is great darkness that
he threw the entire human race in. When Adam fell, when he disobeyed
God and ate that forbidden fruit, he plunged the whole world into
spiritual, spiritual darkness. Now that's why Jesus Christ came. to take us out of that darkness
and put us into his light. I am the light of the world. That's what he said. So he has
the true light that lights people, that gives them spiritual light.
Now, one of Jesus's disciples by the name of Peter, was called
on by the Holy Spirit to write this in a letter he wrote called
First Peter. We find it in our Bibles, it's
in First Peter, and there in chapter two, First Peter chapter
two and verse nine, the Bible says this, but ye are a chosen
generation. He's talking to the church, those
that Christ died for, those he went to the cross for, those
he bled for, those he paid the sin debt of. He says, you're
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
peculiar people. Now that word peculiar doesn't
mean odd. We may be odd, but that's not
what that word means. That word means especially chosen. Peculiar people that ye may show
forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. He calls his people out of darkness
into his marvelous light. That's why Jesus said, I am the
light of the world. I call people out of absolute
spiritual darkness. They're unaware, incapable. In fact, there are dead and trespassers
in sin and I call them out to the marvelous light. And I call
them to myself. Again, we find that Paul was
used to write this in the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians,
as we think about the Lord saying, I am the light of the world. In Adam, darkness fell and humanity
has darkness all about them spiritually. We just can't see spiritual things. We can see all kinds of works,
but we can't see spiritual things. And here in the book of Ephesians
chapter five, the book of Ephesians chapter five and verse eight,
we read this, for ye were sometimes darkness. before the Lord comes
and saves us by his grace, we are darkness. There's no light
quality about it. And then he says, but now are
ye in the Lord, walk as children of light. Children of light recognize
something about the Lord as their only savior, that he is the only
one that can save people from their sins. We have a change
of view about God. We look at God as the only one
that can save people. So that's what it is to walk
in the light, is to see him for who he is. He is called the Savior. He shall save his people from
their sins. And then again, the apostle Paul
was used to write this in 2 Corinthians, the book of 2 Corinthians. As
we think about Jesus saying, I am the light of the world. Now, he gives everybody life. Every baby that is ever born
alive has been given life by the Lord. And we have that life
until he said, our appointed time is here. The Bible says
we have an appointed time to die. will not be one second early
and will not be one second late. There's an appointed time. It's
appointed and the man wants to die. And that's like having a
doctor's appointment. Now, God is much better than doctors because
I went to the doctor's office sometime and wait 20, 30 minutes
or an hour because their appointments have run long. Well, God is not
that way. He doesn't detain because he's
dealing with something else. He's always on time. Here in
the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians, let me get
there. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse
6. Now, this is God doing something. He's in command. I just love
reading in the Bible about a God that is in absolute command of
things. He's command of the heavens and
the earth. He created them. He knows all the stars by name. I learned the other day in a
class I was taking that there's probably a billion billion stars. A billion billion, I can't count
that high. And he has named all of them. Well, he created them all. For
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. has shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So that light that he gives us
is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. And it is
found in the person, Jesus Christ. So he could truly say, I am the
light of the world. I am the one that provides the
light for us to see spiritually. Light opens up what God has today
and not what natural man has today. Natural darkness is satisfied
with works, keeping the law, joining a church or being baptized,
but light given to us is only satisfied with the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter four and verse
12, Peter preached these words to a 71 person council that was
after his head. In the book of Acts chapter four
and verse 12, he had courage to say this to them, neither
is there salvation in any other for there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Only
the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world commands that. By his own blood, he entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. So it's a wonderful thing to
be called out of darkness to his marvelous light, called to
him the light of the world. It's a wonderful thing to realize
that all the things that we thought would save us didn't, and the
thing that we didn't think would save us, he does. It's such a
contradiction. The Lord Jesus Christ, followed
the words of Jonah from the great fish's belly and said, salvation
is of the Lord. Now, Lord willing, next time
we meet, I would like to look at another I am, and that is
I am the door. And we'd like to see what there's
some verses about that. So we'll close for today, our
time is up.