I AM - I AM from Above
May 27, 2018
John 8:12-23 (p. 746)
Introduction:
[For the 15 years I ministered in Louisville I had the privilege of being on WJIE the Christian radio station 3 times a day doing a “Ministry Minute.” 60 seconds of encouragement, scripture, or just a story to help folks. I wanted you to know this backdrop for an encounter I had with a check out girl at Walmart one day.
I was paying for a book and used my debit card and when she saw my name she said, “Rick Burdette.” Are you Rick Burdette I hear every day on Christian radio?
And I said, “yup.” She said, “I love your ministry minutes.” And then she looked at me and said, “Gosh…you don’t look anything like I pictured you!”
And I said, “I know…the voice doesn’t match this Brad Pitt exterior…I get that all the time.” And we both cracked up laughing.]
It’s human nature to make some snap judgments about people when they use words like “Neked, battry, and y’all.” You assume the guy standing in front of you in the T-shirt and jeans is someone other than the guy in the suit.
But appearances can indeed be deceiving.
Jesus was about 30 years old when he began His public ministry…He was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, but grew up in a town called Nazareth…a village that was considered so poor and worthless that when Phillip said to Nathaniel he was from here…Nathaniel remarks “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
His earthly parents were Joseph a carpenter, and Mary…who’d been pregnant with Him before their marriage. They were poor…we know that during their time to give a sacrifice they gave 2 small doves, the smallest sacrifice possible…not because they were stingy…but because they were poor.
Jesus is the oldest…but He had brothers and sisters…at least 4.
By all appearances there sure wasn’t anything special about this man…with a Nazarene dialect…The people who came out to hear Him teach…knew where He was from. They knew His parents and His background. He’s a blue collar, poor son of a carpenter from a backwoods town. He was average…a dime a dozen…He wasn’t even good looking.
Let me show you a picture…It’s the picture of Jesus you grew up with in your head, or one like it.
SHOW BEAUTIFUL JESUS PIC
Jesus looks like a movie star in this picture…Beautiful hair, strong features…a cross between Charlton Heston and Johnny Depp…A picture like this one hung over my mom’s bed the whole time I was growing up…It’s just easier to worship someone who looks like that.
Here’s the problem…Isaiah 53:2 says, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”
If you believe scripture…and I do…Jesus might have looked a lot more like this.
SHOW BLUE COLLAR JESUS PIC
Listen, I have no idea what Jesus physically looked like, but I do know that our human nature wants to make Him physically beautiful because physically beautiful people are better…right?
The people of Israel, especially it’s religious leaders, had a picture in the heads of what the coming Messiah would look like…and it sure wasn’t a “poor carpenter’s son from Nazareth.” They had judged Jesus with an earthly measuring stick. It’s why He tells them and us… “I AM FROM ABOVE.” There are some important questions to answer this morning…first of which…
I. WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR IN A SAVIOR?
Are we looking for someone to rescue us from all our difficulties? Are we keeping our eyes out for someone who will turn our enemies into grease spots (lightening sound!) Someone who will meet all my needs and make me powerful and popular?
How about a Messiah that only loves certain people…and will make everything better for you?
It would be easy to recognize a Savior like that when He shows up. After all, it’s just what you and I imagined He’d be like.
Folks, it’s not just the Pharisees of old that are looking for a Savior like that…it’s many in the church today…when Jesus addresses those who arrogantly assume they’ve got the Messiah all figured out, here’s what He says. (Read our text)
JOHN 8:12-23 (p. 746)
There are 4 different questions we must answer if we are to really see Jesus as the Messiah…the Savior…FROM ABOVE.
II. HOW DOES JESUS LOOK AT PEOPLE?
As this chapter begins, Jesus is teaching in the temple courts, crowds have gathered around Him and in the middle of His teaching, he is interrupted by the religious leaders who bring in a woman caught in adultery. They make her stand before the crowd and inform Jesus that the “Law” commands that she be stoned to death…They want to trap Jesus so they ask, “But what do you say we should do with such a woman?”
Jesus has told His followers why He came from above…“To seek and save that which is lost.” So while the Pharisees see an object lesson and opportunity Jesus sees a broken soul. A Lamb that’s gone astray, a messed up sinful life that needs forgiveness and redemption.
Jesus always sees people through the eyes of redemption…His goal is transformation…not punishment.
Religious people always seem more concerned about punishment…someone’s done something wrong…let’s make it public and well known, I could care less about an individual’s restoration…I just want people to see how upright I am in comparison…
So Jesus bends down to write in the dust as they badger Him to answer the punishment question. And then He says, “If any of you are without sin, let Him throw the first stone.”
God’s Word says, “The oldest among them started to drop the rocks first and then it filtered down to the youngest until they’d all walked away.”
Jesus never said what this woman had done was OK (or the man that had to have been with her). He simply chose not to condemn her sin as worse than the Pharisee’s sin…He forgives her and calls for her to live a different life… “God, your sins are forgiven…leave your life of sin.”
This is how Savior’s look at us…the second question concerning Jesus as Savior is:
III. HOW DOES JESUS LOOK AT GOD’S WORD?
The Pharisees and religious hierarchy studied God’s Word, memorized it, put it in little boxes they wore on their foreheads called “Phalacteries.” They dissected it.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy would become…you cannot work on this day…they make a rule that you could not walk more than a mile from your house…unless you took a rock from your house and then sat it down after a mile, then you could walk a 2nd mile. The Word of God became a textbook to prove how religious they were.
Love your neighbor had to be defined…“Who really is my neighbor? Who is worth loving?” It certainly doesn’t mean some Samaritan or the folks you eat and drink with Jesus!
Jesus saw the weary and burdened and wanted to provide them rest. Jesus saw blind people and wanted to give them sight. The Pharisees were more concerned about “keeping their rules” than blind people healed on the Sabbath.
Jesus knew that eternal life from Him was a gift…The Pharisees saw it as a paycheck they’d earned.
Obedience is really important, but don’t forget who you’re obeying and why the instructions were given in the first place.
Jesus was hated by religious folks because He told them… “You neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy, and faithfulness…you should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former…You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24)
God loves people…It’s why we have His Word and plan…Jesus the Messiah lived out this truth as the Word which became flesh…
There’s a third question about Jesus as Savior that shows how different He viewed things:
IV. HOW DOES JESUS LOOK AT GOD’S HOUSE?
The Pharisees loved the temple building…so much it even was an accusation that led to Jesus’ crucifixion. “He said He was going to tear the temple down and rebuild it in 3 days.”
But God’s house had become a business to them and it was being operated like a business…Money was exchanged for temple coins…prayers were loud and repetitious. Customs were celebrated…rituals observed…the law was read, but worship was devoid of God’s presence.
So when Jesus enters the temple just before the Passover, and He finds men selling animals and exchanging coins at exorbitant interest…He makes a whip out of cords and drives them out.
“Get out of here…how dare you turn my Father’s house into a place of business!”
A place of worship, prayer, holiness and sacrifice had become a religious factory and Jesus saw right through it…and they hated Him for it.
By the way that leads me to my final question…It’s the most important reason many could not accept Jesus as Savior…it’s…
V. HOW DID JESUS LOOK AT THE CROSS?
Matthew 16:21 records Jesus saying, “I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, I will be killed and on the 3rd day be raised to life.”
The religious leaders wanted Jesus gone! They conspired…they plotted, they paid off an insider named Judas…They stirred up the mob, they found false witnesses. They put pressure on the Roman Governor…and the crucifixion of Jesus was viewed as the end of their problems…now wonder Jesus had told them… “You don’t know where I came from and you don’t know where I’m going. You are from below…I am from above…You are of this world…I am not of this world.” The religious leaders thought SAVIORS DON’T DIE ON TREES…CURSES DO!” Messiahs don’t die on crosses…That’s stupid, that’s foolish!!! It’s impossible!
But Jesus saw the cross as our only salvation…He set His eyes squarely on the cross for one reason…OUR SALVATION!!!
[I’ve been reading in our Bible through a year of renewal time in Exodus and Leviticus these past few weeks…and I just have to say that it’s overwhelming to think about having to fulfill all those sacrificial requirements…all the things that you’d have to worry about doing or not doing because they made you unclean…and a perfectly Holy God requires it…even if you did something accidentally…And I remembered this scripture written in the book of Hebrews.
HEBREWS 10:4-14 (p. 842)
Without the cross there is no salvation…but because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross…All sin, all guilt, all regret is paid for in His blood…one sacrifice, for all sin…for all time…
Jesus paid it all…all to Him I owe…Sin had left a crimson stain…He washed it white as snow!
