Alliance Christian Church
December 14 2025

      • 2 Corinthians 9:7GS-NETBIBLE

      • Philippians 2:5–11GS-NETBIBLE

  • Blessed Be Your Name
  • I Lift Your Name
  • Emmanuel, Emmanuel

  • He Is

    Setup: Argument with the Jewish people. About who is truly a son of Abraham, and how they should listen to Jesus as their teacher, and obey him .
    John 8:56 NIV
    Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
    John 8:57–59 NIV
    “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
    Some of you might know what Jesus was getting at when he said “Before Abraham was, I am. Some of you might now.
    If you don’t know, we’re going to go trace our way back through the old testament and explain exactly what it is that Jesus is trying to say when he says “Before Abraham was, I am”
    If you do know, don’t spoil it for anyone. And more so than that, we’re going to pick and dig a little bit deeper into this phrase that Jesus uses, and why it was even more scandalous than you could have imagined to the people he was speaking to.
    Then, in keeping with the series, we’re going to look at, you guessed it, the 6 other times that Jesus says the phrase “I AM” He says it a total of 7 times in the gospel according to John. and we’re going to point out all 7 places.
    And then we’re going to ask the question, what do I do with this information? How does this I AM statement apply to my life.
    Just a recap, today’s message is going to look like this
    Explain the history of the phrase I AM
    Dig a little bit deeper into the meaning behind the phrase I AM
    Identify the 7 places jesus says I AM
    Apply it to our lives.
    Exodus Chapter 3
    A young Hebrew Man named moses is tending sheep in the region of Midian.
    If you can picture the map in your mind, or if you have a map in the back of your Bible
    You have Egypt, which is on the north East Corner of the continent of Africa.
    Due east of Egypt is the Red sea, it’s a long skinny sea, and then due east of that is what we today call Saudi Arabia.
    On the far western edge of Saudi arabia, right on the other side of the red see, is the region known as Midian.
    Moses even though he was a Hebrew boy, through the divine providence of God found himself living in the royal court of the Pharaoh.
    And one day as Moses is walking around he see’s this Egyptian slave driver beating one of the hebrew people.
    And moses is overcome with anger and he kills the slave driver, hides his body in the sand, and then flees out into the region of Midian as a fugitive.
    And while he’s out there he gets married, he gets hooked up with his father in law Jethro, and he’s sort of living the quiet life as fugitive.
    You can think of it as the ancient version of a witness protection program.
    And as moses is out tending to his sheep, he comes across a bush that is burning, and yet is not being consumed. It’s just on fire, but it’s not burining up.
    Moses Goes over to investigate this strange sight, and God himself calls to him from the bush.
    And God tells him, The hebrew people are suffering in Egypt as slaves. I’ve heard their cries, and I’m going to rescue them, and you’re the one I’m going to do it through.
    I’m going to send you back and I’m going to liberate the Hebrew people through you.
    Moses of course, is living in Midian as a fugitive, and has no desire to go back to egypt where he’s most certainly wanted.
    And so moses comes up with every excuse in the book not to go.
    I can’t go Lord, you got the wrong guy. God says I’ll be with you. They’re not going to listen to me, and God’s like, I’ll give you signst thatt they will listen to you.
    I’m not a very good public speaker. God’s like, don’t worry I’ll give you the words to say.
    Every excuse in the book, and God has an answer for all of them.
    And at one point in the middle of trying to come up with Excuses, he asks God:
    Exodus 3:13 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?”
    And I think moses thought he had sort of stumped God here.
    If you go back to Genesis 32, there is an account of Jacob who had an encounter with God. And he asked God’s name,
    Genesis 32:29 NIV
    Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
    I think moses was expecting God to do the same thing he did to Jacob.
    And then moses could be like, ah, sorry, god, they’re not going to believe me. You haven’t even told me your name, and so, sorry, can’t go.
    Exodus 3:14 NIV
    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.’ ”
    So moses asks God what his name is, and God replies my name is I AM. In hebrew it’s EhYeh.
    The Phrase I AM, I don’t want to get too deep into grammar here. But the phase I AM, is what’s called an
    Intransitive Linking Verb. I had to look that up.
    Basically, and you kind of know this intuitively without having to know the grammar, it’s a phrase that grammatically can not stand by itself. It requires another word to complete the sentence.
    You can’t just say I AM, you have to say I am something.
    It’s like the verb Feel. You can’t just say I Feel. That’s not a complete sentence. You have to say I feel happy. I feel sad.
    And what God is getting at here, is that he is the Definition of Being. He simply IS.
    He’s all-encompassing, all knowning, all present. Beyond any level that you and I can comprehend.
    You can imagine the conversation when God says I AM, and Moses would have been like, you are...what exactly.
    And god Says simply I AM.
    But there’s another layer here in the Hebrew,
    And quick note, as we’re looking at this stuff, I’m simplifying it as much as I can.
    For one, I’m by no means an expert on Hebrew Grammar. And for two, it gets really complicated really quickly.
    But basically, In English we think of verbs existing as Past, present and future.
    Those are called Tenses.
    Something can either be past tense, present tense, or future tense.
    Hebrew didn’t think of verbs in that way.
    It was more like, is the action complete, or ongoing.
    For example, in english if I said the word “run”
    I could say I ran past. I am running, in the present. or I will run the future.
    In hebrew it was all about “is the running completed”
    Probably the best way would be to say something like “I am a runner”
    independent of time, I am someone who runs.
    So it’s not God saying “I AM” now, but later I won’t be.
    Or “I will be, but right now I’m not”
    It’s like God saying “I was, am and always will be “ Being”
    Again, independent of time.
    And I know this is odd to our ears, but if you can imagine the meaning of “I AM” as being more like “I was, AM, and always will be” it kind of makes sense.
    As we tie it back to Jesus, back in the book of John, he says to the pharisees “Before Abraham was, I AM”
    Jesus is identifying himself with God in the burning bush, telling moses. My name is “I AM”
    Part 2, I want us to dig even a little bit deeper. Go back with me to exodus 3.
    Right after God says his name is I AM, he then tells moses.
    I’m going to read this out of the New Living Translation, you’ll see why in a minute.
    Exodus 3:15–16 NLT
    God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations. “Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me. He told me, “I have been watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you.
    I’m willing to bet that whatever Bible translation you’re reading out of, because out of all the English translations I can think of only maybe 3 that don’t do this, Your Bible probably says in place of the word “YAHWEH” the LORD. All capital letters LORD.
    What God said to moses, is that “YHWH” is his name.
    Remember how I told you that I am, in hebrew was EHYH
    In the ancient form of hebrew that moses spoke at the time, the word YHWH was the 3rd person singular version of ehyeh, I AM.
    In other words, YHWH means “HE IS”
    And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
    If God’s name is I AM. well then, when God is speaking it he would say my name is I AM.
    But when other people are speaking about God, they wouldn’t say I AM, they would say “HE IS”
    We don’t have any examples of this in the bible, but you could imagine if you took the idea one step further, if you were speaking directly to God you would say his name is “YOU ARE”
    And the word YHWH, which originally meant “He Is” in an older form of hebrew, occurs some 6,000 times in the bible.
    And yet, unless you have one of the 2 or three english translations, you’ve probably never seen it.
    But you have seen the word LORD all capital letters.
    I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. But over time, the jewish people developed extra rules above and beyond the laws of the torah.
    One of which, was in response to one of the ten commandments, which says you shall not use YHWH’s name in vain.
    And the tradition that developed, which, I think was well intentioned, but misguided, was to not allow anyone to say the name YHWH at all.
    Even to this day, I’ve said the name of the Lord at least 7 or 8 times this morning. If we were in a Jewish synagogue right now, I would be expelled. Because they took this extra commandment. They call it putting a fence around the bible, very seriously.
    the problem of course, is the name of God comes up 6,000 times in the Bible. How are you supposed to even read the Bible without saying the name that’s in the Bible 6,000 times?
    And so what they decided was any time you’re reading the Bible and you come across the word YHWH, as you’re reading it out loud you will replace it with the word ‘adonai’ hebrew for Lord.
    I do something likethis when I’m reading to my kids. We’ve been reading the harry potter series to my kids before bed. and for for whatever reason, the copy of harry potter that I got ahold of happened to be brittish version, instead of the american version.
    And so there’s all sorts of times in the book when the author uses brittish words that don’t make sense to my kids.
    They’ll say “but something in the boot of the car” in brittan that’s what they call the “trunk”
    and so as I’m reading, when I come across the word “Boot” I say “trunk” so that my kids understand what’s going on.
    It’s that same sort of thing. The name of God was so revered that you dare not say it. Say Lord instead.
    as the Bible started to be translated into other languages, from hebrew to Greek, and from hebrew to latin, and to english, the question became
    What do we do with the word YHWH.
    because first of all, it had been “not said” for so long in history, nobody actually knew how to pronounce it.
    I’m sure you’ve probably heard the word JEHOVA before. Jehovah is how people thought you prounouced YHWH back in the middle ages.
    Until they figured out that the hebrew scribes had taken all of the vowels from the word “ADONAI” and put them in the word YAHWEH, as a reminder to the reader to say adonai, instead of yahweh.
    so for one, nobody knew how to pronounce it for the longest time.
    for two, the tradition had been around so long, that they were like, well, everyone says Lord when they read it in hebrew. So we probably ought to write LORD.
    And so in order for you to know that it’s LORD meaning yhwh, they were like, let’s put it in all capital letters LORD, so that people know that the word is YHWH.
    ——
    Bringing this all back around to the Book of John.
    We’ve been going through the series called Sevens. [Expand]
    And the reason we went through such great lengths to explain the Old Testament Background, is that every time Jesus utters this phrase, he is proclaiming to be YHWH.
    God in the flesh.
    Sometimes he does it very blatantly. Like the passage we read here in John 8. Where he leaves no room for doubt. Before Abraham was, I AM. There’s really no other way to interpret that other than, yeah Jesus here is claiming to be YHWH, HE IS, the great I AM.
    Other times it’s a little more subtle. Again, because the phrase “I AM” is sort of grammatically ambiguous, there are times where Jesus says “I AM” and you kind of have to do a double take, because you’re like
    Is he really saying what I think he’s saying? In fact, some times it’s so subtle, that sometimes even in our english translations it gets translated as something like “I AM HE” or “It’s me” or “IT is I” Something along those lines.
    So if you’re the type of person who likes to mark up or highlight your bible, or if you
    re taking notes, I highly recommend you write these down, and follow along in your Bible, because some of them get translated into english in a way that you might not recognize that Jesus is saying the phrase I AM.
    We’re going to look at 7 different I AM statements Jesus makes. We’ve already looked at one of them, in John 8: 58, if you want to write that down, 8:58.
    Let’s go through the book of John and identify the 6 other ones.
    The first one comes in John chapter 4, when Jesus is speaking to the samaritan woman at the well.
    Woman at the Well
    Jesus is leaving Jerusalem, on his way back to Galilee,
    and he travels through the region of Samaria. The samaritans were Religiously and culturally related to the Jews.
    And he comes across this Samaratin woman at the well, and immediately the tension between the Jews and Gentiles shows up.
    Jesus says to the woman “Would you draw water from the wll and give me a drink.
    And she’s like I’m sorry, your Jewish, I’m Samaratin, why are you even talking to me. Jews and samaratins don’t associate.
    And jesus says to her, if you really know who I was, you would be asking me for a drink. Because I can give you living water that lasts forever.
    And she says that would be wonderful. Then I wouldn’t have to keep coming to the well.
    And so Jesus says, ok, Go get your husband and come back here.
    And she’s like I don’t have one.
    And Jesus says I know. You’ve had 5 husbands, and you’re living with another man right now.
    And this tension comes up, because Jesus is telling the woman things that nobody but a prophet should be able to know. And Jesus tries to explain to her that He is the one who is going to re-unite the Jews and Samaratins, and bring everyone back to a place where they worship God in Spirit and Truth.
    John 4:25–26 NIV
    The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
    And immediately upon hearing this, the disciples return, and the woman goes into town and proclaims to everyone she can find that Messiah has come, After Jesus says to here I AM. here in John
    Our Next one here comes in John 6:20 If you’re writing these down.
    First one John 4:26, the next one, John 6:20.

    John 6:16-19

    John 6:16–19 NIV
    When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened.
    John 6:20 NIV
    But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”
    John 6:21 NIV
    Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
    And here it gets translated in the NIV as “It is I” but literally what Jesus says to them is I AM.
    Echoing back to Exodus, when YHWH, when HE IS, lead the israelite people through the red sea.
    Jesus here, walks upon the water to his disciples and proclaims to them. Don’t be afraid. I AM.
    and what’s interesting about this one is that this is one of the few instances where the I AM phrase comes up in not only John, but also matthew and Mark.
    If you’ve read the Gospel accounts side by side, you will notice that John is the Different one.
    John likes to tell things differently, John has a unique angle on almost everything.
    Matthew mark and luke phrase something this way, John is almost always going to phrase it slightly differently.
    It’s the same thing with the letters by the way. Peter, Paul, James, Jude, they all write letters with a certain Style. But not John. John is different, John doesn’t like to go with the flow and do things the same as everyone else.
    I mean look at the last supper. Matthew Mark, and Luke all three tell the account of the Lord’s supper.
    What does John do? He skips over the bread and wine bit altogether and talks instead about how Jesus washed their feet. Because John’s different.
    Which means that if you find something written by John, and it matches word for word something written by Matthew Mark and Luke. It’s a really big deal.
    And you know that those disciples in the boat were like “Did he just say what I think he said?”
    The storm was raging over head, the wind was blowing, but all three of them were like, No he definitely said “I AM”
    YHWH, HE IS, proclaiming his authority over nature, walking on the water to his disciples.
    Dispute over who Jesus is
    Our next 2 come in John 8, one right after the other,
    Jesus is speaking to the crowds, and they’re not quite certain exactly who he is. Is he the messiah? is he demon possessed.
    And In 8:21, Jesus says
    John 8:21–25 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.
    This really brings out the oddity of the phrase I AM, that I’ve been talking about.
    Jesus says to them You will die in your sins if you don’t believe that I AM.
    And they were like, You are what exactly” I am what.
    John 8:26–28 NIV
    “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.
    And this is so important, because Jesus says “Believing that IAM” Believing that Jesus is YHWH, believing that he is God. That he is HE IS, is amatter of life and death.
    you will die in your sins if you don’t accept that .
    Our next one, quickly here comes in John 13
    After Jesus has washed the disciple’s feet, he tells them that one of them will betray him.
    John 13:18–19 NIV
    “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’ “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am.
    In the greek here, he simply says “I AM” he doesn’t add the “I AM WHO I AM” part at the end. That’s translators trying to make sense of the phrase I AM.
    And he tells them, someone here at this table is going to betray me.
    Judas didn’t just betray his rabbi. He betrayed the God of the Universe. HE betrayed IAM.
    For 30 pieces of silver by the way. There’s a lot of people who have tried to estimate how much that would be in today’s dollars. the best estimate I’ve seen was like, somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand dollars adjusted for inflation.
    half a years wages for someone on minimum wage. It’s not a small amount. Definitely not enough to betray the great I AM. the Son of God.
    But he does. and in our final I AM statement, that betrayal comes to fruition.
    In John 18
    John 18:2–8 NIV
    Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. 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. Again he asked them, “Who is it you want?” “Jesus of Nazareth,” they said. Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.”
    This one, if you’re counting, he says it 3 times here, which would technically make it 9 I AM statements.
    The second two times, are both refering to the first time he said it.
    I’m going to choose to count it as 7, and that those other two were just refering to the 7th one.
    But that’s purely my opinion. You’re more than welcome to count it as 9 times.
    But notice here, the Roman soldiers say We are looking for JESUS of nazerath.
    And Jesus says I AM. and fell back to the ground.
    I have a really hard time visualizing what that looked like.
    For Jesus’ word’s simply saying I AM to be so powerful that it knock over an entire detachment of Roman Soldiers.
    I don’t know if you know this or not, Roman Soldiers were the most well trained military force in the entire known world at the time.
    Rome once fought and won a war against a guy who’s soldiers were riding Elephants. And they won. With pointy sticks against an army of Elephants.
    And yet Jesus says to them I AM, and they fell completely to the ground.
    Application.
    So what do we do with all this?
    As we wrap up our message today, Application, so what, how does this apply to me.
    Jesus is ever present.
    Revelation 1:8 NIV
    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
    When he says I AM, either 7 or 9 times depending on how you count it, he is making the exact same claim that God made to Moses in the burning bush.
    I have no beginning, I have no end. I am the one who was, and is and is to come forever and ever amen.
    And yet sometimes by our actions, we don’t always show that we trust it to be true.
    Sometimes we’re like the Samaritan woman. And we try to hide things from Him.
    We say, There’s no way Jesus wants anything to do with me. Jesus doesn’t need to know about my 5 husbands. I’ll just try and hide my stuff from Him.
    But he knows.
    Sometimes we’re like the disciples, rowing and straining against the storms of life.
    the waves crash all around us, and we feel like we’re hopelessly lost at sea, and Jesus comes to us in our darkest moments and says I AM.
    It’s in that exact moment that we need to stop straining, and rowing, stop trying to handle the storms of life on our own, and let him into our boat.
    Sometimes we’re like the people who just don’t get it.
    Theology is hard. Trying to understand how jesus can be God but also the father is God, but there’s only one God.
    We don’t get it.
    And when Jesus says I AM, we’re like I don’t understand.
    But you don’t have to understand everything.
    you just have to Trust that he does.
    And sometimes we’re like Judas.
    We give up what is good and true and real and important because we’re too interested in things of this world.
    30 pieces of Silver. 15 grand. That’s a lot of money. I could buy a lot of groceries for 15 grand.
    And all I would have to do is betray my principles. Betray my faith. Just a little.
    And time and time again, what Jesus tells us is that he is the great I am.
    And we put our hope and trust in knowing that he is there for us in all things.

      • John 8:56NIV2011

      • John 8:57–59NIV2011

      • Exodus 3:13NIV2011

      • Genesis 32:29NIV2011

      • Exodus 3:14NIV2011

      • Exodus 3:15–16NIV2011

      • John 4:25–26NIV2011

      • John 6:20NIV2011

      • John 8:21–25NIV2011

      • John 8:26–28NIV2011

      • John 13:18–19NIV2011

      • John 18:2–8NIV2011

      • Revelation 1:8NIV2011

  • Lamb of God
  • Same God
  • Lord, I Lift Your Name On High
Alliance Christian Church
churchinalliance@gmail.com
9707657196
https://www.alliancechristian.church
4 members