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Before Abraham Was, I Am
A sermon by Dr. James
Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 26, 2006
First in a Lenten series entitled, “Who Do You Say That I Am?”
The Eight “I Ams” of Jesus from John’s Gospel
Scripture - John 8:58.
On
the slopes of Mount Hermon, in the stillness of the dusk, soft breeze whistling
through the trees, Jesus looked his disciples in the face and said, “Who do you
think that I am?” And Jesus, having asked that question, asks it of all of us.
And you remember that Simon Peter answered it, “Thou art the Christ, Thou art
the Messiah, the Son of God.” And unfortunately, most of us stop there. But
this is just a heading. It’s like the title of a book. It’s like the title of
a chapter. And John, beloved disciple, quiet one, meditative, he had an ear for
how Jesus defined who he was himself. And what he could become for us. And he
did this and John picked them up. In eight statements, each one with an “I Am”
in it. In these coming weeks, after having been through some significant times
in the life of our church, I want us to take a look at who the Lord said he was.
And
who he said he wanted to be for us. The first of these today, which has the
telephone ring of eternity in it. Listen as I read.
“Jesus said, I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was born, I am. And at this,
they picked up stones to stone him.” By the way that’s the Old Testament
command. Disbelievers are to be stoned. And Jesus, of course, he claimed to be
what the Old Testament said and they wouldn’t believe him. “And at this, they
picked up stones to stone him. But Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the
temple grounds.” Each of the “I Am’s” comes to us with a special message. But
the message I want you to hear this morning is the purpose God has for your
life. The design he had from the beginning. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I
am.” What could he mean? Well, he meant that just as his death on the cross
would not be the end of him, so also his birth in Bethlehem was not the
beginning of him. Jesus is saying that before any king rose up on the land,
before any prophet spoke a word, before ever there was a temple, before ever
there was a holy land, even before Abraham, I am. The person who we know as
Jesus was already the heart of God at the very beginning of eternity. The
spirit of Jesus was there at a time when we cannot even think for we think in
time, but Jesus was there before time. Put your eternity cap on, will you? Let
me tell you what you are going to have to do if you put your eternity cap on.
You’re going to have to begin to think when present, past, and future are all
one. There is no way you can think without past, present, and future. What has
been, what is, what will be. But in eternity, all of these are one. Welded
together, you see. They are always all together and we think of Jesus’ life as
being birth, teachings, death, resurrection. But the truth is, even in our own
experience, it isn’t that cleanly cut. For in the living of every day, do we
not experience the birth of the day, and the birth of opportunity.
And
remember the teachings of the Lord. And sometimes carry our own cross, and
experience the little resurrections of life in the midst of the deaths of life.
You see, Jesus who died on the cross was also the babe in the manger. The
messiah on his journeys was the boy in the temple. And the speaker of the
parables spoke down Satan in the wilderness. And the words from the cross echo
across Galilee. “Before Abraham,” Jesus said, “I Am.” Present tense. See, we
wouldn’t say it that way. We would say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But he
doesn’t say that. Because in eternity, everything is welded together in the
right now. Jesus was saying, “I was there when the first light pierced the
darkness, and the first order came out of the chaos.” “But now, it’s my time,”
Jesus said. “I am to be the light in the darkness. I am called to bring order
into the midst of the chaos of the soul. I am to bring salvation to people of
faith in every era, past, present, and future. And those who believe, way far
back as Hebrews 11 teaches us, “Those who had faith were saved.” And Jesus
says, “Those who will have faith, like us, will be saved.” Salvation is
constant as a possibility. Jesus says, “I, too, had a birthday. All was calm,
all was bright, and the angels sang ‘Away in a Manger’ but I also died on a
cross and carried my own, and you will, too. But also I am the resurrection and
the life. And in the end, the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom
and that which separates you from your possibility can be ripped from the top to
the bottom. And the stones that cover up the life you’d really like to live,
they can be rolled away.” And Jesus says to us, “That’s my calling. Will you
follow me?”
Well, let’s look at Abraham. Before Abraham, I was. Jewish history begins with
Abraham. Genesis 12. Before Abraham, you have a Noah and you have Adam and
Eve, but you do not have a Jewish nation yet. It is with Abraham that
everything begins. Faith is invented. The promise land is staked out. Abraham
becomes the founder of the founders. A few years ago, Bruce Filer wrote a book
entitled WALKING THE BIBLE. His Jewish heritage took him through the ancient
trails of the Bible journeys. Interesting, interesting book. And then he wrote
a book simply entitled ABRAHAM. He said that the way in which Muslims, Jews and
Christians can get together is having the common base of Abraham. What he
forgot was that for Christians Christ is our supreme value. Christ is the
center person. Still, I could not help but be awed by the fact that on the New
York best seller list was a book entitled simply ABRAHAM. Thirty-five-
hundred years ago. But you see, Jesus is saying, “That’s important. It’s
important to you. It’s a part of your heritage. But before Abraham, I Am.”
Let’s look also at that wonderful thing of core values. What’s your core value
in life?
What is it your life revolves around? What is it that you expect to give you
life – that’s your core value. Someone has said, “The core values of our
culture, of our age, all begin with “A.” Overcoming anxiety, sustaining
achievement, keeping up appearance, not only that, ambition. Well, if you are
going to look at those as core values, how many of those survive to eternity?
Affluence? Huh, you can’t take it with you. Overcoming anxiety – the best way
to overcome it is with eternity. What about appearance? Have you ever thought
about how you are going to look thirty years from now? How many of those things
can you walk into eternity with? Let me ask you another question – how many of
those were in your heart and mind even before you were born? And the answer is
not a one of them. They have all been given to you by the culture of which you
are a part. And that brings me to the before question. What’s your BQ? You
know about IQ – intelligence quotient. You know about EQ maybe – emotional
quotient. But what about your BQ? Your before quotient. See, and hear this,
if you don’t have any dimension of your life that reaches back before you were
born, you are stuck with who you are right now. And God might have a completely
different dream for you. John and Stacy Eldridge have written a sequel to his
best-selling book, WILD AT HEART, which he wrote for men. This one is for women
and it’s called CAPTIVATING and the sub-title UNVEILING THE MYSTERY OF A WOMAN’S
SOUL. And in that book, they say that every girl and every boy is asking one
fundamental question, but they are very different questions depending on whether
you are a boy or a girl. If you are a little boy, little boys want to know “Do
I have what it takes” and all of the scuffling and the rough and the tumble, all
the racing of each other, the super hero costumes they put on, all of this to
prove “I have what it takes.”
And
let’s be honest, men. Don’t we walk with that straight into young adulthood?
WILD AT HEART, the book for men, Eldridge says that there is a part of God that
is the warrior God, the outdoors God, and suggests that there’s a part of us
that needs to be wild at heart. In the best sense. What about Stacy? As she
writes about little girls and women, she says, “Their question is, ‘Am I
lovely?’” The dress-up times, the putting on mama’s shoes, the twirling skirts.
Stacy writes, “When I was a girl, maybe five years old, I remember standing on
top of the coffee table at my grandparent’s living room. (Grandparents will let
you get away with that, by the way!) And singing my heart out. I wanted to
capture attention, especially my father’s attention. I wanted to be
captivating.” And she suggests that most of us have this answer, “You’re not.
Get off of the coffee table.”
She
adds that nearly all women do in their adult life circles around trying to
fulfill that yearning deep within. Well, let us pay tribute to that part of our
lives. It is put there by God and it is important and is as essential. But let
me ask, “Is this the only guidance system?” And the whole Bible would reflect
and say, “No, absolutely not.” You have an inner guidance system that has more
to do than whether or not you measure up. In either case, and all of us can
think of women who… whose pictures may in a lovely way be on a magazine cover
but whose lives are shambles. And all of us can think of men who have great
possibilities but keep shooting themselves in the foot. They have no “BQ” –
before quotient.
What is BQ? It’s that deep conviction that before you were born Jesus had a
plan for your life. That plan may have had nothing to do with how strong you
are, how good looking you are, how lovely or desirable you may be, or whether
you are going to measure up to somebody else’s standard. Let me give you a key
verse. I want you to turn to Ephesians Chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. In the third
verse, Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in
Christ.” Now, listen to this. “For he chose us in Him, before the creation of
the world.” Let me read it again. “For he chose us in Him, before the creation
of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight in love.” And later on, he
talks about Gentiles. He says, “We weren’t accepted nor acceptable. We were
thrown off the coffee table.” And what the Lord Jesus did is reach down and
pick us up and put us back on the coffee table of God’s love and God’s
acceptance.
Consider this possibility, please. Before the first light ever pierced the
darkness, before ever the first bit of chaos was set aside for God’s order, God
knew you. God has a plan for your life. God has a dream for who you can be. You
can reject it, but the dream is in place. And you say, “I don’t believe all of
that. I don’t believe how God could know about me before the beginning of
everything.” Well, the trouble is you think God’s an overgrown you. Now,
you’ve got a billion galaxies out there. And millions of stars in every
galaxy. Don’t you think that a God who can take care of a billion galaxies can
take care of you and know about you and spread himself over you?
Let
me put it another way. On one of those TV programs that tries to teach you
something, there was a man who was talking about the explosion of information.
And he was saying that we now know in the last ten years more about the human
race and the people in the human race than we knew in all of history put
together before those ten years. Now if we can do that with our technology,
don’t you think God being God could know about you from the time eternity
announced time? Just suppose you let God be God and dream his dream for you.
Would it make a difference? Sure. If suddenly you really believed God dreamed
before time – YOU – and you are about the task of discovering the dream and
living it out.
Max
Lucado says that if you want to find the soft spot in your life, work from the
end back to where you are now and that’s right. We are going to get there on
Easter Sunday – “I am the resurrection and the life.” But, that’s only half of
it. The other half of it is to work from where you are back to the beginning.
And Paul says, “Before the world ever started, he chose you.” You can reject
him, but you’ve been chosen. The devil has his people everywhere but so does
God. Have you grasped the fact you are one of them? And will this day you just
take your arms and embrace that great truth – you are loved, you are chosen, you
are called. You are God’s dream.
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