Sermon Tone Analysis

It is Jesus who said, /"I am the Bread of Life."

He said, "I am the Light of the World.

I am the door.

I am the Good Shepherd.

I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."/

In today's text, He makes the most shocking and provocative statement of all.

In today's text, He challenges you and me to make up our minds about Jesus that either He is a liar, either He is a lunatic or He is the Lord.

He says, /"Before Abraham was born, I Am."/

Brother Ron shared that statement that God made to Moses there at the burning bush when Moses asked, /"What name do I give you when the people ask?"/

He said that His name would be, /"I Am."/ Literally in the Hebrew, the Self-Existent One.

He always exists.

There is really no past or future.

He is ever-present.

Jesus says, in today's text, that the voice that spoke to Moses was His voice.

He is the great I Am.

The challenge for you today is to see Jesus not as a great teacher, not as a great philosopher, not as a great prophet, not as a learned rabbi, but as God…the self-existing, always present God Himself.

Not just God the Son, for that is His manifestation to us, but God.

He is Holy God.

It is that deity that He challenges the Jews with today.

In the last portion of John, chapter 8, in fact all through John 8 we have seen such challenges that Jesus has made with the Jews that were there in the temple there at the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles.

We saw the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus boldly forgiving her of her sins as thought He was God and able to do that.

We see that Jesus says, /"I am that water that was being poured out on the altar,"/ at that celebration there at the Feast of Tabernacles.

He said, /"I am the light of the world,"/ that was symbolized by those torches that were lit during that same festival.

Time and again, He has boldly challenged the minds of those on the temple mount to understand that He is the Messiah.

He is the very God.

As we come to verse 48 today, we see they still do not understand and their patience with this one called Jesus has finally come to an end.

Verse 48, of John, chapter 8, says, /"Then the Jews answered and said to Him [said to Jesus], ' Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?' Jesus answered, 'I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.

And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges.

Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.'"/

The Jews are exasperated.

The religious leaders are at their wit's end of how to deal with Jesus' claims, how to deal with His popularity, how to deal with His wisdom that was unlike the wisdom of the Scribes and the Pharisees, so they have come really to the end of their debate and they simply start calling Him names.

They say, in verse 48, /"Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?"/

Now to call Jesus a Samaritan, for the Jew was a racial slur.

They were belittling Him.

They were saying He was less than human.

They saw the Samaritan as a half-breed.

You know it's been said that when foes begin to insult you rather than address you, you've already won the debate.

They're out of things to challenge you with, so they just start calling you ugly names.

That's something we learned in school, perhaps, but it's something we keep with us.

We learn it on a school ground, but we take it with us all the way into adulthood.

That's what these Jews are doing.

They don't know what else to say.

Jesus has answered every challenge, so they just start giving a racial slur.

On top of that, they say that He is demon-possessed.

After all, He doesn't agree with them, so He has to be demon-possessed because they say they must be correct, and everybody else is wrong.

That's always the right way to approach things, isn't it?

They are so closed-minded that those who do not completely agree with them they just write off as demon-possessed.

Interesting that Jesus doesn't even deal with the racial slur.

He doesn't even raise that up to a level of needing to be responded to, but what He does do is say, "Hey, I'm not demon-possessed because I am receiving glory from God the Father."

No demon would receive glory from God.

He said in verse 49, /"I do not have a demon, but I honor My Father and You dishonor Me.

And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges."/

In other words, Jesus says, "Look at my life.

Look at the way I've lived it."

You want to have a strong testimony among your friends at school, among your coworkers?

Live a Christian life in front of them because then all they can do is begin to attack you with name-calling.

Once you show that your claim to Christ is more than just words, they can look at your life and the decisions you make and they obedience you have to the words of God, then your testimony shouts louder than anything you could say.

That's what's happening here.

Jesus says, "I honor My Father.

No demon would do that.

I am obeying and fulfilling all of the commandments of Scripture.

You make these challenges to Me, but there is nothing you can base that on.

But I don't do this for My own glory," He said.

Even while saying that, Jesus who's not seeking fame and glory realizes that by honoring the Father, the Father will honor Him.

The Father is the one who is bringing Him this glory.

The Father sends Him and He honors the Father.

Listen…Jesus is keenly aware that He is sent, and He's also supremely aware of His high dignity.

He knows the throne that He came from.

He knows the position of glory that He has left.

He knows what is His by possession, and title, and claim.

He doesn't have to lay claim to Himself.

He doesn't have to boldly speak of Himself because God the Father is bringing honor in this situation.

So Jesus makes the claim of His deity by His exaltation.

When He prays later on, /"Not My will, but Yours be done,"/ He's exalting the Father even there in the Garden of Gethsemane.

His whole life is focused on worshipping and honoring and exalting the Father.

Why?

Because He wants to model for us how He wants us to live.

He models for us the life He wants us to seek.

When we're challenged for our faith, He wants our response to be, "Look at my life."

When we're challenged for our beliefs, He wants our response to be, "I'm not seeking my own glory.

I am seeking the glory of the Father."

When we find ourselves in difficult, dire straits, He wants us to follow Him by saying, "Your will be done, Father, not my will.

I don't want my name increased.

I want it decreased.

I want Your name increased among all those who would know me."

Verse 52, /"Then the Jews said to Him, 'Now we know that You have a demon!

Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, 'If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.'"/

Jesus has said that in verse 51, /"If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."/

Literally, death he will not see is what that says in the original language.

If you accept Christ as your Savior, Jesus makes the bold statement that you will never die.

The Pharisees don't understand that because they know Abraham was the great father of Israel, and he's sure enough dead.

They know that prophets have come.

Prophets like Daniel, prophets like Elijah, prophets like Elisha, and they are not there anymore.

They have all died, and here is Jesus saying that if you believe in Me, you'll never die.

They say, "You have to have a demon.

The man has to be crazy," in other words.

Verse 53, they try to find out more about this claim and say, /"Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead?

And the prophets are dead.