Grace Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Sunday,
August 4, 2019
As Believers in the LORD Jesus Christ, we are in the world but not of the world, we have our citizenship in Heaven.
The Doctrine of Dispensations with emphasis upon the Dispensation of the Hypostatic Union, which refers to the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man or He is Undiminished Deity and True humanity in one person forever.
- Our Lord is called the “True Vine” because the word True refers to His character and nature and the word Vine refers to His divine essence as the God of All Truth; Deu 32:4.
- The way that we can draw spiritual life is from learning how our Lord, in His humanity, drew His energy and motivation from living the spiritual life and fulfilling the divine plan of God.
- The “True Vine” also points to His Deity which is derived from the first part of verse 1, when as He said; JOH 15:1 “I Am” the true vine.
”They” refers to those self-righteous legalistic Losers who live in self-justification and operation blame game.
In JOH 10:36, our Lord said; “Huios (with a capital A-tar which is equivalent with our letter “H”) so we have “Huios [Son] tou [the] theou [of God] eimi – [I Am].
Now, we do not say “Son of the God I Am” or “I keep on being,”, instead we put it in the correct order as it appears in the English translations which is “I Am the Son of God” or “I keep on being the Son of God.”
The “True Vine” points to His Deity which is derived from the first part of verse 1, when as He said; JOH 15:1 “I Am” the true vine.
In fact, I am going to give you some passages and principles just from the Gospel of John concerning what the phrase “I Am” meant to the disciples.
Being Jewish, most of them had been taught even as children, the passage on the “Great I Am;” Exo 3:1-14.
- As the Great I Am, our Lord is our spiritual food; JOH 6:35 Jesus said, “I AM the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger.”
The word hunger is the aorist active subjunctive of peinao (pi-nah’-o); which means to crave; to desire something; to have an overwhelming yearning or burning that is not being met.
When we get to where we’re going, we know where we are going to be and we also know what to expect to see.
- As the Great I Am, our Lord is our spiritual food; Joh 6:35 Jesus said, “I AM the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger.”
- As the Great I Am, our Lord is also the spiritual drink we need to quench our thirst for righteousness and intimacy with our Lord; Joh 6:35.
- As the Great I Am, our Lord said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
The presence of “The Great I Am” gives us the guidance and directions we need to “walk in the Spirit;” or “worship in the Spirit;” or “love in the Spirit;” or “live in the Spirit” or “justified in the Spirit.
“Walk in the Spirit” = Gal 5:16
“Worship in the Spirit” = Phi 3:3
“Love in the Spirit” = Col 1:8
“Live in the Spirit” = 1Pe 4:6
“Justified in the Spirit” = 1Co 6:11.
- As the Great I Am, our Lord is also said to be from above; JOH 8:23 And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
Our earthly citizenship is taught in ROM 13:1 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
It is the subjection and the respect for authority that the Apostle Paul talks about in Rom 13:1-7.
PHI 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
PHI 3:21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
- As the Great I Am, our Lord also said that we were or we use to be of this world, but the “Great I Am” said in Joh 8:23b I am not of this world.
He is not of this world just like we are not of this world and that is why we are told in passages like GAL 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
And that is why the life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and delivered Himself up for us.
- The Great I Am, our Lord Jesus Christ also said that unless we believe that He is the “I Am” we will die in our sins and we will be undegenerated or not born again; JOH 8:24.
- The “I Am” also uses that title to reveal that the we must not only believe that He is the “I Am,” but, we must also recognize Him as Almighty God Himself; JOH 8:24; Rom 10:7-13.
“Unless one believes that the “I Am” is “The Great I Am, then they we will die in their sin of rejecting Him; Joh 3:18,36; 16:7-11.
- The “I Am” title also reveals the eternity of our Lord, because in JOH 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
- As the great I Am, our Lord gives us the light and the guidance to see and perceive the will of God. JOH 9:5 “I am the light of the world.”
- As the great I Am he claimed to be the one that the Jews were waiting for in JOH 9:9 Jesus kept saying, “I am the one.”
- The I Am also opens up some of the doors and also closes or shuts other doors, why? Because in JOH 10:11 Jesus said I am the door of the sheep.
- As the I Am our Lord also protects us sheep from the wolves; JOH 10:11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
We were told to stay away from Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1Ti 1:18-20.
- The “I Am” claimed to be the Son of God. JOH 10:36, our Lord said to the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees; “You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”
- As the Great I Am, our Lord reveals and tells us that He is the resurrection and he is the life. JOH 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.
- As the Great I Am, there is the teaching ministry of our Lord who said to His disciples in JOH 13:13 “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for {so} I am.
- The great I am is also responsible for fulfilled prophecy in JOH 13:19 “From now on I am telling you things before they come to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that “I am.” – that’s it! Not He but “I Am.”
- Probably one of the most popular passages on this principle of the Great I Am is found in JOH 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
- JOH 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. (What more can we say – the I Am gives us the spiritual energy we need from the Spirit and the Word.
- The great I am was also the inner power our Lord possessed when Judas also who was betraying Him, was standing with them and when they shouted out who is Jesus of Nazareth, they heard the voice of victory say “I Am.”
- Finally, let us close this section with the things that our Lord says the “I Am” is or what the I Am does in the Gospel of John.
As the great I Am, He is our spiritual food says JOH 6:35 “I am the bread of life”
In JOH 8:12, He gives us perception so that we can discern properly because as He said; “I am the light of the world.”
JOH 8:23, tells us where the great I Am is from, “I am from above”
In JOH 8:23, our Lord tells us where He is not from, “I am not of this world.”
JOH 8:24, the great I Am says to those who may doubt; “I am He.”
In JOH 9:9, the I Am comes right to the point and says, “I am the one.”
He teaches us what doors we should open or close; JOH 10:7 “I am the door of the sheep.”
The great I Am also gives us the confidence that as sheep He is our shepherd; JOH 10:11 “I am the good shepherd.”
Probably one of the greatest “I Am” statements is found in JOH 10:36, where the great I am says; “I am the Son of God?”
In JOH 11:25, we are given a tremendous spiritual life where the “I Am” says; “I am the resurrection and the life.”
In JOH 14:6, the I Am says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
And then another very controversial statement again from the great I Am we read in JOH 14:10 “I am in the Father.”
JOH 15:1 “I am the true vine.”
JOH 17:14 “I am not of the world.”
JOH 19:21 “I am King of the Jews.”