Daily Dose of the Word of God - John 8: 58

Erin Pacheco, Director of Worship

Transcript

Erin Pacheco  0:07  

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s Daily Dose of the Word of God. Today is Friday, September 26th, and Sunday is coming! I’m Erin Pacheco.  Our Bible reading today is from John 8. Jesus is in a long conversation with the leaders of his Jewish community. They can’t figure out where his power is coming from and they accuse him of being demon possessed. They’re convinced God is on their side, not Jesus’, because they’re the children of Abraham.   And then comes this doozy of a verse in John 8:58. 

Erin Pacheco 0:45

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Erin Pacheco 0:55  

If you’ve ever been tempted to see Jesus as a good teacher, or a social justice advocate, or even a human Savior sent from God — look again. Perhaps more clearly in this verse than anywhere else in scripture, Jesus claims to be God himself, the great I AM, who was and is and is to come. The Word who was with God and was God when God spoke the world into being. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. It’s precisely why their immediate response is to try to stone him to death. They knew he was claiming to be God. They could only see this as blasphemy, punishable by death! But the wonder of the story of the Bible is that Jesus is indeed God himself, the image of the invisible, his hands outstretched on the cross as evidence of a divine love so great that it will stop at nothing to rescue sinners and set us free from ourselves. This is who God is. This is who Jesus is. Come let us adore him.

Erin Pacheco  2:20  

Let’s pray. Holy God, as we read your word, as we prepare for worship on Sunday, we ask that you will reveal Jesus to us — which is to say, that you would reveal your very self, and your heart to rescue the world. Thank you for saving us and loving us, and for sending us out in your name. It’s in Jesus’ mighty name we pray. Amen.