They do not know Jesus. Eternity necessarily follows from His self-existence. I have been your God. You are great. The people of Israel no longer remember the God of their fathers. The God who will be with you is the God who is sending you. God was known by various names in Genesis. I am not a tribal deity. Murderers: people who thirsted after vengeance, or the convenience of having someone out of the way. Kyler suffered a broken leg a while back saving his sister from being hurt in a sledding incident. He winds up far off in the desert in Midian, where he finds a wife and raises a family. You have nothing more important to figure out than that. He is absolutely independent from anyone or anything. Have you ever met someone you were supposed to relay an important message to, but you can’t remember who it was from? To summarize our Scripture reading in a nutshell: the disciples report to Jesus what people are saying about him, and Jesus asks them: "well, who do YOU say I am? And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.". If you’re seeking this morning—if you’re here considering the claims of Christ—what sort of God do you have in your head and heart? Who Are You? Palms-to-Go, Saturday, March 27, 9:00 to 10:00 am (Pull up to the East entrance & open your window!) “Oh, I’m so glad to see you. The reason most of them don’t is that there’s a long history of translating the divine name as “Lord”. God is their end in the sense that they will finally meet God as Judge. And so this man said, “Funny you should say that, because you don’t remind Me anything of Abraham.” Well this made them mad. The Easter Vigil, April 3 at 7:30 pm I’m telling you all you need to know: My name. "He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son." “Who should I say has sent me?” God says, “I am who I am.” We imagine God to be saying, “I am whoever you want Me to be.” That’s the God of our day and age—not a God who is, but a God who morphs, changes, and transforms into whatever you think Him to be. Don’t tell me about your God. It’s a Latin word, meaning “in himself”—that God exists in Himself. Let’s skip over to chapter 15, where we get the song of victory: ‘Yay, we made it out of Egypt.’”, But that’s hardly all that God is up to. We could say, “Alright. “I am who I am.”. 10:7). Look at verse 8. “I am who I am.” “I will be who I will be.” “I was who I was.” “I was who I will be.” ‘I am who I was.” And so forth. Randy Quinn. Sunday Morning Service CCLI Streaming License: CSPL011414 OneLicense: A-736143. So the special focus in this text is on God as the omega of all things. Do you want a He, Him, Her, or It? God means that everybody whose soul-thirst is really for God, and not for the praise and power and pleasures of the world, will be saved. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “ I am has sent me to you.”’ 15 God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.” ‘This is my name for ever, I hope you find my attempts at preaching to be balance but deep, bringing in new insights as well as repackaging old ones. ‘YHWH’—or, depending on how you transliterate the Hebrew consonants, ‘JHVH’—is called the ‘tetragrammaton’. How should we pronounce this?” Most of you probably see it in the Bible you’re reading (like the ESV): when it has ‘YHWH’, the divine name, you’ll see ‘Lord’ in small capital letters. Is it this God, the “I am”? “Would you come here, Ian…Jacob…Elizabeth…YOU, the one I’m mad at. Hope-Elim. You will set my people free.” Moses says, “What? What sort of God is this who speaks out of the bush and yet it is not consumed? And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its lights and its lamp is the Lamb.". You have a demon, because You think You’re greater than Abraham.” And this man said, “I’m not bragging. The Washington Post headline: “Nicki Minaj and the Five Reasons Celebrities Shut Down Interviews.” I thought about googling “Nicki Minaj” and finding out who she…but I figured that wasn’t worth it. You always have to keep in mind when reading the Old Testament that the world of the Old Testament is polytheistic, pantheistic, and syncretistic: polytheistic, meaning there are a multitude of gods and goddesses; pantheistic, meaning that nature and the divine and God are one, so that nature has divine properties and that God is Himself is this world—just one, not two—and syncretistic, meaning that most people were very happy to pick and choose from various religions and experiences. Some of us may not have an idea. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price." He is the Great I AM Sermon Recommendations. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price!" And let him who hears say, 'Come.' I’m just saying that Abraham was thrilled to know Me.” Well this just sent their heads spinning and exploding, and they said, “Wait a minute, Abraham was thrilled to see You? God gave him a dream that saved the Egyptians and all the people that came to them. There are many Christians today, not to mention people who reject Christianity, who do not believe in the eternality of hell. Who is God? Do you want Him big or small? That’s the God we serve. They picked up stones to kill Him, because they understood clear as day what many people in our day refuse to see: that Jesus of Nazareth was equating Himself with the God of the universe. If you have two kids and you want to call on one, you’ll name the other first. He already asked, in verse 11, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…?” God said in verse 12 that “I will be with you…”—“ehyeh immak”. One of the most significant events in the life of the Lord’s people in redemptive history is the exodus. Politico: “Chairman Ryan Appreciates the Support He’s Getting from His Colleagues, but He’s Still Not Running for Speaker.” No one is, it seems. Don't surrender to the thirst for earthly life and security and self reliance. I am who I am. I’m sure you don’t mind at all. It's simply another way of describing faith. “I am your God. When God says thirst is a condition of salvation, he doesn't mean that everybody who would like to avoid hell and live for ever will be saved. The other word in verse 7 that describes the person who will meet God as a fountain and not as a fire is the word conquer. This Station Is Fully Licensed. The Heritage Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids aims to remain true to God's Holy and infallible Word as expounded in the Reformed doctrinal standards: the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dordt. Whoever You are in the bush, just suppose for a minute that I do this. I hope you don’t mind if I give you just a little bit of Hebrew this morning. The one who is Alpha and Omega, God the Almighty, has pledged himself to take away every pain and every threat of death and everything that makes you cry. Welcome To NBRN Online Phone Line (615) 612-3899. Let me finish with a true story. Sorcerers: people who thirsted after magical powers and the "deep things of Satan" (Revelation 2:24). Even if you talk to someone (or know someone in your family) who is an atheist or an agnostic—who are not sure they believe in God or reject the idea of God—even they must have some idea of the god that they are rejecting. In other words God is "the beginning and the end.". He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death." And we need to know what that division is, because in the end everything depends on it. The people who will meet God on the other side of the desert as a lake of fire instead of a fountain of life are people who did not conquer the thirst for the world. Everything that is originates ultimately in him. A third implication of the name I AM WHO I AM is that God does not change. Therefore, let me close by trying to create in some and increase in others a thirst for God. In the world around you, you will not find anyone pressuring you to answer that question. I am not unconcerned. And even though he may seem as far away as moon-cheese for the self-satisfied, in the end he will be utterly real to every man, woman, and child—gloriously real to the thirsty and terrifyingly real to the self-satisfied. a sermon based on John 1:6-8, 19-28 by Rev. The thirst for this world conquered the thirst for Christ, and so their lot will be in the lake that burns with fire. It’s also the way that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), which would have been the Bible that Jesus and the Apostles were familiar with, renders this: “ego eimi”, or “I am.”, What’s the significance of this response: “I am who I am”? SERMON POINTS The name, “I am who I am” in Hebrew is the word Yahweh, which we also know as Jehovah. Sign up to receive our weekly e-newsletter, featuring important URC announcements and events. I daresay there are no more important questions for you to consider this afternoon. While I was working on this sermon on Friday afternoon, I pulled up my phone and checked Twitter, that great repository of wisdom and knowledge. Who is God? God calls them cowardly and faithless. That means that if you try to satisfy your soul-thirst anywhere but in God, you will eventually run into God and have to give an account to him for the infinite insult of preferring the streams of sin to water of life. 6:41,48) In this memorial name of God WE ARE TAUGHT HIS LOFTY EXISTENCE. Would You draw near to them? Revelation 22:17 is a beautiful invitation to the thirsty: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' Know who you're reaching He is speaking of reality. All of life begins with the creative power of God. I am not small. But the truth that I want us to focus on this morning is that God is Omega. If we put the condition of thirst and the condition of conquering together, the picture we get is something like this: There is a battle going on in every one of us. Welcome to The Sermon Notebook. Comment to those looking at my sermons: Thanks! He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. It appears very rarely (perhaps only here) as the name of God. 14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. But the end of every road is God. He was put in a basket. We talk about God all the time—yet how often do we stop to talk about the God that we are actually talking about? “Look God, whoever You are: I can’t just go back to Egypt and say, ‘Well get this, guys: I was in Midian and I was talking to a bush.’ That sounds like the beginning of a joke. Do you want ‘They’? He will be their God and they will be his children enjoying his inheritance forever and ever. "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. It’s obviously very similar to the first part of God’s response. Who is God? Are people on our hearts who do not know the true and of! 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