Seamlessness Between Father and Son

Who Is Jesus to You?

He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who believes he is a poached egg or he would be the devil of hell. You must make the choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else he is a madman or something worse. Who Jesus was and is ties directly into who we are. There can be no other truth. And that’s a dangerous thing to say. The stakes are high, very, very high. So, let me ask you just to kick it off. Who’s Jesus to you?

And let me say this first. Absolutely. There’s only one wrong answer. No Sunday school answers. Do not quote scripture at this particular moment. Who is Jesus to you? Anybody want to share in a phrase? Oh, my beloved. Love that. Anybody else? Yeah. He’s the guy that I depend on every day to make some good choices. Okay, that’s fair. That’s like working man stuff. Another: “The one who saved me from myself.” Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah. He’s my older brother. Oh, hey. Hey, hey, hey. I love that. Anybody else? I’m gonna say that one more time.

He’s the best friend I could ever have. Not a single Sunday school answer there. It’s all personal experience. This is my experience with Jesus. Now, what I said, you can’t quote a scripture verse at this particular moment. Did anything that anybody said contradict scripture? No. It is not contrary. It’s in complete agreement, which is how we know that our experience with Jesus is real and authentic: it agrees with his word.

The Reading in John 8

So out of that let’s just read a little something shall we? John 8. I’m going to start at verse 12. Jesus spoke to the people once more and he said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness because you’ll have the light that leads to life.” Now, the Pharisees replied, “You’re making those claims about yourself. Such testimony is not valid.” Jesus told him, “These claims are valid even though I make them about myself. For I know where I come from and where I’m going.

But you don’t know this about me. You judge me by human standards. But I do not judge anyone. And if I did, my judgment would be correct in every respect because I am not alone. The father who sent me is with me.” Your own law says that if two people agree about something, their witness is accepted as fact. I am one witness and my father who sent me is the other. Where is your father? They asked. Jesus answered, since you don’t know who I am, you don’t know who my father is.

If you knew me, you’d also know my father. Jesus made these statements while he was teaching in the section of the temple known as the treasury. But he was not arrested because his time had not yet come. Later, Jesus said to them again, “I am going away. You’ll search for me, but you will die in your sin. You cannot come where I’m going.” And the people asked, “Is he planning to commit suicide? What does he mean? You cannot come where I’m going. And Jesus continued, you are from below. I am from above.

You belong to this world. I do not. And that is why I said that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins. Who are you? They demanded. Jesus replied, “The one I have always claimed to be. I have much to say about you and much to condemn, but I won’t. For I say only what I have heard from the one who sent me.” And he is completely truthful. But they still didn’t understand what he was talking about his father.

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I am he. I do nothing of my own, but I say only what my father taught me, and the one who sent me is with me. He has not deserted me, for I always do what pleases him.” And then many who heard him say these things believed in him.

The I Am Statements

So, what did Jesus say about himself? Well, I just read it, but if I could highlight a few things, I’d say this. He said this. I am the light of the world. I am not alone. My father is with me. I am one witness. My father is the other. I am going. I am from above. I am who I claim to be. I am he. Those last two statements are the ego eimi, the I am statements from Exodus 3, where God calls himself the I Am. Ego eimi basically means this in English: it means that he is outside of time and self-existing.

Outside of time. We’re confined to time and self-existing. We were conceived. We were born. He’s outside of all of that. In this section that I read, there are seven I am statements which have to do with identity and condition. In all of the Gospel of John, there are seven I am statements that are purely about identity. Seven. Seven. I think maybe Jonathan Boettcher is rubbing off on me here with numbers and stuff, because I got fascinated by this and had to do a little more digging. Seven and seven again, that number of completion, all within the gospel.

God or an Impostor

Why does this matter? Because Jesus just made a statement that any good Jew could interpret only two ways. Only two ways. The first way is I’m either being addressed by God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, or I am being addressed by a very dangerous impostor. There is no third option. He’s one or he’s the other. Now, let’s just let that question hang for a moment. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” You’ve heard this a thousand times, but if we believe it, it means this for us today.

Stick with me and I will reveal to you all the truth that you need. Absolutely no deception need befall you. My light dispenses with anything that’s false. That’s great news. Jesus said, “I am not alone.” Jesus is not a God. He is God and he is in perfect union with his father.

Not Here to Judge

Now, why is this such a big deal? Because just before Jesus makes this statement about himself, he says this, that he does not judge anyone. Now, we’ve heard a thousand times in this church that Jesus did absolutely nothing of his own initiative. And we read it again here. Nothing apart from his father’s will. This is unbelievably good news because again out of Jesus’ mouth that judgment is not his primary purpose. And some person would rightly say, and you’d be absolutely right. Yeah, but he is the righteous judge. Yes, he is.

Absolutely. He’s going to judge. He’s going to judge, but it’s not his primary purpose to judge. And that’s really important. It’s not even his father’s purpose. And why do we get that? Because if Jesus’s father initiated everything that he said and did, and Jesus said, “It is not my intention to judge you.” Guess what? It is also not his father’s intention to judge. Again, judgment will happen. He will judge. He will judge rightly. But it’s not his primary purpose. Now, does that mean that we’re home free and heaven-bound whether we have a relationship with him or not.

Absolutely not. We have a choice to make. We get to make that choice. If it were simply that, you know, because it was Jesus’s intention not to judge anybody, well, I guess we can have sort of a relationship with him. We can name-drop him every now and then. No, not at all. If we do that, it makes his sacrifice on the cross a cruel joke and it cheapens what he did to worthlessness, what he endured for us.

An Invitation, Not a Command

What does it mean that the light of the world who is not alone invites us into a parental relationship with his dad who just happens to be almighty God, creator of the heaven and the earth? Here’s the great thing about an invitation. It’s not a command. It’s not a command. An invite is an invite and you decide whether you want to send in the RSVP or not. The invitation comes with choice and we have that choice. The stakes are really, really high. Really high.

The Perfect Son

Jesus said, “I am one witness.” His father, our father, if we let him, gave approval and blessing to everything that Jesus did. He was the other witness. Jesus never stepped outside of the will of his dad. Now, this is not because quite often when we think about Jesus’s father, we may kind of throw some of our own earthly fatherly experience onto God the Father. So, let me just say again, this was not some overbearing parental control thing. If you were at our Father Heart weekend several weeks ago and you heard John Miller teach about father types, we got to hear a testimony from Jon Culley about a good dad.

And I’ve been privileged to sit down with Jon. We’ve had lunch a few times, you know, and he’ll tell us stories about growing up with dad, his dad in the military and post-military, going into ministry in Mississippi and moving up here and doing all kinds of stuff. And Jon speaks with glowing affection towards his dad. He’s also the first guy to tell you that his dad was in no way at all perfect. And yet as a son when he was a son syncing up with his dad, sweet times. Sweet times.

And his dad was not perfect. If you’re a dad in this room today, you are not perfect. You could be a good dad and you’re not perfect. Now Jesus’s father, that’s perfection. That’s perfection. And emulation is not just a goal for Jesus. It’s perfectly realized because he was always in sync with his dad. He was in perfect step with his father without fault. It was his great desire to do what he saw his dad initiate. It gave him great joy. We love Ephesians around here because it’s such a strong identity book, right?

In Ephesians 1, we read this in verse 5. God decided in advance to adopt us into his family by bringing us to himself. That’s the father through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do. And this is the punchline. It’s the best part. It gave him great pleasure. Sometimes we have a hard time thinking of God the Father as feeling any kind of intense pleasure. Oh, he does. He does. Every emotion that he has may be tempered, but it’s always on 10. It’s always on 10. He feels every emotion just exactly perfectly. And he experiences pleasure. And guess where he gets the greatest amount of it from? We are the object of his greatest pleasure.

I Am Going

Jesus said, “I’m going.” Now, this brought his disciples some concern later on after his resurrection. You know, Jesus made comments then too about I got to go pretty soon, you know, but don’t leave because I got a special surprise for you. But at that time when Jesus was saying it at that particular time and the disciples are going, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t go now. Things are finally getting better.” I mean, look, you died. Then you walked out of the grave. You’ve shown yourself to a whole bunch of people.

The party is about to get started. And they couldn’t wait to get things going. And Jesus says, “No, no, no. I did what I had to do. Now, I’m going to leave you something wonderful.” And yeah, the party is about to get started, okay? But my job’s done. There’s two things we really need to know. I mean, we really need to know this, right? Down to the very marrow of our bones. Know it. Not just head knowledge. Really know it. When Jesus says, “I’m going,” here’s the first thing he says, “My job is nearing its completion.”

Remember when he said this in chapter 8, it was still a little bit yet before, you know, the trial and the crucifixion. When he’s saying that, he says, “My job is nearing completion. I was faithful to what was asked of me. The purpose of my being was to model what it looks like to be a son.” Do you want to know what sonship looks like? Look at Jesus. Being a disciple, much like the Christian faith, is not a complicated thing. It doesn’t require advanced graduate degrees. As a matter of fact, if you can put one foot in front of the other, you can understand this: discipleship, a relationship with Jesus and walking it out, is very easy to understand.

It takes a lifetime of practice and that lifetime of practice is punctuated with pitfalls, missteps, and yeah, breakthroughs. We get it all in the grand picture. We get it all. The second thing that Jesus wanted to communicate with the I am going part is that my sacrifice will pay for your sins. Yes. But why? It was to clear the way for us to have the right to become children of God. The right to become a son or a daughter of our father in heaven is not a thing we can earn.

It’s not a recipe we follow. It’s not three easy steps to sonship or daughterhood. Jesus did not do 99% of the heavy lifting. He did 100% of the heavy lifting. He did it. He made the way. In John 1, we read this, right? He came into the very world that he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people and even they rejected him. But to all who believed in him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. He gave the right. We didn’t earn it.

We didn’t do anything in and of our own initiative to bring us to that point. If we’re talking initiative, we had nothing to do with it at all. His sacrifice was unto this: gathering fathers and lost, hurting kids back together into an eternal and intimate relationship. He, the I am, he’s the destination. And Jesus communicated this in the clearest possible way.

I Am From Above

Jesus said, “I’m from above.” And I really think C.S. Lewis was more than hinting about this statement. Jesus is either actually who he says he is or he’s a lunatic. In which case, we simply dismiss him. In the worst possible case, he’s dangerous. He’s that devil of hell that we read about. I am from above.

Meeting Gabriel

I met Gabriel. Yeah, Gabriel one time on a Friday night. Was a fair evening. We had stream going on here in a Friday night and we had some folks out in the parking lot. And every once in a while you got some folks and they kind of walk on by and they wonder what’s all the commotion going on in the church there and we’ll kind of coax them in a little bit. And I was inside and I had one of our stream leaders say, “Hey, Mike, there’s a guy who wants to talk to whoever is kind of leading this thing.”

And at first I said, “Well, bring him on in.” No, no, no. He wants to meet you out there. That’s where I met Gabriel. At least that’s how he introduced himself. So I said, “Nice to meet you, Gabriel. Can I call you Gabe?” That was a mistake because he looked at me kind of like this, like you ought to know why are you not recognizing me right now? He proceeded to tell me that no, I am Gabriel. You know Gabriel. And then it clicked on me. Oh, you mean God’s chief messenger, Gabriel.

Now you’re getting it.” I said, “Okay. Well, it’s nice to meet you.” And I shook his hand and he said, “Listen, I called you out here because Lord’s got a really special message for you.” And you know, most people don’t get it. Most people just dismiss me. There’s that word. Most people just dismiss me. But I can see that you’re recognizing me now. So, but what I would like you to do in order for the folks inside the building here to get the message that I have from God is I need you to relinquish the microphone over to me so I can deliver the message.

I’m pretty sure I spoke a message one time on discernment. And you know, my, you know, some people might call it spidey senses. I’ll just call it discernment that I wasn’t really talking with Gabriel here. As a matter of fact, I was quite certain I wasn’t talking with Gabriel there. So I said, “Listen, Gabe. You are loved of God. You are loved of God. Of that I have no doubt. And you are more than welcome to come on. Come on in. Grab a cup of coffee. Have a nice meal, which we’re going to serve up in about 15.

But I am not going to relinquish the microphone to you.” And he looked at me and he went, like another one. Another one just dismissing me. And he said, “You’re missing out on something.” I says, “I’ll have to take my chances on that. Would you like a nice hot home-cooked meal?” “I’ll pass. Thanks.” And Gabriel went off into the evening. When we need to discern who is from above, we can rightly say Jesus is from above. Anybody else claiming to be from above? Yeah. Our discernment ought to be pegged.

If it was a VU meter, it would be well into the red. I am from above. The word we read about it in John 1. We know of course to be Jesus. Word made flesh, right? So John one, so the word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory. The glory of the father is one and only son.

Belief Changes Everything

Do you believe this? Because if you do, your life must change. Now, let me qualify that if I might. Your life must change. Not because a church tells you that you must change. It’s not because it satisfies some kind of rule that puts you in good standing with others. It has to change because if you believe it, I mean, you really believe it like no other earthly gain could ever mean as much as the promises spoken by Jesus. So much so that you cannot remain unchanged. Now, a little bit of a spoiler alert because Third John, as he’s lovingly known, also Jon Culley, is going to be speaking next week, and he’s going to peel back the onion on this.

I’m just going to give you a little bit of a taster, because change may include things that he’s asking you to step out of. It may be a lifestyle change. It could be a relationship change which is not doing you any good. It could be an identity change. You might believe something about yourself to be and it’s utterly absolutely false and not given by God at all. It might be something that you need to bring into your life that currently is not there. It might be Bible reading. It could be prayer.

It could be all these things, but even the things that sound really good on the surface, if they are nothing else but ticking off religious boxes to say, “There, did that, then that’s not really change. It isn’t really change.” Even the desire to change is proof of change.

Help My Unbelief

There was a father with a demon-possessed son who came crying to Jesus. We read about this in Mark 9. He said to Jesus, “Have mercy. Help us if you can.” And I was reading that Jesus said something. That’s the thing that stuck out. That was the glaring flashlight that was burning out the retinas in the back of my eyes when he said, “What do you mean if I can?” And then that dad calls out one of the most heartfelt cries I have ever heard. He says this, “I do believe. Help my unbelief.

That’s change. It was a recognition that he wasn’t there yet, but he desperately wanted to be. Lord, could you help me in this condition I currently find myself in? And what does Jesus do? That change is rewarded instantly with a demon being cast out of his son. And that day and that moment, the Father gathered two more sons to himself. Because while the focus by others is on the miracle of the demon being cast out of this young fellow, for Jesus, the focus is completely on his dad. And how much did Jesus do of his own initiative?

Nothing. So who initiated that action? His father. And that was Jesus’s whole point. My dad is able to do these amazing things. I know I’m his son. I know my father.

More Than a Nice Guy

Jesus said this. I am who I claim to be. Not just a nice guy. In 2026, if there is a sin that we have regarding the identity of Jesus, it’s us saying anything that sounds like he was a nice guy. Can we please just exorcise that from our, I don’t know, library of phrases about how we describe Jesus? He was not just a nice guy. He’s not some first century hippie preaching peace, love, and rock and roll. He was not a philosopher. He was not an activist. And going back to C.S.

Lewis, he was not a poached egg or the devil of hell. He is God. Come on. And when Jesus is carrying out the actions of his father, he’s saying, “Watch me.” Because if you look at me, you see my father in action. Listen to me. Do you want eyes that really see? Do you want ears that really hear? Listen to me. Because when you listen to me, you hear the voice of my father speaking his love, his affection, his plan, his purpose for all of you.

Everything Revealed the Father

So why did Jesus do so much? John himself said this at the end of his gospel, in chapter 21, the very last verse, verse 25: “Jesus did many other things, and if they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would have been written.” What was John referencing? Just the miraculous? Is that all he was getting at? Could he have been saying we couldn’t contain all his teaching? How about intimate late night conversations he might have been having with his disciples? Because there was absolutely nothing that came out of Jesus’s mouth that did not carry the weight of the world in value.

It was that good. It was that good. And yet, as John tells us, the world itself could not contain all the volumes that could be written about everything Jesus did. And I wonder if that verb, doing, also extends to the things that he said, the things that he taught, the conversations that he had. Part of it, of course, what John is saying is very obvious. God is love. He’s not just good at it. He is it. You want a definition for love? Just say, “God,” and you can walk away. So when you love deeply as he did and does, you want to see pain and illness and death removed from the human condition.

And Jesus was moved by compassion. There’s no doubt about that. And as true as that is, there were also times when Jesus did not heal. Why? Well, the debate for that continues on until today. Right? Theologians have debated endlessly on the subject. There are even some people that say, “Well, he just doesn’t heal anymore.” I shudder at that untruth because he does. He does, right? But I wonder sometimes if it is simply or could be as simple as the father saying to Jesus, “Not him, not her, not today.” Do we complicate what could be as simple as that?

I’m just throwing it out there as a question. Talk about it over lunch or whatever. The miracles that we read about that we’ve witnessed today are motivated by love, but the deeper meaning and the motivation was always to reveal the father. Always.

While You Wait for Healing

There are countless believers today who have the faith to believe in healing, and they eagerly wait for their own. But at least to this point in time, it has not come yet. But let me ask you this. What has happened in the meanwhile? What’s happened in the meanwhile? Well, you’re praying for that healing. You’re praying for it. There are times of intense intimacy that language fails you to describe. There are increased times of both personal and corporate worship that you will throw yourself into. There is peace that you are given in the waiting.

Are these not the works of the father? These are the works of the father. And so while people who need a healing wait upon their healing and they throw themselves into prayer and desire for an intimacy with the Lord, when they are spending more time in worship, they’re experiencing peace all while waiting. All while waiting. And you know what? There is an unbelievable value in all of that. Jesus revealed the father at every turn. And if it involved the miraculous, as it often did, fantastic. That’s great. Nobody’s going to say, “Oh, man.

I’m so sorry about your cancer being taken away. Gee, I mean, you were hanging on to that and it was really such a lovely, cozy thing, but at least God showed up.” You know, nobody’s going to say that at all. At all. But everything that Jesus did was couched in revealing his dad and extending the invitation which began with the recognition that I am who I claim to be. I am who I claim to be.

The I Am Invites You In

The final statement in that little section that I read to you is I am he. Again the quotation from Exodus. And you know what? As I read that and I was reading it over and over again, I says, “What do I say about this, Lord? What do I say about this?” And I really don’t know what else to say except that the I am is inviting you into relationship with him. That the I am wants to spend precious time with you, speaking into your life and his perfect plan for you.

Jesus points us to his dad, his Abba, because the life that he lived and the death that he endured was for the purpose of securing that kind of a relationship. That’s what Jesus was all about. It was securing that identity, that relationship. That was the ultimate primary purpose of his coming, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and the condition that he finally left us with, which was the Holy Spirit. And it’s a relationship that takes time to build. So, I guess my question is, are you building it? Because he’s never rescheduled an appointment on you.

He’s never cancelled a coffee time with you. He’s never bailed on you. Why? Well, because to him, I think you’re just worth it. That’s right. Jesus, the I am with all the authority to save, to rule, to create, to recreate, make it possible to be born again. He listened to his dad and his dad just said, “Gather him in, son. I miss him. The stakes are high. So very high.”

Prayer and Invitation

So, I want to invite the prayer team up now. And as they’re coming up, I guess what I just want to say is this. If you’re like that father with the son who had a demon inside of him, if you’re like that dad who says, “I believe. Help my unbelief. That’s a desire for change. And guess what? You can get prayer for that. You can get prayer for that. If you really kind of thought that Jesus was just a good moral teacher and you really don’t know about this whole poached egg, devil of hell thing, but maybe he was just really a nice guy.

If Jesus is just a nice guy to you and you want an introduction to who he really is and how he really feels about you, come up for prayer. If your earthly dad sucked, if your earthly dad might have been okay on occasion, but had really big issues, and you were on the receiving end as a child of those really big, big issues, and you’re having a very hard time getting in your head and then having it migrate down to your heart that maybe, just maybe, there is a father who is better than that.

You can get prayer for that. If you can receive Jesus, you can receive a father. You can receive the father. And you know what? Very last thing I said about healing and whatnot. And you know that everything that Jesus did, all the world’s volumes cannot contain everything that he did. If you’re a person waiting on healing and in the meanwhile you’re enjoying his peace, you’re enjoying his presence in your life. But father, I could still use that healing. You can receive prayer for that, too. Truth be told, you can come up and receive prayer for anything you need at this moment.

So, I’m just going to wrap this up in prayer right now. And you know, even as I’m praying, people can come on up for prayer. So, Father, we relinquish our lives to the truth of who you are. Lord, we want to stand before you and say sometimes it’s difficult to really truly understand what it means to be a son or a daughter, but our inability to comprehend has not limited the truth of who you are and how you feel about us. So, Father, as we come up for prayer or as we go from this place, Holy Spirit, would you just whisper again to our hearts who it is that we are to you?

We thank you that the great I am visited us and revealed you. Revealed what it’s like to be a son, to be a daughter, and that we have the availability to live like that. Holy Spirit, would you allow that to just sink deep into us that it’ll bring us great joy? And we pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.