Before Abraham Was

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Well, I know this will probably come as a shock to a lot of you, but we’re in the middle of an election season. Y’all probably haven’t heard much about it, have you? No.

I’m sure you’re inundated and just me bringing up the word election, you’re probably thinking not here too. I don’t want to hear about it here too. It’s been ugly, hasn’t it?

It has been ugly. I have been, I’m kind of dating myself here, but I’ve been involved in every election in some capacity since 2004 when I was a freshman at OU. And every time, every election, whether it’s been for president, for governor, for whatever, I’ve thought, oh, this is as ugly as it can get.

It can’t get any worse. And every time politics says, oh, no, it can’t. It can get much worse, right?

It’s been ugly, but I think I figured out the reason for that, or at least one of the reasons for that. See, things tend to be uglier when there’s a clear choice. And don’t worry, the sermon is not about the election this morning.

It’s just an introduction. Things tend to get uglier when there’s a clear choice because there’s a fundamental disagreement between the two sides about what direction to go. You know, sometimes there’s some overlap.

Sometimes there’s some me too-ism and as I’ve looked at the history of elections, you know, when there is that fundamental difference between the two sides, when they both have fundamentally different visions of where we need to go, that’s when it gets ugliest. One of the ugliest campaigns in history was in 1828, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. It probably would make this one look tame in comparison, some of the things that were said. 1940, Wendell Wilkie running against Franklin Roosevelt, they agreed on a lot of stuff and it didn’t get ugly. So I think that’s where the ugliness comes from.

There are these fundamentally different ideas about where we go, how we handle COVID, how we deal with the courts, how we handle the economy, abortion, energy policy, you name it. There’s no common ground. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but that’s when it gets ugly.

That’s when things get tense, is when there’s this fundamental difference in our vision. And it’s not just true of politics, it’s true in life. When my wife and I are operating off of different visions of how we discipline the children, then there’s going to be friction between us at discipline time, right?

Some of you have experienced this. When you have fundamental differences about how you handle the household finances, there’s going to be friction. In Jesus’ day, some of the friction that came up in His life and in His ministry came up because He and the Pharisees, and He and other groups around Him, but especially the Pharisees, had fundamentally different visions of how things ought to be when it came to religion, when it came to a relationship with God, when it came to all the things that they were teaching.

There was not a lot of common ground between them. I mean, they had the law, the Old Testament law in common, but as far as how they interpreted it, how they applied it, what they thought the end result should be, it was very different. And because of that, things got ugly.

Things got ugly. As a matter of fact, we’re going to look at a story this morning about an interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees in John chapter 8, at the end of which it gets so ugly that the Pharisees pick up stones and start trying to kill him. It got that ugly.

So if you haven’t already, I know it’s been up on your screen. You might have already turned there, but if you haven’t, if you turn with me this morning to John chapter 8, we’ll see how ugly it got and we’ll see why. John chapter 8, if you’ll stand with me, if you’re able to without too much trouble, stand with me as we read.

And we’re going to start in verse 31 and read through to verse 59. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

They answered him, we are Abraham’s descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free? And I want to stop there for just a second, not too long, because I know you’re standing during this.

But as he says this. I was puzzled by this for a while. Wait a minute.

These are the Jews who believed and yet they’re asking, they’re going through this cross-examination of Jesus. I realized they is not referring to the Jews who believed, but the Pharisees who are standing by in this conversation. And so he says to those who have believed in him, you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.

Then you’ve got the Pharisees standing over here and said, wait a minute, I have a question. And so they asked, if we’ve never been in bondage, how can you say you’ll make us free? All right, so I just wanted to clarify who are all the parties involved in this here.

Verse 34, Jesus answered them, Most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you.

I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen with your father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.

Then they said to him, We were not born of fornication. We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me.

For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word.

You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?

He who is of God hears God’s words. Therefore, you do not hear because you are not of God. Then the Jews answered and said to him, Do we not rightly say 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. 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. Are you greater than our father Abraham who is dead and the prophets are dead? Who do you make yourself out to be?

And we would translate that today into our speech as who do you think you are? Verse 54, Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my Father who honors me, of whom you say that he is your God, yet you have not known him, but I know him.

And if I say I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you before Abraham was I am then they took up stones to throw at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through the midst of them and so passed by and you can be seated there so what we see here is that Jesus and the Pharisees had wildly different ideas of what a relationship with God looks like I mean there there was almost no middle ground here between what Jesus was preaching and what the Pharisees were resting in. The Pharisees thought that a relationship with God was about earthly blessings like freedom and prosperity, and those are not necessarily bad things, but they thought that’s what their relationship with God was all about. As a matter of fact, as Jesus is talking to these new believers, and He says, if the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed.

He’s promising them spiritual freedom, and they sort of square up and say, but we’re not slaves to anybody. We’ve never been slaves to anybody. Well, actually, Abraham’s descendants had been slaves to a lot of people.

And God had had to free them each time. Jesus was just now offering eternal spiritual freedom. But they were trusting in their descent from Abraham that because of this, that, well, we’re going to be blessed and God’s going to keep us free.

He’s promised to bless us with lands and cattle if we’ll just do these things. And so they were trusting in their relationship to God through Abraham for freedom and prosperity. That’s what they thought the relationship was all about.

If we do all these right things, we check all these boxes, we do all the right things, then God’s going to bless us and then we’re happy. And as far as they were concerned, a relationship with God was there because they were related to Abraham. In verse 33, they say, we are Abraham’s descendants.

That was their, I think it was last week, I talked about the diagnostic questions from evangelism explosion. I said one of those questions you ask somebody is if you were to stand before God today and He were to say, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you tell Him? Their answer would have been, because we’re related to Abraham.

And we know that that’s not the right answer, but that’s what they were trusting in. So we’re Abraham’s descendants, we’re part of this covenant. You’re supposed to love us.

You’re supposed to bless us. You’re supposed to give us all this prosperity and keep us free. But Jesus said that a relationship with God was about spiritual life and spiritual freedom because He compares what He offers to what they had in verse 34, where He says, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

He’s offering freedom and they’re saying, we’ve never been slaves. And He says, you are slaves right now and you don’t even realize it because you’re separated from God. You are slaves to sin.

And by the way, the world still thinks this. Oh, if I become a Christian, I give up my freedom. No, you’re enslaved to sin and don’t even realize it.

It’s when you come to Christ that you experience true freedom. Jesus said this relationship with God was about spiritual life and about spiritual freedom, and it wasn’t just the material benefits and the material blessings, the houses and the land and all the cattle and all the children, those things are great, but it was about being part of God’s family. Because He told them, a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.

He says, if you’re a slave over here, you’re a slave to sin, at some point the slave may not belong in the house anymore. At some point the slave can be cast out. But He said, a son will never be cast out.

And this ties in with what Jesus said so many times about us being adopted into God’s family as His sons and daughters. See, God doesn’t just intend to transfer us from being slaves to sin to now slaves to God, although Paul did describe himself as a slave to God. But the real relationship is that God takes us from being slaves to sin and doesn’t just make us servants in the household of God, but He actually brings us into the household as sons and daughters in this relationship that cannot be taken away.

It’s about being part of God’s family. And unlike the Pharisees who thought this relationship to God came because they were related to Abraham. Jesus said the relationship to God came through Him.

Came through Jesus. He said, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. It’s not your genes, it’s not your ancestry that’s going to make you free.

It’s the Son. It’s what Jesus came to do for us on the cross. And He told them, there’s going to come a day, the Son is going to make you free, and you’ll be free indeed.

That’s what He was offering them. That’s what He offers us today. And so we have these two fundamentally different, these two wildly different visions of what it looks like to have a relationship with God.

One is more of a business arrangement where it says, because I have the right connections, God is obligated to provide me with X, Y, and Z. And the other says, because of what Jesus has done for me, I now can have peace with the God who made me. There’s no overlap between those two.

Jesus was offering them a real relationship with God based on genuine forgiveness but they were content to have a business deal with God based on their DNA and their religious rituals they were content to trust in their own goodness I like what I think it was Adrian Rogers said I don’t trust my best five minutes to get me to God Even my best five minutes are not enough to live up to God’s standard of absolute perfection. My best five minutes are not good enough. So when Jesus offered them something better, rather than consider what He had to say, they grew angry.

They grew angry. It offended them. Because down at the core of who they are, their identity was wrapped up in this business deal they thought they had with God.

and so rather than listen to him rather than think about what he said they they grew angry and they challenged his theology they challenged his character they even challenged his sanity it got ugly and I sat down to try because there is a lot going on here there’s a just like last week’s study there’s a lot that we could spend hours unpacking in this text and I’m not going to do that to you this morning we’re going to focus in on on one thing but I sat down to just try to map out and make sense of the conversation because there is so much there. I even got out the white board in the fellowship hall on Tuesday and started marking it. It looked like, what’s that movie, A Beautiful Mind?

It was kind of a mess. But I sort of paraphrased this conversation, the back and forth. Jesus says, I’ll make you free.

They say, we’re not slaves. He says, you’re slaves to sin just like your father teaches. They said, Abraham is our father.

He said, you act like your father, but it’s not Abraham. They said, you must mean God because he’s our actual father. Jesus said, if God were really your father, you’d love me because he sent me.

But no, the devil is your father. Told you it got ugly. It wasn’t untrue, but it got ugly.

They said, clearly you have a demon. Oh, and out come the insults too. He says, Jesus said, no, I’m just honoring my father and those who follow me will never die.

And they said, even Abraham died. Do you really think you’re greater than Abraham? Jesus said, Abraham himself found hope in the knowledge that one day I would come.

They said, how could Abraham know anything about you when you’re not even 50 years old? And that’s when he said, before Abraham was, I am. And then crickets from their side.

Until they just decided to pick up rocks. When they questioned His authority and His ability to offer things like forgiveness and eternal life and a relationship with the Father, Jesus comes in and He hits them with the theological equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Because this was unthinkable for them.

People will tell us, and I told you this last week, people will tell us even today, Oh, Jesus never claimed to be God. That’s something His followers made up years later. Jesus never claimed to be God.

He did right here. And we might misunderstand it today, but they definitely didn’t misunderstand it. They understood it enough that they wanted to pick up rocks and kill him for blasphemy.

Their focus was on Abraham as their route to God, but Jesus said before Abraham was, I am. So when he said that, he was telling them they didn’t need to look to Abraham for hope. He said Abraham looked to him for hope.

What we need to understand about this whole saying is that Jesus claimed that he was superior to Abraham and that he was equal to the Father. And that’s what upset them. He said, you don’t need to look to Abraham for your hope.

Abraham, look to me. The hope is right in front of you and you’re missing it because you’re looking at Abraham. And if Abraham were here today, he’d be telling you, look to Jesus.

And when he said before Abraham was, he was claiming precedence. He was claiming to be more important than Abraham, which was shocking on its own. But to say that he existed before Abraham, he was also claiming to be eternal. Because we know we don’t live that long, right?

Even Methuselah didn’t live as long as it would take to get from Abraham to Jesus. He was claiming to be more than a man. He was claiming eternality.

He was claiming to be eternal, which is something that belongs only to God. And then when he added at the end of that statement, before Abraham was, I am. We need to understand it’s not just that Jesus is bad at grammar, okay?

Before Abraham, wouldn’t it be I was? No, he’s saying I am. He’s identifying himself with the God of the Old Testament.

Right there, he’s claiming to be God. And this goes back to, among other places, Exodus chapter 3, when Moses found himself on holy ground there on Mount Sinai, and God called out to him through the burning bush. Moses said to God in that chapter, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is his name?

What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

This wasn’t an accident of grammar. Jesus knew exactly what he was saying to the Pharisees. Before Abraham was, I am, equals I am the God of the Old Testament.

And that’s what made them so infuriated, so enraged, that they picked up stones to try to kill him because he was claiming to be every bit as much God as the Father they worshipped. So they were incensed and they tried to kill him right there. Jesus claimed to be God.

And that’s something we have to deal with. Now, you may accept that claim, you may reject that claim, but we’ve got to deal with that claim. We’ve got to come down on one side or the other.

Because there’s a limited number of options that can be true here. Either Jesus is God or He’s not. Either His claim is true or it’s not.

C. S. Lewis, I believe it was, wrote about how Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or Lord.

now at least strobel adds a fourth option to that liar lunatic legend or lord and at some point I’d like to take you through some of the evidence to to to show you that the teaching that the bible has of who jesus is has not changed over time and there’s too much early manuscript evidence too much historical evidence that christians believed immediately after the life of jesus that he was god so that the idea that it was a legend that developed over time couldn’t possibly be true. So we’re left with Jesus claimed to be God, and if He wasn’t God, He was either lying about being God, or He was a crazy person who wasn’t God and thought He was. Either of those are not somebody you want to listen to about moral teachings or anything about God.

I don’t want to listen to somebody tell me about God who’s lying to me. I’ve seen people wandering around downtown talking to themselves and muttering things, talking to people who aren’t there. If they’re crazy, I don’t want to listen to what they tell me about God either.

One of these things has to be true. We have to decide. Each of us has to decide.

When Jesus claimed to be God, which He clearly did, was it true or was it not? Was He a liar? Was He a lunatic?

Or was He telling the truth? Because by His own admission here, Jesus is God the Son. With everything He said to them about this relationship to Abraham, and about Abraham looking to Him for hope, it’s the realization that He is the one God promised all this time.

Jesus was calling Himself the Savior that God promised. He was the Messiah that Abraham waited for. He was the mediator that Hebrews describes, who’s able to bring peace between us and God.

Jesus through this was not just saying I am he was claiming to be everything that God had promised claiming to be God the son in human flesh the God who is able to save us and you and I need to follow today in Abraham’s steps just like he told them they should be doing he said if you really were Abraham’s children you’d be doing the things that Abraham did Abraham was referenced repeatedly in this conversation both by Jesus and the Pharisees everybody was talking about Abraham they were talking about different things with Abraham but they were talking about Abraham because they both had points to make here and he’s presented to us as an example in what Jesus had to say that we should be following Abraham’s example following in his steps not by being religious but by trusting in Jesus instead of looking to Abraham as the source of hope which unless you are Jewish by birth you’re not looking at Abraham as the source of hope but we could easily say, well, you know, Abraham was a good man, so we need to follow in his steps and we need to be good people.

We need to be religious people. We need to do this and that, and that’s where we’ll find our hope. No, instead of looking to Abraham as a source of hope, like they were doing, Jesus told them to follow in his footsteps to find hope.

Their hope wasn’t in Abraham and the things that he did. Their hope was in the same place where Abraham found his hope, and if they’d follow his example, they would find it in the same place. He said, if you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

He said, do what Abraham did. What was that? He’s not talking again about the religious rituals.

He’s not talking about being good because there’s one thing that the Bible says repeatedly about Abraham. I mean, there are several stories in the Bible about Abraham, but there’s one phrase that we find repeatedly in the scriptures about Abraham, not only in the book of Genesis where his story is recorded, but throughout the New Testament as well, and that’s that Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now if God wanted to, he could have said, Abraham did all the right things, and we put the righteousness in his account.

No, he says, Abraham believed God, and I put that in his account as righteousness. It says that in Genesis 15, it says that in Romans 4, it says that in Galatians 3, it says it in James chapter 2, that Abraham believed God. Out of all the things Abraham did, that’s what gets remembered.

That’s what God said was important, was the fact that Abraham believed God. And Jesus said that Abraham looked forward to his coming. Abraham rejoiced to see his day.

Because Abraham understood that God would provide a sacrifice. He said that to Isaac when they walked up the side of the mountain in a story that gets thrown out a lot to attack the Bible. Abraham, after hearing the voice of God, walked up the side of a mountain with his son Isaac to offer sacrifice, believing that he might have to sacrifice his son and being willing to do that if that’s what God wanted.

And the story says, and there in Genesis 22, that as they walked up the side of the mountain, Isaac said, you know, we’ve got the wood, we’ve got the rope, we’ve got the knife, we’ve got everything for the sacrifice, but we don’t have the lamb. Where’s the lamb? And Abraham said to his son, God will provide the sacrifice.

And God did. God provided a ram stuck in a thicket by his horns that day. But more importantly than that, God provided a perfect sacrifice.

Just like he promised all throughout the Old Testament, God provided a perfect sacrifice. That was Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came as that perfect Lamb of God. John the Baptist, when he saw him, even said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus came to be that perfect sacrifice. He came not just as some mere man, but as God in human flesh who lived among us for 30 plus years, never sinned once, never did anything that he had to suffer for so that he could suffer in our place. And he went to the cross where he was nailed there and he shed his blood and he died to pay for our sins in full.

And because of that sacrifice, our slate can be wiped clean. He provided cleansing and forgiveness for our sins that could not be accomplished by all the sacrifices of all the lambs and all the bulls and all the goats throughout the Old Testament. Jesus in one act, in one act of sacrifice, cleared the slate for all of us.

And the answer to us today for how we’re forgiven, for how we have that peace with God, for how we have that relationship with God and how we’re set free and all the things that He was offering them, how we have it, do the same thing Abraham did and believe God. This morning, God offers you that salvation. He offers you that forgiveness.

He offers you peace with Him. He offers it not because you’re good or deserve it, not because there’s anything you can do to earn it. He offers it because Jesus Christ paid for it in full when He died on the cross and rose again.

And now all that’s left for you to do is take God at His word. And this morning, if you understand that you’ve sinned against God and need a Savior and you can’t do it yourself. If you believe that Jesus Christ died in your place to pay for your sins, to pay for every bit of it, and rose again to prove it, then this morning you can cry out to God.

You can ask His forgiveness. And you have not just my word, not the opinion of the church, you have the promise of God in His word that He’ll forgive you, He’ll save you, He’ll give you eternal life and peace with Him. That you can have that relationship with Him today, just like Jesus offered to the Pharisees so long ago.