Who Jesus says He is

1. I’d like to invite Andre; he was an associate pastor here. “Well thank you pastor Gail, Good morning, I’m very pleased to be here at home. If I start crying, it’s your fault. But I’d like to invite my wife Molly and our baby Olive to come forward. We cannot even begin to share what an amazing moment this is for us. For those of you whom we’ve never met, this was a home for us, we called Greece our home for over 10 years, and the great majority of that time was here at this house. Serving the Lord, serving alongside you, pursuing to know Him, and pursuing to grow as a family. For those 7 plus years, we kept trying to add to our family, but the baby would never come. And we would pray and we would press in and we would do treatments, but the baby would never come. But one day after 7 years of trying, and after receiving your prayers, I think the Lord was like ‘OK, my people want this’. I think of that process as delight yourself in Him, and He will fulfil the desires of your heart. And so, about a year and a half, we welcome our baby Olive into the world. We baptized her Olive Agape. And, Olive, as Molly would around Ano Glyfada, and she would pursue and press into God, saying, Lord, I really want this blessing in my life, she would at all the olive trees, and then she would get home and read, I think, Psalm 137, that says ‘Your wife will be fruitful as the vine and your children like olive branches around your table’. And she would claim that promise, so when God fulfilled the promise, there was no way that we could not name her Olive. And, we add an Agape there too, as a reminder of God’s love.
2. “So, it’s such a great joy to be back home this morning, I miss this house, just the moment here worshipping and praying. It brought back so many memories, of things that God worked out in my own life and in my family, and I am wealthy because of those experiences. But if I have anything to tell you this morning is this, that God is a God of promises, and God is a God who is faithful enough to fulfil His promises. He does not speak His Words lightly, as a matter of fact, every Word that He speaks goes out, and it does not return to Him until it is fulfilled. This is the God whom we serve. So, this morning, even as you await promises in your own life, don’t lean so much into the promise itself, but into the God of that promise. Press in to know Him and to pursue Him, and to worship Him, because He will do everything that He said He will do. And there’s no one in heaven, on earth or under the earth that can frustrate His promises.
3. “We’ve had you in our hearts for the last 5 years, and there was a little pandemic there in between, some 3 or so years that we all want to forget, and I’m so glad, that the Lord has opened up a way, right now at this time, because we not only get to bring Olive to meet her family, but we also bring a little baby boy in the womb, due into this world in January. God is so good. God is so faithful, no matter what we go through, He’s still good. He’s still on the throne, and nothing will shake that throne.
4. “So, thank you so much, thank you for receiving us with open arms, thank you for every hug, thank you every kiss, because those are cherished moments. I serve in a church in a little town outside San Diego, California, a little town called Solana Beach, and I oversee our mission’s program and everything else we do in the world. But I was telling people ‘Hey, I’m going back home to Greece,’ they couldn’t understand, ‘What are you going to do there?’ ‘What do you mean, what am I going to do there? I’m going to see my family. I’m going to sit around the table, I’m going to eat some good food, and I’m just going to receive God’s love’. This is the best. To me there’s nothing like it. So, I don’t know if Molly wants to say anything. But thank you. May God bless you. May He continue to keep you. You are in His hands, your days have been written before the foundations of the world – and that’s just a fact. And I take great comfort in that, to know that the God who cares for us, does it so much out of love, because He’s first and foremost ‘Father’, then He’s everything else. So, we have a big Father in heaven who loves us. Amen”.
5. Now Gail Stathis prays for the couple and Olive.

1. Gail starts to preach the word: “I’m excited to see members of the family doing things, it’s good, right? It’s like your kids at home, if you never let them do things, they’d never learn, right? I’m excited, I want to share the word, even though Andre preached a little bit, thank God.
2. We’re going to be looking in John 7 And I don’t have a PowerPoint today, because we’re trying to encourage people to use the Word. But before we go there, I’m not going to turn there in the Scripture, In Ephesians 3:8b, it says something so powerful, it talks about ‘The unsearchable riches of Christ’. That thought, it always makes me stop, because it means really, we can never know all of that. But it would be impossible to communicate all about Christ because it’s so much. And this is what I want to share a little bit about today. That this Christ, this Jesus, there’s so much about Him, that we cannot know it all. And I have the privilege this morning of sharing just a little bit of that with you.
3. Did you know that there are 256 names for Jesus in the Bible? Because one name is not enough, one name can’t describe Him, He has the ‘Name above every other name’, amen. He’s the ‘Bright and Morning Star’. He’s called ‘The Father to the fatherless.’ He’s called, ‘The Husband to the widow’. He’s called, ‘The Brightness of God’s Glory.’ There is just not one Name that can describe Him. He even defies or confuses people in the world. In chemistry, He turned water into wine; for the biologist, they tried to figure out how He could come through a virgin birth; for those who study economics, how can you take 5 loaves of bread, and feed 5000 people. For those in medicine, He heals without a prescription, Hallelujah. He has no degree, but is the greatest Teacher that ever lived. He never won a military battle, but He conquered the world - Hallelujah. The world tried to crucify Him, to keep Him down, keep Him buried forever. But they couldn’t keep Him there.
4. For those of you who study music, you probably know Handel, he writes oratorials, and always in the great pieces he writes, when God enters the piece, the way you know it’s the time for God to come in, Handel always has trumpets – the Deity has come into the music. When God is in the room, Deity is with us. Jesus is so amazing, did you know that just His very presence, has knocked people off their feet. There He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and suddenly a whole group of Roman soldiers, about 600, they come to get Him. But the ‘I AM’ was there. And when He said I AM, they fell to the ground. Because God was there, Hallelujah.
5. Beyond any doubt today, God is in control. Amen. He is I AM, He is in control, Hallelujah. And I believe the Lord wanted me to share this Word today and also for you to hear Molly and Andre being here today, that God will do what He says He will do, in His time, and in His way. Amen. Maybe, you’re here this morning with some doubts, I don’t know, do you ever wonder, ‘Is He really who He says He is?’ Do you ever ask yourself, ‘Is Jesus really committed to me?’ He wants you today, to know the presence of who He is, to know the person who He is, to know the power of who He is. He wants us to really own the knowledge today, and He wants to live with you. He wants to be with you. We don’t need anything or anyone else at the end of the day. He gives us friendships and family, also gifts from Him, but above it all, He is God and God alone, who created the world, and created us, for His pleasure, and this God wants to know us today, thank you Lord.
6. So, for just a few minutes today, I want us to look at what Jesus said about Himself. And when He says, ‘I am God, I AM’, I want to remind you that in Exodus 3, in the Old Testament, the Jews understood, when God said, ‘I AM that I AM’, they understood that God was saying, ‘I am God’. When the voice spoke out of the bush, the burning bush, ‘I am God’, and He’s wanting us today, to let our doubts go away. Let go of that today. Yes, we will have some difficult times. But He is calling us, to know Him, and to know that He knows us, and He’ll never leave us.
7. Jesus didn’t come to elaborate on the theological system, we want to let Him define who He is, Amen. I always like the name ‘I AM’, it’s not just something in the past, not something in the future. Every moment of every day ‘I AM’. Ten minutes from now, ‘I AM’, twenty-four hours from now, ‘I AM’. He always is ‘I AM’. We don’t have to look to the past, or the future, just ‘I AM’. Seven times in the book of John, Jesus will say ‘I AM’. You might want to turn to the book of John 6:35 in your bibles, ‘I AM the bread of life’. Jesus was emphatically telling the crowd that day, ‘I AM God’.
8. At that time of life, bread was elementary, a basis for life. At every meal you had bread, if you had nothing else you had bread. And these people were hungry, they’d been listening to Jesus, you probably know the story. Day is ending and there was no food, and Jesus says, ‘I’m going to give them bread’. Actually, He tells the disciples, ‘You give them bread’. They had no idea how this was going to happen. But the ‘I AM’, was there in the crowd. ‘I AM’. We’re not going to dwell on this, but we’re going to look at 7 different definitions of ‘I AM’. But very quickly, when I was thinking about bread today, that even in today’s world it will often satisfy. If you have an upset stomach, you’ll have a piece of bread, it kind of calms your stomach. Sometimes a piece of bread can satisfy, when nothing else can. And thinking about Jesus saying, ‘I am the bread of life’, He, I believe, was wanting us to know, when nothing else can satisfy that hunger, ‘Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.’
9. When nothing else can fill the emptiness inside, Jesus, the bread of life, He satisfies when nothing else does. And we have to remember that sometimes we look for something to help us in the moment, but when He says ‘I will feed you, I will satisfy you’, I think what He is trying to get us to do, is to understand, in the satisfying, in the feeding us, He wants us to put our eyes on Him, so that we will know that we are made for a higher purpose, than just for the immediate hunger. Sometimes, we don’t look like we get satisfied, we looking here and there and everywhere, but when we find the ‘I AM’ can satisfy us every moment, then we can begin to focus, on the greater things that God has called us to be for Him. I feel so excited to know that we are made for a higher purpose.
10. Everyone has spiritual needs today. People look in all different ways and places, except for Jesus. But when Jesus says ‘I AM’, He’s letting us know ‘I can answer every need’. Today, I want to challenge you, as I’m challenging myself. The world is trying to define who Jesus is, just love. No, He’s not! He’s also holy. He’s righteous. I want Jesus to define who He is. And that will help us in this day in which we live, to live for the higher purpose. Man will always try to put Jesus in a box. But the ‘I AM’ is saying today, ‘Let me out of the box! Let Me be God, the I AM, that can do anything, the impossible. I will never leave you. I want to define to you,’ God is saying, ‘Who I AM’.
11. The world is trying to define what Church should look like and be like, but the Church is built on Jesus. He’s the Head and the Cornerstone, Amen. Not the definitions of man. And He’s wanting us to enlarge our vision, of the I AM. Only a Church that can identify with Jesus Christ, can stand against the gates of hell. Nothing but Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father God, can stand against what is coming. His is the Name that is above every name, and He is wanting us to see Him as this great big wonderful God. Actually, we won’t take time to read it, but I love John 1:1; it looks a lot like Genesis 1:1. John wants to remind us, that before anybody lived, Jesus was, the ‘I AM’ was. ‘In the beginning was the Word. He was alive.’ Jesus was on the Throne of the universe, before anything was created. He lived before you and I were born. Oh, this is the ‘I AM’. And He says He’s the bread of life.
12. After He feeds the 5000 people, now I want you to stop and think about yourself, because we’re all human, and often we say about things in the Bible, ‘Oh, I would never be like that’. But you would, you would, I promise. He feeds these 5000 people, they’re excited, their stomach is full, what do those people do? They come forcibly and grab Him to make Him King. ‘Oh, be King. You gave us free bread; we want this guy to be King! Free bread.’ But Jesus wouldn’t explain who the Bread of Life really was, more than free bread that goes in the mouth and goes out of the body.
13. I need this God, I need this ‘I AM’, that not only satisfies the physical need, but every desire of my heart, if I give it to Him, as Andre said. He will answer. When we try to do life without God, something will always be missing. No matter how many goals you reach. We may have the next most famous singer in the world here in our church, yeah, Amen, Amen. We might have an Olympic swimmer connected to our family. But you can reach all of those goals, and if you don’t have God, something will still be missing. John 8:12, ‘I AM the light of the world’.
14. Some men are getting ready to stone this woman, I always find it kind of interesting, because to commit adultery there have to be 2 people, a man and a woman. But I love when Jesus comes into the picture. ‘Do any of you have sin?’ And of course, adultery was a pretty dirty I love it that Jesus kneels down and rights in the dirt. We don’t know what He wrote. But the men saw it. He dealt with the woman and the men. If you don’t have sin, you could throw the first stone. The thing that’s powerful about this is, Jesus says now in this story, I’m the light of the world. What does light do? It reveals.
15. I remember when I was a little girl and I would go and visit my grandma, I would go into the kitchen on tip toes, because she was really kind of poor, and she had a long string for the light in the kitchen and on my tip toes as quickly as I could, to pull the string to put the light on, because I might catch something under my foot, cockroaches. She had roaches and mice. When the light goes on, they scurry; light reveals their presence. I want to in the light. I don’t want to be living with the roaches and the mice. Jesus says ‘I am the light’ and when He is in us, we become His light.
16. Let’s quickly look at some of these others. I’m so glad that light exposes, don’t you? In John 10:11, Jesus also says, ‘I am the good Shepherd’. In John 11:25, Jesus also says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. In John 10:10, Jesus says, ‘I am the door’. In John 14:6, Jesus says ‘I am the way the truth and the light’. We could talk about all of these ‘I am’ statements, this is actually 7 sermons. But today as we finish August, I wanted for just a moment today, to turn our thoughts to the relationship with ‘I am’. When Jesus comes into your life, the lights go on. It’s true!
17. I kind of watch for things now, that make me think about Jesus getting ready for this world, to receive Him coming again. And when the ‘I am’ is with us, we begin to notice those things, not out of fear, but of joy that He is getting us ready. I just learned this last week, Amazon, in America, they now have a system to pay for your purchases, it’s not everywhere, it’s just in a few States, you don’t need your, you don’t need your wallet, you don’t need cash. Already in several states, they have scanned the palm of your hand, and the arteries underneath your palm, and you simply hold it up to the screen and show your hand, and make your payment. And you guys know what that means, don’t you? If I was focusing only on what was happening, I want to be ready, that’s not a relationship with the ‘I am’. That’s a relationship with fear, and it’s a relation of how man defines how God works. But when I have a relationship with Him, with the ‘I am’, I have light, and I’m going to understand things are happening and I’m going to get ready. I will understand that He’s the Good Shepherd.
18. Did you know, in Israel at that time, that the sheep pen, only had one door, there weren’t two or three. There was only one way for the sheep to go in and out. And you know where the shepherd slept? At the door. So, he brought the sheep in, and he would sleep at the door, to protect them from wandering away. ‘I AM the Good Shepherd’. I love that. You know that sheep are one of a very few animals, that have no real defense. You don’t see sheep going around biting people and showing their fangs. You don’t see sheep jumping up upon their back legs and attacking. Sheep are dependent, and I think the ‘I am’ today wants us to remember, ‘You can depend on Me! Not only am I the Good Shepherd, but I am the Door’. And I need a strong door, I need Him to keep me safe in the sheep pen, don’t you? He’s alert when the wolves try to come; He’s alert, when the thieves try to come, and if I keep my eyes on Him, I know, He’ll take care of the wolf, Amen. I know that He’ll not let the fox steal me. Because He’s committed. He who keeps you, He never slumbers nor sleeps. Oh, I love that; He never slumbers. Thank you, Lord.
19. There’s just one more thing; oh, there’s so much I’d love to share with you today. The shepherd often has a sling shot, and this sling shot is not so much for the wolf as it is for the sheep. The shepherd will throw this stone, to warn them, ‘You’re too close to the edge. Come back, come back’.
20. There are 2 more, but I’m going to dwell on John 11:25, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. He just keeps saying this, ‘I Am, I Am, I Am’, I think, if you read in John 8, if I remember right, Jesus keeps saying, four or five times, ‘I Am. I Am…’. John11:25, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. This is the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. And you might remember, Jesus knew that Lazarus, His friend, was sick. And his siters believed that Jesus should come, that He should come. He didn’t come. Jesus may not always come, listen to this, when you want Him to. But Jesus is always right on time. We need to get on God’s timetable, Amen? Sometimes, the Lord will allow the situation to look like everything is dead. Lazarus died, but the Lord Jesus taught, in this situation, ‘I am more than a healer, I’m also the resurrector; I will resurrect and bring life, Amen. Yes, He could have healed Lazarus. But this morning, Jesus has authority over death and the grave, Amen. Mary knew Him as a healer, but she didn’t know He could resurrect.
21. Sometimes, we just… I’m just going to say this about Martha. Martha has said, if I going to go to the hospital and get healed that way, it’s OK. If I’m healed miraculously, that’s OK. But if the Lord chooses to bring me home, I’m OK, I’m OK. Oh Hallelujah, Lord, help us to know there is a better place, and that the I AM, will always be there, here there, now, forever, I AM, Amen.
22. And the Lord says, in John 15:1, ‘I AM, the true vine’. He wants us to stay connected to Him. When we are connected to Him, we become that expression of Him. We will have fruit, because we are connected to life. We have to stay connected or we’ll die. We’ll dry up. But when we abide in Him, when we stay connected to Him, ‘He says you can ask what you will, and it will be done.’ Because you’re so connected. You know His life, and you know what He wants. His presence, His life is in you. That’s why He can finally say in John 14:6, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’.
23. Good people don’t go to heaven, that’s an argument a lot of people say today, ‘I’ll go to heaven. I’m a good person.’ But we’ve said this for a couple of weeks now. There was only One good person who ever lived, and they killed Him. He’s alive, the I AM, the good One is alive, Amen. And we cannot go to heaven without Jesus. Religion won’t get you there. Men don’t like to let go of the authority over their own lives. Only Jesus. Only Jesus, I AM. Some of you, I don’t know that everybody will have heard the Word today, but for those of you that did, just basically, the Lord is saying, ‘I’m calling you for something more. I’m calling you for more of Me’. I don’t want you to live negatively all the time, doubting. But to live for Your wants all the time. There’s so much more, there’s so much more. Jesus, wants to lead us and be with us, He wants to take your doubts and worries, and care for you, and be with you, like never before.
24. Pastor Gail prays.