Gracious and loving God, it's been an awesome day. We have felt your presence from the very beginning.
But Lord, we thank you for the holy spirit that you have sent. We thank you God for sending even more as the word comes forth.
Move me behind the cross that the words of my mouth will be pleasing unto you and that it will put our hearts and our minds and our souls
that we may be transformed from this point forward. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Class of 68, I want to catch you up a little bit from last week because this sermon is the second in a series.
Last week I didn't know it was a series, but God put it on my heart and made it a series. Amen.
So I don't want you to be behind the time, so I'm just going to catch you up a bit.
The last of this series will be preached on the fourth Sunday in this month, and it will simply help us to come together to know one thing.
And the sermon series is simply how to get to know God. Last week we talked about are you hungry yet?
That Jesus is the bread of life and that's what we're going to focus on this morning.
But yesterday's journey and last week's situation help us to know that God is with us all the time. Amen.
I don't know what went on in your life yesterday. I don't even know what went on in everybody's situation.
But the world faced some things this week when there was a bomb plot. But guess what?
There are bomb plots all over the world. There are areas where Satan wants to destroy the joy of the Lord.
And it is up to us to remember that we are seeking the bread of life.
So the sermon last week simply asked questions about what it means to know what it means to be hungry.
Not hungry for any food, but hungry for manna from heaven. Food. Spiritual food.
We ask are you hungry enough to get forgiveness? Are you hungry enough to stop blocking your blessings and confess unto God?
Are you hungry enough to want to eat together with one another? You know those cousins from the family reunion?
A woman when I was away shared a story about two different groups of people.
Both groups of people were truly hungry. And they both sat in these rooms with these great big bowls and these great big spoons.
But one room was starving to death and one room kept saying, oh that's really good.
Same number of people, same big bowl of soup, same spoons.
But what was the difference? One had learned to feed each other. And the other said, you ain't going to get my spoon.
So we have to ask are you hungry enough to unify, to serve one another, to love one another, to care for one another?
And if you are, then you're ready to have everlasting life.
Because if you can confess unto God and seek God and receive the food that is not perishable but everlasting, you can connect with Jesus Christ.
So with that in mind, the question today is do you know who I am in?
Tell it to your neighbor, do you know who I am in? And I know there's somebody who's an English teacher right now that says teacher statement.
Oh my goodness gracious. Oh no, it's not one of those regular English teacher question statements.
And don't write that on the paper like that. But the great I am is the I am of all I am.
And there's no other way to put it because when you see all the I am statements in the book of John, you just have to step back and say,
mmm, mmm, mmm, ain't the great I am good? Isn't he awesome?
Some of us say well, the great I am knows me and that's all I need to do.
But my question in part two of getting to know Jesus is do you know the great I am?
Not just any I am but the great I am. The I am who is the good shepherd.
The I am who is the bread of life. The I am who is the light of the world.
The I am who is the resurrection, the way, the truth, and the light. The I am who died on Calvary, loathed for our sins.
The I am who breathes breath into us every day.
I've often said to people try holding your breath and see if you can keep yourself alive.
And if you can't, you have to realize the breath of life comes from somewhere that's not within you.
Do you know the great I am? The bright and morning star, the lily of the valley.
Turn to your neighbor and say neighbor, do you know the great I am?
Some of them, some of your neighbors not going to answer you.
You have the audacity to ask me do I know the great I am. I'm in the house of God. I know Jesus Christ as my personal savior.
What do you mean you want to know do I know the great I am?
Some question that pastor had a nerd ask me.
The question is since we know him, do we live like we know him? Do we believe like we know him?
Oh yeah, you're told of our fucking locality, I'm listening. Because the grace of God moves upon each of us.
But we have to be willing to walk in our fucking transform.
And that's what the great I am does when you get to know him.
But you see, knowing Jesus Christ means that you learn to seek the truth.
And let it penetrate by faith into your whole body.
Every aspect of your life is impacted and touched by knowing God.
Oh yeah, knowing God takes time. But he knows everything about us.
He knows how many checks that we have done.
That he has forgiven us because the bank has given us an opportunity to do something different.
He knows every situation when we went to sleep on a test.
All right, nice and big day. Some of y'all went to sleep on a test.
And a teacher gave you grace and said, I'm going to give you a break unless you take a test again.
You know they did. Because they knew your mama, they knew your daddy.
It was off the street. They worked with one another.
Now look here, girl. Don't let me bring you in the office tomorrow.
I promise you the truth.
But you see, that's how the Jews were.
The Jews were trying to figure out how this great guy named Jesus Christ, who was the son of Lordy and Joseph,
could be who they said he was, coming down from heaven.
That's that boy off the street.
You can't be talking about that, Miss Peter.
That's not the one he's talking about. It's the bread of life.
You confuse him. He's a carpenter.
God even lets us know there's multitasking way back there.
You may have a job on the front, but the calling on your life is bigger than your job.
So the other part of this is when you get to know the great guy, you don't get hung up on what to do for a living.
You get hung up on what you do for life.
Do you live or not to love Jesus Christ every day through all situations?
And all situations have to be looked at.
God is not a conditional God.
The great I Am loves you every day, every hour.
Anyway, do it all.
When you look back and wonder how you got over, when you look back and wonder how you was today,
when you look back to 1968 and say, who kept you?
You've got to say it was the great I Am.
Whether he kept you yesterday, last week, 52 years, 99 years, 102 years,
or by how long he has kept you.
He is the difference between having any life and having a great life.
Any life won't do when you are part of the I Am crew.
You want the life to be brought by Jesus Christ.
You want the one that will make you get up in the morning and say,
Holy Moose, it is Jesus.
I'm glad to be a wasted soul.
I don't care what the world has to say about me.
I'm just glad to be in the house of the Lord looking for Jesus.
That was the commercial for the great I Am.
We have to be willing to embrace forgiveness.
Not just any kind of forgiveness.
Show no stop down.
Call all the people who are on the short list, you're lonely.
And clear the slate.
If there is anything in between any of us, God forgive us.
Call upon the love of Jesus Christ to do something new.
Y'all, it's your 38th anniversary.
Some of us are getting ready to celebrate many different anniversaries in our lives.
But it's interesting, 38 is true before 40.
And when you get to be 40, something happens.
Y'all have happened to reach 40 years in your life.
But you get ready to reach 40 years out of high school.
So that means you get ready to go into a new season.
Nothing used to bother you, you looked at it and said,
Ah, you won't get my joy.
You won't get my situation.
You won't raise a hay on my head.
Because you don't like that no more.
I already settled it.
And I'm happy about it.
We began to imitate.
Like the Ephesian pastor said, you need to imitate.
And be Christ like.
We ain't trying to be like Mike.
We ain't trying to shoot five hoops.
We ain't trying to be what we used to be yesterday around the corner.
Because the truth be told.
What we look like now, we didn't look like this.
We didn't make our hair and wash up our hands so quick.
We didn't make our bodies and feet begin like this.
Because the truth be told.
That we still got an hourglass figure.
We just added a few minutes to it.
But God is still with us.
Oh yes he is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah he is.
God may change things, but our hearts keep working on being a heart regulator.
Somebody needs to judge at a pace, make eye out to my face.
Do you think they can put the right speed on it?
This sister can walk faster than anybody,
drive a better than anybody, play.
And she just, she moves.
And she'll tell you quick, I'm 80 something years young, yada yada yada yada.
But she allowed God to change her a long time ago.
You've been set free, you are free indeed.
Are you hungry enough to get to know God?
To receive the man of heaven that will give you eternal life.
Nobody's perfect.
We are all in process.
Every day is a chance for new mercy.
I know some of you are saying if she only knew what the doctor had told me,
that I just can't seem to do yet.
I'm going to get to it next week.
Don't worry about what the doctor told you.
And say I know what he told you.
I have to be concerned about what the doctor has told me.
But more importantly I have to hear with Jesus Christ.
We all got to have a moment where we're getting old.
Obedience is better than acceptance.
And it's good to know that God knows you.
But it's greater to know that you know who he is in you.
Because he has a preferred Christ-like vision for our lives.
I want you to think about these things.
Jesus told us to do two things.
To become baptized so that we would be adopted into the body of Christ.
Take and eat of the bread and light.
And worship.
Not just to know him, but to remember him, to embrace him, to feel him in our spirit.
Because without him we cannot be transformed.
There used to be a little jingle, transformers more than we thought.
That was after 68.
That's probably the kids' stuff that everybody says.
But I know you know.
The attitude about transformation is we've got to confess unto God.
We've got to be willing to allow God to renew and restore our lives.
We've got to be willing to get together to unify.
We can't be all on these separate little islands.
I got this. We got that.
We got that.
Come together as one body, one baptism.
Because if we believe more things together, then what's the separate doctrine of this and that and the other?
You put together this to ask me.
Talk about what you really, really, really believe about Jesus Christ.
And you find that you have more in common than you don't.
I want to share with you a little statement that comes out of the discipline of the United Methodist Church.
And it just talks about we believe that sacraments are ordained by Christ.
Are symbols and pledges for the Christian profession of God's love towards us.
They are a means of grace by which God works invisibly in us.
Quickened, strengthened, and confirming our faith unto Him.
The common ground is Jesus Christ.
Embrace that in your relationship with one another.
Take the time to get things straight.
Somebody ought not walk in a room and every time they walk in, your skin flinges.
And you say, oh, yeah, I forgave them. I really did.
I forgave them ten years ago, but it's not my bad when they come in the room.
They bend over it.
And you feel old and old to the old and I'll be just holding on.
And they don't even know why you're hot with them.
By the grace of God, our discipleship to Jesus Christ
calls us into an orderly relationship that's about love, mercy, grace, forgiveness.
And I'm going to step on somebody's toes because I'm going to step on my own.
We say we forget when we hold into the little thing in the pocketbook.
Today let it be the last day of the year.
You know in 1956 you fell out with the 1960s? It's over.
And for all the other people wherever you fell out with, near 1, 2, 5, 7, 1906,
this is all year 2008, full hour is over.
In the name of Jesus, God is giving us new mercy each day
and we missing it, holding on to last year's drama.
He gives us newness and we not taking it for what it was.
The girl or the guy you was dating back then, they done married,
you done divorced them, it's over.
You all not doing no more basketball, anyhow.
So what they got the last day in stock.
Lastly, in knowing Jesus and becoming more Christlike,
read the passage, the other passage in the lectionary, Ephesians 4, 25,
and read it all the way up to 5, verse 2.
I'm just going to give you the opening line.
So then putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors,
for we are members of one body, be angry but do not sin.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger.
I'm going to stop right there.
For all of you who used to say, good momma was making that up,
that's where it's from, Ephesians 4, verse 26.
You always wanted to know where that was, there it is, in black and white.
Do not make room for the devil.
These must give up stealing, rather let them labor and work honestly
with their hands so as to have to share something with the needy.
And then it goes on to talk about all the things you ought to put away.
But I want to close simply with what it says, put on.
Verse 5 wants us therefore be imitators of God.
And live in love as Christ loved you and gave himself up for us,
a fragrant offering and a sacrifice unto God.
If we are to know God, we have to understand what he gave up for each of us.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, both divine and both human.
Live in self the pain of being in a human vibe.
But follow through the scripture instead that he would die for our sins.
We are atoned and given the opportunity for newness because we get to know him.
He already knows.
If you want to get to know him, if you want to know the bread of life,
the shepherd of all shepherds, the bright and morning star,
the newness that is given unto you each day, stop hating.
Stop loving.
Know for the grace is awesome.
His mercy is like none other.
And if you're not walking out your soul's salvation somewhere,
this is a good place to walk it out.
For life is great when you live it.
It's even better when you live it Christ's life.
Life is awesome when you live it, but it's better when it honors Jesus Christ.
If you're hungry enough to eat, you won't hunger anymore
because you will have eaten from the bread of life.
Let your change in your spirit, in your soul, in your attitude begin today.
Allow your head and your heart to be guided through with love by Jesus Christ.
May the great I Am be known to you this day a little bit more.
Are you hungry enough to get to know him?
Or are you even hungry enough to let it go forth and be a blessing unto others?
The doors of the church are open.
Where you stand?
And think, let God take my name.
If you're contemplating and thinking about your relationship with Jesus Christ
and you're not sure that you know about his honor and love,
his awesome and awesome,
let God take my name.