25.10 | Who He is

John 10:22-42

“…do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”

John 10:36

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Jesus is really pressing the point now.

We’re ten chapters into John’s Gospel, and there is one theme that just keeps coming back at us, again and again and again.

Who Jesus is.

Throughout John’s Gospel, there are seven times where He makes clear claims about Himself — outrageous claims — using key metaphors from His own actions mingled in with the Old Testament Scriptures:

I am the bread of life (John 6:35, 48, 51)

I am the light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5)

I am the door of the sheep (John 10:7, 9)

I am the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14)

I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)

I am the true vine (John 15:1)

There is nothing more central in the Gospel of John than the identity of Jesus. John puts it this way at the end of the book: 

These [things] are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.¹

The entire purpose of all that John wrote is this: that you might believe that Jesus is who He said He was, and that through this belief your life may be filled with the abundant life of eternity, both now and into ages untold before us.

Why is this important?

Because among the deepest dysfunctionality of our age is the obsessive focus upon the self. Liberty, as our culture has taught us, is found through exploring and articulating my identity. My story. My significance. My purpose. Every story, every movie, every advertising agency, and a good many parenting books and teaching curriculums tell us about the centrality of me, and the necessity of being the hero of your story. We’ve been rubbed in this seasoning from birth, and so it is no wonder we’ve well absorbed its flavours.

We think that we find life in our name, not His.

To know yourself is no bad thing. It is a good  thing — a holy and biblical thing. 

And yet, my friends, it is not the most essential thing. And until we make the essential thing our most essential thing, we will continue to dysfunction.

For the most essential thing for you and I is the most essential theme of John: who Jesus is. For He is the organising reality not just for every single atom of the cosmos, and for every single moment of your life. Because your life does not exist at the centre of this story, yet only finds its significance and beauty and meaning and purpose and truest shape when it learns to dance around His. For He exists at the centre of all stories, and thus the exclusive way to the fullness of life that He promises² is when we abandon our compulsive focus on me and learn the stunning liberties of wrapping our story around Him.

Does this offend us?

Maybe a little.

And yet, it is also so liberating. For it is the invitation to let go. To let go of our endless focus upon the self — with all its insecurities and vanities and self-promotion and self-creation. It is the invitation to shift the exhausting focus on self to the life-giving gaze that centres on Him.

For knowing Him is is the way to life.

And yet, there is a little more.

For the life that learns to centre upon Him, begins to learn more truly who they are. For the discovery of Him most truly leads to the discovery of your self.

For He came as a human, to restore us to the fullness of humanity.

For He came to heal us, to show us the very nature of the Father.

For He came as the Son of God, to restore us to the Father of love.

For He came as one with God, in order to restore us fully to bear the image of the divine. 

Who He is sets the pattern for who you are and who I am. Every day. Every moment. Every choice. Whatever anyone says about you or does to you or expects of you.

For the matter of greatest importance — at the centre of your every moment and every day and your entire life — is simply this:

Who He is.

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Reflect:

What if the significance of my life is only found as it wraps into Jesus’ story? 

What do I have to let go of?

What do I gain?

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

I wonder, as I sit with such ideas as these,

That herein may be

The solution to my contentment,

And the solution to

Life.

For, Lord, if my story 

Is only truly found in yours,

Then maybe I can perfectly let go:

I can let go of my anxieties and grasping;

I can let go of my insecurities and reputation;

I can let go of my vanity and my fear;

I can let go of the compulsive desire to craft the perfect life.

For, Lord, if I am to truly find my life in you,

Then I already have all things,

For all things are yours.

And here, I find the healing, and the love, and the very nature

Of the Father,

Entering into me.

And so, Lord Jesus Christ,

I make you the centre,

That all that I am

May be lived unto you,

And all that you are

May be manifest in this life.

In Your Name,

King Jesus,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Nehemiah 10-11 | Proverbs 26:17-21

1. John 20:31

2. John 10:10