I Am Statements 1 After Hours

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

On Finishing Well, we help you make godly choices about Medicare, long-term care, and your money. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. From an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here, now. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We're glad you're with us today, and we are continuing to talk about the I Am statements that Jesus makes, specifically in the book of John.

A lot of those are in chapter 10, but there are no other chapters there. And so we're talking about the I Am statements, and we're continuing on that trend. And so, Danny, you actually have the first clip of this show. Would you like to tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, it's from a show called Fire Country, and it's not Andy Griffith, as you pointed out before the show.

And so you try to tread other waters and get grief anyway. You're branching out. Yeah, and set it on fire. But Fire Country is a family dynamic, and lots of men and his wife and his son, and they're all firefighters in Southern California, I think. And this scene is, you know, there's always, you know, where there's family, there's dynamics, and this scene, the wife is driving a fire truck out of. They were trying to get this compound of people out before this forest fire took over their place there. And so they ended up, they weren't going to go, but by the time they decided they were leaving, their cars had caught fire. So they had to put 13 people in a fire truck. And the road is on fire.

And I chose this because of the shepherding factor of it. And what you're going to hear is her husband, who is with a guy who's flying a drone, and coaching her while she's driving, pretty much blind in the smoke in the fire. This fire truck, I've got two firefighters on top, under a fire tent, and they're riding literally through flames. And her husband is calmly shepherding her out of this predicament. And you can hear the panic, you can hear the chaos, but you can hear his calm voice. And we can talk about it afterwards. But just great clip.

This is engine 1591. You've got to go. I have 13 lives on the line and two firefighters on the roof.

On the roof? Dave, Gabriella, pack in there tight. Are you ready?

We're ready. Sharon? I got to. The smoke is getting thicker.

I can barely see past the windshield now. You have to give me something. This is nerve. Sharon, can you hear me? Vince? Vince, we're surrounded by the fire and not getting out of it. And I have a lot of scared people in here.

I know. Take a breath, okay? Just you and me now. I'm right next to you. There's an opening left coming in about 30 seconds. You're going to want to hit the gas pedal hard, but don't do that, okay?

Just resist that urge and just tap the pedal with your toes, okay? Nice and easy. Right here. Now. Easy, easy. Okay, fire shelter in the back. It's aluminum.

Put it up against the window. Sharon, hard right now. Yes, that's my girl. Sharon, cut right again. Cut right right now. You know, so often in life, you find that your world's on fire, and that was kind of the scenario that we were looking at there in a physical form, but, you know, so often we're in a panic. We're like Sharon. We're in a panic, and we want to put the pedal to the metal and get out of there. But there's that voice in our lives.

It's Jesus that's telling, no, I don't need you to do that. It wouldn't be a good idea. And, you know, it took me back to several different scenarios in my life because my life had been on fire a bunch. But what I was thinking about. It burned all your hair off. It did.

You can tell. But what I was thinking about was, you know, in 1994 when I got sober, you know, coming out of, you know, addiction from cocaine and alcohol, and, you know, my life was literally on fire. But the urge to do what I wanted to do was the rescue was to rush and to put everything back like I thought it should be. And there were those voices in my life that God put in my life. Mentors and family members that would say, no, you don't need to step on the gas right here.

You need to, you know, focus on a relationship with God and some spiritual stuff and solidify your life. And thank goodness for those people that did that. I had it for a long time. I don't know what happened to it.

It was a little cartoon thing that I had on my refrigerator forever. And a little lady gave it to me in recovery. And she said, it was a guy riding a snail. She said, I hope this is how your recovery goes.

Slow and ungracious. And I thought, what a mean thing to say. But what she was saying was, if you move too fast, you're going to miss something. And you're going to miss what you're really going to need later on.

And that to me, you know, that's Jesus being a good shepherd. No, we don't need to run here. We don't need to do this. We need to focus right here. And him telling us, and then he's saying, step on the gas and those kind of things. And to me, that's life because it's real easy to sit in Sunday school class or in, you know, your men's group or something and talk about the principles of God and talk about those things. But when your world's on fire and you think you know what to do, you really and truly better listen to the voice in your ear and your heart's here. You know, not the voice of the enemy, the right voice that says, okay, I'm right here with you. I'm beside you.

Let's walk through this. It's good. It's good. Is that the I am the fire of life statement?

Yeah, just the opposite of water. Yeah, I think it's kind of cool that in that clip, the husband of the bride is the calming voice, right? And that's our position, right? The husband, Jesus, we're the bride of Christ in the church. He's the calming voice. What I had to take out in part of it was because we keep them under two minutes was the other voice. The guy driving the drone was talking to her originally. And the more he talked to her, the more frustrated she got.

Right. And finally, her husband stepped in and he says, I'm talking to her. He said, who authorized?

He said, I did since I'm over the whole thing. But he steps in and because he knew how to talk to her. And, you know, our good shepherd knows how to talk to us.

Sheep hear my voice. Yeah, that relationship based on love and trust. Yes. Right. Which is key when you have those things and that can be calming to you. But the absence of that.

Oh, yeah. There's not going to be any calmness. Yeah, there's going to be chaos.

Exactly. Terry, is there anything you want to add? You want to jump in or you just want to sit and listen for a while? Well, sitting and listening has been fun. But guys, I've enjoyed it.

Everything. And you guys have said some awesome things. And I you know what? I enjoy you guys sharing some of your life experiences in this as far as as far as, you know, kind of making your point.

That's that's been awesome. I mean, because the truth of every man is in his heart. And when he speaks his heart, he speaks that truth. And to hear that, you have to have that heart to hear it.

You know, God clears that passage for you. You know, and I can I can see the power here. And I, you know, and I just I'm glad to be here to be up in there with you guys. We're very glad to have you. We have a guest with us tonight, Terry Prophet, local men's ministry leader.

Right. And so he's came just kind of dropping in and getting to meet some of us tonight and get to learn about us. We're very grateful to have you here. Welcome any time you want to come.

We'd love to have you. Rodney, you're actually up next. Yes. Yes. Oh, that's it. No, I wouldn't say that next.

No, I'll wait and say something. You want to say more. Is it the outlaw Josie Shepherd? You know, it's right. Oh, you know, that's where my mind went. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be out of Josie Wales at some point.

I'm sure. Shepherd Josie. Yeah. Shepherd Josie Wales.

Yeah. What what is it for a shepherd? It could have been the good, the bad and the ugly. Could have been the shepherd.

High Plains drifter. The good, the bad and the shepherd. Yeah.

The good, the bad, the ugly is our description on Facebook. It is. Yeah. But the only one of us has Danny cam. I'm just saying.

Well, there is only one Danny. Thank you, God. Yeah.

I'm grateful he's part of our group is what I was trying to say there. It is. Yeah. Yeah. You say a lot of things.

I know I do. Anyway, you're up, Rodney. Well, the first thing I went to is, OK, basically, the I am statements in John are kind of the centerpiece of what all the John's about, which is the deity of Christ. You know, it opens up the word was God was with God, all that. You know, John one just opening up. It's all about deity.

And that's where I was trying to figure out where could I ever find a clip about like where Andy was at, you know, with before Abraham was. I am. I was thinking more along the lines of I went to Gethsemane when they all they said they're looking for Jesus of Nazareth.

I am. And then they all fall down and fall back. You know, that's the same thing. It's like the power of just I am right there. They all fall down and just it's like, how do they go on and even arrest him?

I don't know. You know, I just I'm like, wow, that's powerful. But you have just that whole ambiance of deity in all these I am statements. And I was trying to figure out where to go when I again to came to the one I said, oh, the Good Shepherd, that's an easier one to find a clip for. So I was like, we just I just found that channel. It's like where a lot of us ended up for this, which was, you know, kind of brought us all together and the same stuff.

But I had so many other things in my nose because I was like, oh, doing some of the other ones that we're supposed to kind of possibly cover because you kind of gave us some to to use. And I just had a great time because the next thing I found myself, I'm like, oh, I'd like to listen to a few sermons on that. So I was like, what's a sermon audio mic?

Who would I want? So I went to that those scriptures and I'm like, well, who's who's somebody to listen to? And I found Stephen J. Lawson and he's just so awesome. Listen, listening to him. And so I just got all wrapped up and listen to several sermons. I just had a great week listening to forget about what I'm going to talk about. I was more like, oh, wow, this is great.

This is fun. You know, just kind of soaking in I am God. But what one of the things that I really liked and listening to all that was going back into like Isaiah, the prophecy of the things to come in Christ.

And then even Revelation, especially when you talk about the light of the world and refers again to the light in, I think, 22 of Revelation. And it's just a beautiful picture of he's coming, he's here and he's coming again. Just I was just had a great time with that. So where I ended up going, I finally was trying like, OK, with shepherding, who could be a good shepherd?

And we've had some great clips already. And I just went to Defiance where. Here they are, the Nazis have come in, they've ran them out of their homes, they're in the woods, they've lost a few people because they're having to fight for scrounge for food.

And I can never remember the all the names of everybody in that movie because they're hard to pronounce. But the leader, he's you'll hear him in here talking, but he's calming the people because he can see the desperation in them and what you see just before this statement. Really, he's desperate. He doesn't know what to do. He he almost stops leading. And his brother comes running up and starts to say some stuff.

And basically, his brother serves as a reminder to him. We can't stop fighting. We have to live on.

And that's where this whole scene here where he says that them living, just going one step further is that act of faith. So let's go and take a listen. We cannot afford revenge. Not now. We cannot afford to lose friends like Yakov and Peretz. We cannot lose anyone. We will map out where we have been.

So as not to visit the same farms too often. And we would take only from those who can afford to give. And we will leave those who can't alone. Our revenge is to live. The poorest farmer has more than us.

Quiet. What I am saying is we are not thieves or murderers. We may be hunted like animals, but but we will not become animals. We have all chosen this to live here free like human beings for as long as we can. Every day of freedom is like an act of faith. And if we should die trying to live, then at least we die like human beings.

And one of the terms that I use an awful lot at work is RAA, responsibility, accountability, and authority. And that's one of the things where the deity of Christ, he's just proclaiming the ultimate authority. I am God. I am who I am. There's no other. Do not look to anywhere else. I can fulfill all righteousness.

Nobody else can. And he's saying, I have this all under control. The sovereignty of God just rules in all these I am statements. And it just gives me rest. It gives me that peace and contentment because then I don't have to do it myself.

Like we always talk about, we take off, we do things in our own flesh, and then we get smacked upside the head and get back in line. And oh yes, you're right, Lord. I need to listen to you. Why was I wanting to go in that direction? Why did I take a second look? Why did I burst out in anger?

Well, it's because I was doing things on my own. And it's just great to know that, yep, we can just sit back and follow him. You know, one of the big statements, follow me.

And you just, if you can do that consistently day in and day out and stay in the Word, you find, at least I find myself, at least a lot less often going astray and going, when I go astray, don't go as far. So I love the idea that's, you know, I think they're called the Belsky brothers. Is that right? It's close. Belsky. The Belsky brothers, right. It could be the Blues brothers. It could be. But anyway, what they did in that movie, which is just spectacular, was they gave those people hope that had absolutely no hope.

Right. And I heard this story actually from a guy with Land and Rescue that is forever going to change my idea on hope. And it just blows me away, so I want to share it. That there was this research biologist in the 50s by the name of Carl Richter who did this study on rats. And it sounds a little gross at first, but I think you'll see the picture is absolutely spectacular that he was checking to see, you know, how long a rat could tread water essentially. And he would put the little rat in the little beaker of water and time it to see how long it would be before the rat started to lose hope essentially and go down. And when he would take the average rat, you know, and do that, it would take about 15 minutes and they would lose hope and they would begin to drop down in the water to see if they could actually survive under the water and they'd be dead in a couple minutes if he didn't pull them out.

So then he started pulling them out when they started to sink and they'd dry off, you know, give them a little two-minute respite, you know, give them a little pep talk. Let's go rats. You can do it.

You can do it. Right. And he'd put them back in the water. Well astonishingly when the rats realized that there was a chance that they could be rescued, they went from the ability to tread water for 15 minutes for in some cases they would tread water for 60 hours. Wow.

Wow. Because they had hope that they might be rescued. And as I was thinking about that, I thought about, you know, if you were in the icy waters when the Titanic went under and, you know, there's people screaming and icebergs all around, you don't have a lot of hope. You're probably not going to tread water a real long time. But man, if there's a boat coming and you see, you know, life preservers and people yelling or whatever, you're treading water.

Man, I could probably go another 10 minutes, you know, who knows how far you would go based on what? Hope. And so to your point, Rodney, when you accept the deity of Christ as I am and just like the Bee Brothers, you know, were saying, you know, we may be hunted like animals but we're not going to live. And the way they instilled the hope in those people, and if you watch the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about, that they kept on fighting because they could see that because it's together they had hope. And that's what Jesus gives you. And I love that, you know, if you watch the trailer to that movie, he said, I almost lost my faith. Right? Well, that's the point. Right?

That because of God's deity, we can keep swimming in those icy waters. You dirty rat. If you killed my brother. Yeah. If you're not familiar with the movie, it's Defiance is the name of the movie. We've used it boot camp a few times and I never would have watched it if it wasn't for boot camp. But it was amazing movie.

I love the movie. But every time we said we're going to watch a boot camp, Robby says we're gonna watch deliverance, which is totally a different movie. Totally different outcome. Don't go watch that one.

You won't be happy with the outcome there. But Defiance is a great movie and it's based on a true story about four brothers in Poland, you know, and how they saved their whole community, our communities. Right?

Hundreds and hundreds of people. It's a really cool story to go watch. Well, I guess that leaves me with my clip. You started. You might as well finish. Yeah. But we'll see.

I actually use The Shepherd as well, mainly because I felt it was easier. No, it wasn't that. All the I am statements, the longer I walk with Jesus, I can say, yes, I'm living these more and more and I understand it. And, Rodney, to your point, I think the cool thing about the I am statements for me is Jesus says, I am everything you need.

He just says it in a lot of different ways. Right? We're always looking for that next great thing when we have the greatest thing available to us all the time.

Right? You know, we're hungry people and we search for things. But the answer is always right with us. You know, and I lose sight of that. And so, for me, The Shepherd is important, and I'll talk about it in a minute. But there were a couple of them I didn't really understand as much what Jesus was saying, like I am the sheep gate. You know, I didn't really understand that reference. And so I found a clip from a group called LUMO, and I'm not sure who they are. But they did this little bit where they're talking about being the shepherd, the good shepherd, and the sheep gate.

And let's listen to it, and we'll come back and talk about it. Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what He was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.

The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.

And I lay down my life for the sheep. So as I was listening to that, there was a lot that kind of jumped out at me originally. One of them being, I must, over the past in my walk as a child, adulthood, and things like that, I obviously haven't known the voice of Jesus well enough because I keep chasing after the wrong voices.

And the answer is to understand Him more and be more intimate with Him and to know Him more clearly because then I can distinguish His voice from all the other things that scream at me. Because if it wasn't things that were attractive, we wouldn't fall for it. But what makes sin so compelling, it gives the appearance of being attractive. But it robs everything from you.

That's what he talks about. It robs, it thieves, and it kills you. Sin does that to you, but it seems like it's so attractive, and you chase after it. And society will tell you that's the way to go.

It's just chase after this. But then you have the still, small voice of Jesus saying, no, I'm right here. And I'm right here, and I will give everything you need if you just walk with me. And my challenge is I just don't know His voice as well as I need to. And I'm learning as I walk deeper and deeper with Him. But I have to actively lean more into Him in order to hear Him more clearly.

The place where Jesus has shepherded me a lot, and I've shared it on the air quite a few times, but honestly it's how I live most of the time is there's an old adage that we've talked about on here, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. You think that when your kids are older and they become adults that it's going to get easier for you as a parent. It doesn't. It gets harder in a lot of ways because you have less influence. You have less say-so.

You have less things you can do. Right? And so I'm constantly, and just with my kids, but I'm talking about other aspects of my life, I'm constantly saying, Jesus, Father, I don't know how to be a father of a child in this situation.

Right? A daughter that's in this situation or a son that's in this situation. Yes, I've been a father before, but they're different individuals, and I don't know how to love them well or father them well. I need you to father me. I need you to shepherd me.

Right? And I do that more and more in my finances and other things. I just thought about here at work, I'm struggling with some stuff at work, but I can't tell you the last time, I guess since I was in a position where I had to fire somebody, the last time I invited God into one of the work situations, because I feel like since I've done it for almost 40 years, I think I know everything. I don't.

I know I don't, but I know He does. You know, and so now my next step, just from tonight, sitting here doing this show, is say, there's some situations at work, God, I need to invite you in. Right?

Because I need you to shepherd me, to father me through this, because I don't know how to best do it. Right? It doesn't mean I'm going to be infallible. It doesn't mean that I won't make mistakes, but I have less of a chance to make a mistake when I'm walking with Him. I may mishear Him and end up in the wrong place, but He'll never give me the wrong advice. Right?

I just have to be obedient and follow through with it. Right? A lot of times we worry about the outcome, and God taught me years and years ago, He owns the outcome, we own obedience. Right? Because if they get mad, maybe God needs them mad so they'll lean into Him. If they run away for something, maybe He needs them to run away to realize that they need to come back to Him.

Right? He owns the outcome, you own obedience. So walk with Him, let Him shepherd you, and let Him be the one to own that outcome, and you just be obedient. This week, just go out and love somebody well. If you need to reach out to us, any of our names at masculinejourney.org, or go to masculinejourney.org to register for any upcoming events. We'll talk with you next week.