I Am Statements 1

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Welcome to masculine journey. We're glad to have you with us this week, and we are starting a new topic. Well, we do a new topic every week, but we're starting a new series. We don't know how long it's going to go. It may go a week, it may go two weeks.

We think it's going to go at least two, but it may go longer. And so what we're focusing on is the I am statements that are found in John, the book of John, and where Jesus says, I am, fill in the blank, I am the bread, I am the way, you know, those types of things. And so we're going to pick some each week and kind of go through those and just talk about what they kind of mean to us as we're focusing on our time towards Easter. I thought it would be a good time to kind of look into Jesus a little deeper. It's always good to look into Jesus a little deeper, but especially as we head towards the Easter season of saying, okay, let's learn more about what he was doing.

And so we're going to do that over the next couple weeks. And this didn't originate with us. It's a topic that I suggested, but it actually came from a boot camp we went to a couple weeks ago at our friend Darren's boot camp. And our friend Todd and Darren and Todd used to do the show with us.

And Darren does on occasion. Todd was doing a talk and he referenced the I am statements. And so I put a note in my phone saying that'd be kind of cool to dig into, to learn more about, you know, and so that's what we're doing. And so I actually have the first clip and I'm going to make a statement. Yeah, I know it's a surprise. I'm hosting and I have the first clip. That's amazing.

Yeah, it's amazing. But I'm going to make a statement here and I hope that I can prove it to be true. But I think Popeye, the cartoon character, and Jesus are very alike in some ways.

So we're going to listen to this and then we're going to come back and talk about it. But here's from Popeye. I POP by the Salem man, I POP by the Salem man. I am what I am and that's all what I am. I POP by the Salem man, I POP by the Salem man.

And that may have been the longest 27 seconds that you ever had to listen to, I get that. But the reason I made the statement, yes, Robby? I am what I am. Was that Popeye or was that Moe?

Or was that, it was Curly, wasn't it, from Three Stooges? The reason I made the statement that Popeye is like Jesus was one of Popeye was a man, then he's made in Jesus's image, right? He's made in the image of God. We're all made in the image of God and God's a trinity, so that's all.

And so I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about specifically this jingle, right? He says in there, I am what I am, basically, and it's full of I am statements. He's confident of who he is. He knows his identity. And because he clearly knows his identity, he can speak with confidence, right? And that's Jesus. Jesus clearly knows his identity and he can speak with confidence on who he is. He is who he is.

I am what I am, right? And the other part, and the reason I went ahead and play it through the rest of it, is Popeye also understands clearly where he gets his strength. He gets his strength from spinach, right? I eat my spinach, I'm good to the finish. It doesn't rhyme, they thought they did back in the 50s or whatever, but it was close.

You know, I don't know what else you'd rhyme it with, but it's close. But Jesus knows where he gets his strength, right? He knows his identity, he knows where to get his strength and where not to get his strength, right? And so I think we can learn a lot from Popeye. And that is if we can just learn clearly our identity and know clearly where we get our strength and go to those sources, how much better would our life be than it's been up to now, right?

Because I know when I do things on my own, wow, it just doesn't end up very well very often. Once in a while, like they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, once in a while I get lucky, but usually that's not the story. And so that's kind of why I picked that. And so that's my first one.

But going from there, Robby, I'm actually gonna go to yours next because you have a different, you have a different I am statement that you chose. I thought the only way it made sense was, which by the way, I always thought the blind squirrel found an acorn. I didn't know he found a nut. Yeah, well, is an acorn not a nut?

I don't know, I think it is. Back over there was a hog. Yeah. The blind hog finds an acorn. Oh, the squirrel finds a nut and the hog finds an acorn. Okay, we're just checking. Yeah, it's weird. I thought the hogs found truffles. So anyway, one of the most amazing. Maybe spinach, I don't know.

I don't know. The thing that happens throughout the Gospels actually is Jesus feeds the 5,000, he feeds the 4,000. There are actually six different accounts of Jesus feeding large groups of people with lots of bread left over, right? So clearly, this idea of Jesus being the bread of life was an absolutely huge thing. And the nice thing about carbs, I don't know if you ever thought about them, is that if you eat, you know, bet you can't eat just one. And the idea of the bread of life is, hopefully, you know, you just can't eat just one.

And since the Scriptures are bread, you know, in so many different ways, and Jesus even said to pray for that in give us this day our daily bread, it's truly an amazing thing how we hunger and thirst for the word of God. And so in this particular clip is from the original Ben-Hur movie with Charlton Heston. And so it's got a lot of 50s music in it. For those of you who didn't watch a lot of 50s movies, you'll hear it.

And the music is the clue to a lot of what's going on. So poor Charlton Heston has, you know, been in a galley, a Roman galley being the oarsman and build up a huge thirst, and he's literally dying of thirst when they come on shore. And the Roman legion are gonna let the horses drink before the slaves.

They're gonna let the soldiers drink, but the last slave they want to drink is Ben-Hur. And so what you'll hear is, you know, the Romans saying he can't have a drink, and he gets awfully thirsty to the point that he literally passes out, and he is falling on the ground when he lifts up this prayer, that you'll hear him say, oh God, save me. Well, you know, in the miracle of 1950s movies, it was Jesus himself, but they never actually show him, you know, on the scene. You just hear the music change, and you can see these hands of somebody giving Charlton Heston water when nobody else will. And you'll hear the Roman centurion come after whoever's given him the water and say, stop that. Well, when you hear this music change, you realize that the centurion is almost sent to his knees by the mere sight of God. And the reverence of the scene is spectacular, but the idea of your soul desperately needs Jesus. And specifically, it's available in 66 books of the Bible at any particular time that you want it, and that bread is there and available, and you'll always have lots of basketfuls left over, and you can keep eating it.

And so if you listen to this, to me, it's a pretty spectacular clip. The water for them! Get them away from that well! Come on, you! Come on, you! Water for the horses! Wait! No, water for him! God, help me.

You! I said no water for him! I wish everybody could see the look on that centurion's face when all of a sudden he got a look at Jesus. And I don't know if you've thought about it. In Malachi 3, there's the famous passage where it asks if you'll rob God, and they talk about, you know, that if you will test God on this, if you'll bring your tithe into the storehouse, and I've never wondered if you've ever thought about what the storehouse is. And the storehouse is the tabernacle to an extent. It's your heart, you know, because your body is the temple of God, and so your heart is the holy of holies. And so when you're bringing in that tithe, that tithe is usually going to be grain.

Those offerings were grain offerings. And so to bring that bread of life into your storehouse, you know, will give you the opportunity to have the blessing of God poured out like is described in Malachi 10, is if you take on the bread of life and you begin to consume it, you will become more and more thirsty for it because he gives you the bread of life because you'll want more. And then as you get it, the next thing you want to do, just like this show, has been water to all of us. And it's shared with others. And it hopefully, you know, will make others thirsty.

Thank you, Robby. Yeah, I'm thirsty right now. When I was hearing that, I was just thinking, I wish that I could have a soundtrack with my life because when the music changed, oh, Jesus is right here with me again. I mean, he's always with me, but how cool would it be to have a soundtrack? Oh, there's a bad guy around.

I can hear it now. Just kind of go from there. But yeah, we do have a couple of things coming up. We have a boot camp coming up. It's April 4th through 7th.

Now, a little bit about that one. If you haven't been to an entrenchment or you haven't been to a basic boot camp, unfortunately, you won't be able to come to the advance because there's just stuff we go through there that would be kind of out of context for you if you didn't have the first camps. Right, but we will have a basic camp coming up again in November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. We'll be talking about that more after this camp. And if you're interested in a basic camp before then, we do have a lot of friends that do the camps. And so we're more than happy to tell you about some of those.

Some of those are near, some of those are far. So if you'd like to take a road trip, we have some good friends up in Ohio, some friends in Indiana, some friends in other parts of North Carolina, Virginia, that kind of do these camps. And we'd love to add you to those and let you know about those. But you could find out from us if you go to your email and you can email any of us. If you really want to talk to Harold, just put in Harold at masculinejourney.org and he'll get back to you, right? If you put in Robby, he'll eventually get back to you.

No, we will all get back to you if you need to. And so if you need to reach out to us there, you can reach out to us on social media. We're on most of the social media platforms. We do stream live on Tuesday nights when we're recording the show. We do it on Facebook. We also do it on YouTube.

And so if you want to watch us live, I've seen all of this in person. I don't know why you'd want to do that, but you might want to do that to see what we look like at least once, but we are doing that. And so we do have some things coming up and we will have an entrenchment again sometime this year. We just don't have one planned. We're waiting God to kind of give us the idea of when and where to do that, but we'll do another short weekend entrenchment coming up as soon as we have a partner church that we're going to work with on it. But we kind of let God lead that.

But we have about 45 seconds before we go into break. Anything you guys want to add while we're talking about this topic? Well, I do want to add that, you know, on the Facebook stream and whatever, we now have added the Danny cam. Oh yeah. Because we've had a lot of requests for people to see Danny. Yeah. Yeah. And so we just, we've added the Danny cam. It's right there on him. So you can constantly, you know, monitor Danny.

You're welcome, Michelle. Yeah. We'd have a Harold cam, but it just keeps shining over his head.

We can't really reach him. One of the things that you'd find an advantage of watching this is you'll find out what a radio face really looks like. Yeah. Yeah, we definitely have those. But go to maskongerny.org to register for the upcoming camp. What we have at our bootcamp is something that makes you stronger and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God.

It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I've been coming regularly and it's just such a blessing. When you guys invited me, I was at the worst time of my Christian walk. I was going through some things. The first time I came, I don't know if you remember, I couldn't even walk.

I couldn't even stand up straight. And I'm walking now. I ain't running around the lake yet, but you know. The greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the Lord and sharing His kindness and His love. All of you guys, I done sat and talked with all of you guys, different occasions, different conversations, and it's all been unique and refreshing. You guys gave me a whole different perspective in life and you can't hide the true, genuine love of God. You can't hide it.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So Rodney, that was your bump. Did you sing that?

Was that you? Yes, of course. All four parts, right? Yes. I do it, you know. I can throw my voice. You can? Yeah. Could you throw it further? And just reflect back. You want me to throw it away if I start to sing. But yeah, I was out looking for clips and I couldn't figure out anything to really do for all these I am statements that we're looking at because it really talks about the deity of Christ.

And I'm just going through that and trying to figure out, well, what would be a really good praise song? And I found the doxology out there and I'm like, I wonder if I can find that in men. And they're like, hey, that's under 30 seconds. I actually looked in the folder and you didn't have a bump yet. I didn't. And I'm like, oh, I don't usually ever beat Sam to a bump. So I was like, well, I'll just throw this one in there. Because all I really wanted to do was praise and glorify God as I was looking through all the I am statements anyway. I'm like, oh, that would just, I started listening. I was like, oh, I just feel so good. So now you make me feel bad.

I would have probably picked something secular and whatever. But no, I actually was very grateful because last night I went in to find a bump and I'm like, ah, Rodney has a bump. Good.

Glad it helps. No, it was good. And obviously very familiar with that song.

It was sung in my church growing up a lot as a kid. Yeah, well, thank you. Andy, you're actually up next. You have the next clip, which I am statement are you focusing on?

Before we go there. Well, no, I ask you a question. It's my deal, man. I have the mic. Well, I have one too.

I mean, there's like four of them. You're going to override me, man? No, you're good too. I'll take your mic from you. Yeah, yeah. You have control issues, dude.

I could ask Keith to push yours off, but still. Like I said. So I figure we would start before the I am and you put a word after it. You can't go away from what Jesus said whenever he was talking to the Pharisees. And they were talking about Abraham being their father. And Jesus said before Abraham, he said, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Which we know God the Father said that to Moses and stuff.

So really, he is everything to us. But it is cool when we get those defined words like you get in the book of John, I was telling the guys. I've been in the Old Testament, but went on a trip.

Needed to take my smaller Bible with me this weekend or on that trip. And I felt like I was going to read Acts. And then God said, no, it's John. And then Sam sends out an email. And it's all these I am statements from the book of John.

And I thought, now how cool is that? Because I had already started on it and was through all this. And that's why I remembered to bring that up.

But anyway. Well, a little bit of clarity though. So you didn't want to take all of God with you on the trip just a part? Just a part.

Just a New Testament part of God? I used to have it heard. It's either the sword or the dagger. I took the dagger with me on this trip. No, I just, shoot.

I had so much to carry, I had to go with something a little bit smaller. But God's word, I mean, the New Testament, it'll do it. But anyway, mine, I think some of us have touched on just I am the good shepherd. And John 10 has become so real. We know about him talking about him. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But he came to give us abundant life. But beyond that, he's the door. And then he's door for the sheep. And then he's also the good shepherd.

And this clip that I picked was from We Were Soldiers. Hal Moore is leading this regiment into battle in Vietnam. And he's got one of his lieutenants who's just had a baby, or his wife had a baby.

And those are pressing issues. I mean, he's just like, okay, we're getting ready to go to the battle. And he's not sure what the right thing to do is when it comes to the battle, and is this the right battle to fight?

And you'll hear that in the dialogue. But Hal Moore does such a good job, just like Jesus does. He's just a representation of that as a good leader, who kinda guides his heart through that. And really, what I think is cool is he just leads him to the father to get the answer here.

But, you know, I wanna speak more a little bit on Jesus shepherding me after we listen to the clip. All right, here we go. Colonel. At ease, ease.

I heard one of my new lieutenants just became a father. I came to say congratulations. Thank you, sir. So, I didn't wanna disturb you. Oh, no, no, it's fine.

It's all right, please. Well, how's your wife? She's okay. She's okay. She's sleeping. So is my daughter. I just wanted to be here for a while before I held her.

Well, is Tanger already? What's that say? Oh, Camille. Yeah, I'm sorry about this, sir. No, don't you take that off.

You leave that on where it is as an order. Colonel, may I ask you a question? Sure. What do you think about being a soldier and a father?

I hope that being good at the one makes me better at the other. Why? What about you?

I don't know, sir. Between college and here, Barbara and I spent a year in Africa. We helped build a school for orphans.

They were orphans because the warlord across the border didn't like their tribe. I know God has a plan for me. I just hope it's to help protect orphans and not make any. Well, why don't we ask him?

Come on, let's go ask him. Our father in heaven, before we go into battle, every soldier among us will approach you each in his own way. Our enemies too, according to their own understanding, will ask for protection and for victory. And so we bow before your infinite wisdom.

We offer our prayers as best we can. I pray you watch over the young men like Jack Gagan that I lead into battle. You use me as your instrument in this awful hell of war to watch over them, especially if they are men like this one beside me deserving of a future in your blessing and good will.

Amen. I mean, you just hear a man there who's known for leading men into battle and being a true warrior, but he's kind and gentle with that young man's heart and, you know, just guides him. I mean, we are warriors. And as a shepherd, you don't think about sheep battling, but as men, we talk about that a lot of times about how we are warriors.

But there's that whole warrior poet thing that we talk about and understanding what you're battling for and what's at stake. And, you know, that was just a good example to me of how that individual kind of was an example of Jesus as being a good shepherd. But, you know, as far as God shepherded me, I just think about where he's brought me from and just some of the things I need to be shepherded in.

And, you know, there's times when I used to read that, the passage in John 10 and some of the I Am statements that you knew that they were true from a scriptural standpoint, but they weren't necessarily reality. And a lot of it had to do with what I had allowed. I mean, did I really trust him in that way? Did I have that faith? Or had I really given up that component of my life to allow him to shepherd me?

You know, you're gonna have a shepherd that the sheep don't follow. And I was a sheep that wasn't following. In some ways I was, but in a lot of ways I was still going off and doing my own thing. I was, you know, in a sense, one of the 100, you know. You're a bad boy.

I was a bad boy, yeah. But, I mean, just the way Hal Moore does that, I mean, I truly believe it's the way God comes after us in finding us where we are and being understanding. But it was like, Jesus is like, let's go to the Father. Yeah, one of the things you couldn't, if you haven't seen the movie, you wouldn't understand about the clip. What he was talking about was the young man had a bracelet on that had his daughter's name on it. And he was like, oh, I'm not in uniform, as basically what he's telling his boss, and I'm gonna have to take this off.

He's like, no, you don't ever take that off. Exactly. You know, because being a good shepherd, you have a greater perspective. Right, and so that's what I really liked about it. He knew what was important to the heart of that man. Exactly.

You know, and went after his heart in a way that if he would've said, yeah, you gotta take that off, he may have lost him altogether. Yeah. Right, and so a bigger perspective. I heard that, and I didn't really understand the depth of it, but it did, when he said, that's an order to tell him to do that, he was very direct on, that's important to you, and I want you to know it's important to me as well.

Right, right. Because, you know, I mean, in that, it's a real person we're talking about, right? Because that book is based on real, true stories, and in the movies, based on the book, and so, you know, there's a good portion of that that's true, but, you know, Hal Moore was a father. He is a father, right? And so, he knew what that meant. And so this young man's first child, and he didn't want him to lose sight of what's the most important thing that he has to be.

Why are you fighting, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And this clip is so relational, right, that it's clear, why don't we go ask him, you could hear the relationship that he already had with God, like, oh, well, I know who's gonna have the answer, Dad.

And let's go ask him, and, you know, there's that relationship of the shepherd, you know, to the great shepherd, however you wanna put that. And, you know, I don't know how many times you've had that experience that somebody asks you to pray or something, and you immediately go, okay, let's do that. And they just, but. No, I meant later. No, no, let's do it right now. I mean. I mean, can you pray? I don't really wanna pray. No, that's exactly how they often feel. It's like, no, I wanted you to pray.

No, no, I mean, let's go. Because, again, as you share that relationship that you have, which he did so well, you know, it's just an opportunity to do that. I love that same, I always have loved that same thing about the clip. And I also love the heart that, you know, I'm trying to think of his name, the actor. Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson has for this type of role. I mean, he had it in Braveheart. He had it in The Patriot. He had it in.

Hack Sawridge. Right, right. Well, he was a director on that.

He was a director. But in each case, the power, he knew where the power of the scene was, and the power in the scene is the gospel. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's kind of funny. Other than Robby, who picked something else, most of us picked The Shepherd. I think, out of all the I Am statements, that's the one we landed on. You know, Robby's a little different, go figure. But no, no, it's just, because we didn't talk about which one to pick.

We just said, here's some, pick. You know, when we landed there, and one of the things I was hoping to find, and I couldn't find it, and maybe we'll find it before next week's show, but there was some teaching I'd heard one time about what it really meant to be a shepherd, what it really looked like in their world to be a shepherd. Yeah. Yeah, out under the elements, good and bad. Oh, it's the 23rd Psalm from a shepherd's perspective.

Absolutely spectacular. Yeah, maybe you guys can talk about that. And the purpose of the staff, and how it was used to do, you know, pull the sheep back in, and yeah. Yeah. Well, Harold, you're from back then. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah.

Were you a shepherd before you went into programming? There's a really good book about that. They Smell Like Sheep is the title of it. And that's a really, really good. I was wondering about that. It's a really good book, because it talks about how elders are to lead the flock, and they gotta smell like sheep. Yeah, yeah, it was a hard, hard job.

There was nothing easy about it. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming bootcamp, to reach out to us. You can do that in any social media.

You can do it via email. If you'd like to know anything about a show topic, you have ideas, you have great clips you'd like to tell us about, please do that. But most importantly, go love somebody well this week. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.