Who Does God Say You Are?

Saturday, November 26th, 2022

I need to return to the place where the Father has spoken identity over me.
John David Vasquez

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, my name is John David Vasquez, and I’m a worship pastor here in Austin, Texas, and I’m also the director of Heart Of David, Austin. Welcome to God Today. I want to share with you some thoughts out of John chapter 10. In John chapter 10, starting in verse 22, we find Jesus walking in Solomon’s Colonnade and the people surround Him and they say, tell us plainly, are you the Messiah? Are you the Christ? Are you the one that’s come to save Israel? Jesus responds and says, I did tell you, but you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify of who I am. And what He’s referring to is the Messianic miracles. These were miracles that in the Hebrew tradition were believed only the Messiah could perform. Miracles such as healing someone born blind, healing someone who had leprosy, casting out a demon that caused someone to be mute, and raising someone from the dead after four days. 

So when Jesus is saying, I’ve done, I’ve told you who I am, I am the Messiah. I’ve told you through the works that I’ve done. This is what He’s referring to. Then Jesus goes on to explain that, but you don’t hear it. You don’t perceive it, because you’re not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. Then He explains that the Father and Him are one. No one can snatch a sheep out of my Father’s hand, no one can snatch a sheep out of my hand. Me and the Father are one. Then the people respond by picking up rocks to stone Jesus. Then Jesus, quite snarky replies, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which one of these do you want to stone me?” I think that’s pretty funny. And they respond by saying, “We aren’t stoning you for good works, but for blasphemy, because you being a man, make yourself God.”  Jesus responds to them by saying, “Isn’t it written in the Law, that you are gods? If he called those who the word of God came to ‘gods’ – and the Scriptures cannot be broken-, do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the word, (sorry) into the world because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing my Father’s works, don’t believe me; but if I am doing them and you don’t believe  me, believe the works. This way, you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” 

It’s very important. Jesus is again establishing that Me and the Father are one, not only do the works in the miracles that I performed testify that I am the Messiah, but I’m now telling you plainly, like you’ve asked, me and the Father are one. It says, then again, they tried to seize Him, but He alluded their grasps. Uh, some translations say He escaped with His life. I don’t know about you, but if I put myself in Jesus’ shoes and I’m doing all these signs and wonders and miracles and all of these good things, and people are trying to kill me as a result of my testifying, of who I am and who the Father says I am, I would probably want to give up in that situation, wanna like wipe my hands clean and, and move on. 

And I believe Jesus perhaps maybe had to struggle with that very same thought. And then when we get to verse 40, it says, “Jesus returned to the Jordan, to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days.” And I had to remind myself what was significant about the Jordan river for Jesus? Well, it’s the place that He was baptized and where the heavens opened and the Father spoke these powerful words: “This is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.”  And so what I ultimately get from this story is that even Jesus had to return to the place where the Father spoke identity over Him, ‘cause that was the very thing that they were trying to kill Him for, was this, this statement that Me and the Father are one. And if Jesus has to return to a place where the Father spoke identity over Him, so He can continue to move on and accomplish all the things that He was meant to do. Maybe I need to return to the place where the Father has spoken identity over me. And that may look like going to my journals, you know, going to the Word of God, and just remembering those sweet secret places where the Lord spoke, this is who you are. This is what I say about you. This is what I think about you. This is who you are in Christ. And if Jesus needed to be reminded, maybe so do we. 

So let me pray for you. Lord, I just ask that You would quicken to our memory, everything that You said about us and who we are, the destiny that we have, the things that You are inviting us into, remind us of our royal persona as sons and daughters of the Living God, to give us strength to accomplish all that You have planned for us to do here on the earth. We love You. We honor You, in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.