Each month, we send out a note from Erik reflecting on life in the church, current happenings, and more.
October 16, 2026
Dear City Church,
Over the last month or so, I’ve read several books about the meaning of life. There’s no shortage of such books. Libraries are full of them. They claim spots on most bestseller lists. New ones are published regularly. All these books about the meaning of life reveal the enduring human desire to find meaning.
For years now, the Christian philosopher Miroslav Volf has taught a class at Yale University called Life Worth Living. In fact, it is the most popular class in the College of Arts and Humanities. Students at one of our nation’s most elite colleges have a hunger to learn how to cultivate a life worth living. I read the book—also called Life Worth Living—based on that class.
Years ago Jim Collins first made a name for himself when he published a book called Good to Great, which traced the business principles that helped good companies become great companies. Earlier this year, Collins published a new book called What To Make Of A Life. Instead of focusing on companies, Collins trained his sights (and his rigorous research method) on the question of what makes for a meaningful life. Through historical examples of lives well-lived, Collins helps readers find their unique encodings, focus the fire of their energy, and navigate the inevitable fog and cliffs that life presents. (In case you’re wondering, I found his book good, not great.)
I realize that most of us don’t need to hear mini-book reports to grasp the saliency of life’s big questions. We feel their existential weight every day. That’s why for the next two months (from now until Thanksgiving) at City Church we’ll be considering together the I Am statements of Jesus from John’s Gospel. These statements are one entry that the Bible provides into what makes for a meaningful life.
First and foremost, in the I Am statements, Jesus is claiming to be God. While not every New Testament occurrence of the words “I am” should be over-interpreted as a direct invocation of divinity, the seven I Am statements in John’s Gospel clearly echo back to the divine self-disclosure of Yahweh in the Old Testament. In calling Moses to be Israel’s rescuer, God announces himself as “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). This divine name—thereafter represented within Judaism as YHWH—takes on sacred meaning for the Israelites. It is with all of that as background that Jesus discloses himself—the fully divine, fully human Messiah—through his I Am statements.
Secondly, through these statements Jesus presents himself as the fulfillment of Biblical themes well known to Israel. He’s not making up metaphors on the spot; he’s explaining himself and his vocation through familiar metaphors from the foundational stories of Jewish Scriptures. His listeners knew about the bread from heaven because their ancestors had survived on manna in the wilderness. They knew about the light of the world from their God who at creation said, “Let there be light.” They understood a Good Shepherd from Psalm 23, which they would have recited and sung from an early age.
But thirdly, through the I Am statements, Jesus is addressing the most basic questions of human existence. Jesus’s I Am statements belie the Who Am I questions we all ask. Implicit in each of the I Am statements is a question about the meaning of life. Over the next two months, we will probe these questions with Jesus as our guide. Here is a summary of Jesus’s I Am statements and the questions they represent:
John 6:41-58 - I Am Bread of Life - Where can I find satisfaction for my hunger?
John 8:12-20 - I Am the Light of the World - Where can I find truth in the darkness of the world?
John 10:1-9 - I Am the Door - How can I belong when I feel like an outsider?
John 10:10-18 - I Am the Shepherd - What is my identity in a world where I am unknown and forgotten?
John 11:17-27 - I Am the Resurrection - Where can I find hope in the midst of death?
John 14:1-7 - I Am the Way - Where do I find purpose when I am lost and aimless?
John 15:1-11 - I Am the Vine - What leads to fruitfulness when my life feels so barren?
Satisfaction. Truth. Belonging. Identity. Hope. Purpose. Fruitfulness. Are these not the core issues that motivate and shape our lives? A year or so ago, a pastor friend of mine shared that in every sermon he preaches, he seeks to address a core human question like these. What he said stuck with me. Every Sunday when we come to church, these existential questions occupy our minds and weigh on our hearts. Sometimes they lurk in the background. Other times they are all we can think about.
Over these next two months at City Church, come and join us as we listen to Christ tell us who he is. As we listen, we might just discover who we are, too.
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik