The Names of God II - El Shaddai

Last week we were looking at the names of God with the understanding that through the revelation of his names, the Lord God would want to be known. We mentioned last week to the Hebrew, the name was much more than just some identifying tag. Or like the truckers today have their CB handles. Well, God's names are not his handles, but they reveal his character. In Young's Concordance, he says these words about the name in Scripture. And Scripture, a name is much more than an identifying tag. It denotes the essence and the character of a person or a thing. The essence and the character of a person or a thing. Beloved, I want to say some brief things this morning about two subjects that I think anyone who wants to know the way of the Lord is concerned about. The two words are fulfillment and fruitfulness. Would you say those words with me? Fulfillment and fruitfulness. I want to start this morning by giving you two propositions. The first one is this. How well you know God. And in the Bible, the Hebrew word for know is yada, which means relationship. How well you are related to God, how well you know him will determine your fulfillment as a believer. Many scriptures say those very things Jesus Christ said. And this is eternal life to know me and the Father who sent me. Proverbs, the 24th chapter, talks about the fact that in the knowledge of God is the fulfillment of life and wisdom and resources and riches. The second thing I want to say today is that how well you know God will determine your fruitfulness as a believer. You see, beloved, it's one thing to meet Jesus. It's one thing to do as the beach kids were describing today, accept Christ, and hallelujah for the eternal life that comes to us through that meeting, that encounter of the first kind with the Lord when we open our hearts to accept his sacrifice for our sin. And none of us could ever come to God apart from that. But brothers and sisters, it's another thing entirely to move in the fulfillment and the fruitfulness that God intends for each life. As a believer in Jesus, it's one thing to meet the Lord. It's another thing to live for Him. It's amazing to me how many people come to the Lord and in that process realize that something tremendous has happened in their life. And in the next days after they become a Christian. It's amazing how many of them say, I wish I could give something back to God. I wish I could give something to the people of God. I wish I could give something to show how much this means to me. And, you know, I can just tell you one illustration. There is a young lady here today who came to us from out in Ohio. And I won't mention her name, you don't need to know who she is specifically, but she shared with me on the phone that her life was at the bottom and there was nothing really to do, no place to turn. She came here just sort of out of desperation, as it were, to visit a friend. God led her to a home group. And through the home group she came to Northway to worship with us. And at the conclusion of our service she gave her heart. She met the Lord Jesus initially and on the phone she was saying, I just. And she's so full of the sense that God is reordering her life. And she said, I wish I could give something to this people and she's going to move back here from Ohio to take up residence in our community that she might come into the life that God's pouring out among us. And she wanted to bear fruit, she wanted to give, she wanted to find that fulfillment. Beloved, how you know God, how well you know him, will determine your fruitfulness and your fulfillment. I was struck by reading Matthew, chapter 7, verse 23. You know that passage where Jesus is addressing the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount and you don't need to turn there, but that's the place where he says, lord, didn't we do great things in your name? And didn't we cast out demons in your name and have great power in your name? And the Lord says, apart from me, you evil doers, why I never knew you. You see, Jesus knows that apart from relationship to him, there won't be fruitfulness. That's why he said in John 15:4, unless I abide in you and you and me, you will not produce fruit that remains. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Knowing God is the source of fulfillment and fruitfulness. All life, beloved, comes from the initiation of God, his revelation, our response, and then the blessing that comes. Look with me now in Genesis 17 to see this pattern. Alright, you'll read with me. Here's the pattern. Revelation, response and reward. When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of A multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful. And so on. Revelation, response and reward. In your life today, have you come to the point of seeing that God brings you into fulfillment and into fruitfulness by revelation, response and reward? Now, it's so easy for us to get these out of whack or to focus on the wrong. Order of flow in this thing. If you start at the reward and say, well, I want God's blessings, what happens? You get into presumption, you get into the whole thing of seeking the gifts and not the giver, and you get off into a shallowness. Or if you begin at the point of trying to respond to God. So I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that for God. What happens? Condemnation. You feel guilty? I can't live up to what God wants. Frustration. There are some here today who are frustrated in their walk with God. Beloved, the reason is that you've got to begin with who God is and how you know Him. But if you stop there, if you just simply say, lord, reveal yourself to me and you leave the response to some other time and you forget about what God wants of you, then you get out of touch and confusion comes into your life and people seem to be far off and you don't understand why people don't understand you. And all three of these are necessary. Revelation, response, and then seeing the reward of God. Now, beloved, what we have here in Genesis 17 is God's expression of the covenant to Abram. The old covenant, the covenant that paved the way for the coming on of the people of Israel. What we have in a few moments as we celebrate communion is the new covenant. And I want to say to you this morning, whatever God foreshadowed in the old covenant, he would multiply in the new. And as you see these things here for the next few moments, be reminded as we partake of communion together, that God would multiply the blessing that we're going to see that he provided when he gave us this word. Alright, see if you identify with Abram. 24 years before this, God had appeared to Abram and said, go forth and I'm going to make you a great nation. A promise. 13 years before this moment, God had said to Abram, why are you trying to fulfill my promise by your power? Because he had brought forth a son called Ishmael by a woman who was not his wife. I wonder how many are here today for whom there's not been the fulfillment in your Christian life that you thought should be there, for whom God has made a promise, but somehow it hasn't happened. For whom? You think every day that there's got to be something more than what I'm experiencing of this business of being a Christian, of knowing God. Abraham thought that, and he tried to do something about it, but he failed. And God knew that. And 24 years after he gave him that promise, this is what happened. The Lord appeared to Abram, verse one, and said to him, I am El Shaddai. That's what that word is. The Lord Almighty is the word El Shaddai. I want to begin here by saying to you, God knows what you need when you need it. Do you believe that he knows what you need when you need it? He knows the name. He knew the name that Abram needed at that very moment. He didn't appear to him and say, I am the Lord Jehovah. He was specific, and he chose that name, I am the Lord Almighty. He knows what you need when you need it. About a month ago, a good friend of mine, Jim Morrison, who's pastoring here in the area, at the north park first day today they're meeting. North Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church was a month ago. And real not depression, but he was really downcast because the Lord there just wasn't. Things weren't falling together for the new church. And someone in his fellowship in prayer was prompted to call Jim, who they do not know, and say, the Lord will supply for you. And I don't know the details of the Word, but that's what exactly. It was exactly what Jim needed to hear. He called me later and said it was as though I had walked out of a dark room into a lighted room. And God so assured me that he was going to provide for what we needed. You see, he knows. He knows. And I might say that today is their first day of meeting down at their church building, which is on Ingemar Road. This is their first day there together. God knew what Jim needed a month ago and supplied for him. So what was he saying to Abraham? What was he saying when he said, I am El Shaddai? Well, we translated God Almighty. And I want to do a brief word study with you again, as we did last week. Okay, Paul? El Shaddai means this. El, as we said last week, is the word for God. And Shaddai has three potential meanings. We translated Almighty God Almighty. Now, the first source or the first potential translation is from the two Hebrew words shi and da, or shi day, who is enough, or the God who is sufficient. Some have translated the God who is More than enough. The God who is sufficient for all things. El Shaddai. The God who is more than enough. Abraham or Abram. At this point, I see your body shriveled, 99 years old near the end of your life. And I'm more than enough. Abram, I see Sarah's body. I know what you think. I know it seems impossible. I know that in the course of nature it couldn't happen. But I'm more than enough. I can bring it to pass. I am sufficient. It's the same God that later appeared to Elijah when he faced those prophets of BAAL and said, elijah, I am more than enough to prove that I'm alive today and I'm the God above their gods. It's the same God that appeared to Joshua on the day when he was pursuing his enemies and they were defeating their enemies in the land of Canaan. And the sun was going down. They weren't going to finish the battle. And what did God do? He stopped the sun. He was more than enough. He was sufficient. A brother of mine who pastors in Baltimore had been married for about seven years and had not been able to have children. The prognosis for their family was that both the mother and the father contributed to the problem and that, medically speaking, there was a very, very slight possibility of having children. And they encouraged them to begin adoption proceedings. I believe the sperm count was 1 or 2000 where it was supposed to have been 70 or 80,000 per certain measure. Very, very small in terms of an opportunity or a chance to be pregnant. We prayed and time went by. And this brother and his wife said, you know, the Lord's given us a peace that he's going to do something. Last April, I visited them as they had their third baby. And he is saying, God, that's more than enough. El Shaddai. He's more than enough for what faces you today. The other potential source of the word Shaddai is from the Hebrew word shadad, which means to destroy or to crush. God will crush God the destroyer, the destroyer of the obstacles that I face in my life. I love this scripture in Isaiah 54:10, where the Lord says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. That just says to me, whatever it is that Satan would want to bring against me, whatever way he would want to discourage me. Nothing will conquer the power of God, of El Shaddai in my life as I trust in him. Doubt and fear Beloved so many of us find ourselves pushed under by doubt and fear and the inability to move on in God. El Shaddai would crush the enemies of doubt and fear. What troubles you today? What troubles you today? What is it that that keeps you from moving on and opening up to the fullness of God? See him as El Shaddai, my destroyer, the one who will go before me and crush my enemies. And also, the etymology of the word could come from the two Hebrew words Sadu, which means of the mountain God. Of the mountain God who lifts me up. Turn in your Bible to Psalm 91. It's here that the word, the name of God, appears. Azale Shaddai, one of the 46 places it appears in the Old Testament. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abides in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. And Psalm 91 is a wonderful psalm to meditate on. When fear is coming upon you, fear in whatever fashion, illness or darkness or whatever, any oppression, and God of the mountain will lift you up and hide you in the refuge and the security of his provision. How many here today in your heart need to be lifted up and covered in the refuge? El Shaddai, the God of the mountain. So the Lord would speak to us as he appeared to Abraham and say, I am El Shaddai. I am the God who is more than enough. I am the God who would destroy your enemies. I am the God who will lift you up. Now, beloved, look what Abraham or Abram. At this point I keep saying, abram, look what he did. All right, back to Genesis 17. What did he do? The Lord said, I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless. Verse 3. Then Abram fell on his face. Now, I want to say this to you today in love, God has been doing things, wonderful things in our body. There is no way that you can begin to fully appreciate miracles and hearts that are being changed and circumstances that God's touching. You just have to keep your ears open. And the Lord will bring people to you to share ways in which he's answering prayer. He is being El Shaddai among us. But beloved, when God appears as El Shaddai, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would require of you a response. Beware of any teaching anywhere that talks about everything that God gives, but nothing of what God requires. Grace comes and is received by faith with the response of obedience. That's the way we walk. If we want fulfillment and fruitfulness, El Shaddai will appear. That is to say, he will make Himself known, but he requires of us the response of obedience. Now, the two phrases there, walk before me and be blameless. I just want to say this. Not too long ago, we were in the supermarket, and Jonathan and David were walking behind Carol and myself. And we heard the rumble of cans back there. Not the giant rumble of cans, just a few cans. And that was trouble. So we backed up and rearranged. And I said to Jonathan, you walk right here in front of me so I can see what you're doing. And he tapped and went marching right along, doing just that. You see, beloved, God says to us, walk before me so many times in our walk with the Lord, we would just as soon walk behind him far enough that he couldn't keep his eye upon us. Walk before me in obedience and be blameless. The word means be complete. It doesn't mean never make a mistake. It means just simply be. In fact, what it really means in the Hebrew is to act with integrity. Don't try to pull one over on me. The Lord's saying, just be. Just be honest with me. And when you feel under a weight, tell me, walk blamelessly before me. And I hope that you're hearing me today. And what I'm saying is that it's one thing to accept Christ. It's another thing to go on to fruitfulness and fulfillment. The one comes by faith and the act of Christ on the cross. The other comes by obeying the revelation of the Lord to your heart, by knowing him and obeying his word. Lord, I pray all the time that we would never become a community that just gets bigger and bigger and bigger with people who simply just want to have some sense of confidence in their salvation, but who have no sense of fulfillment and fruitfulness in their life. I ask the Lord, never let us become that. It's kind of like someone. How many of you have been to Disneyland or Disney World? Wow. It's amazing if you've been there and most of the other parks. For those of you who've never left Western Pennsylvania, the parks around here are the same way. You go through an entrance gate, right? You pay your money and you go through an entrance gate. And what would happen if you paid your money and went through that entrance gate and stayed right there? Could you have said that you've been to Disney World? Would you have seen Disney World? Would you have enjoyed Disney World and all of its five or six frontier lands and lands of this and lands of that? No. It takes two days to walk around the rest of Disney World. And beloved, so many come to the Lord and stay right at the gate, they stay right there. And God has these marvelous things for them. If they'll simply walk in obedience to the revelation of himself, Know God and walk in obedience. And finally, what is the reward? What is the reward? Well, in the old covenant, the reward was simply this. He said to Abram, I will multiply you, your descendants, and I will give you a land. You think of that. I will give you progeny, and I will give you a land. What does God promise to give you as a believer? What fruitfulness do you want to see in your life? I want to touch others and I want fullness. You see, the Lord's saying to us in this, I want to give you the full blessing, the everlasting blessing that I've promised to my people. And in fact, El Shaddai was so powerful to Abram, what did he say would happen as a result of Abraham's Abram's believing him? I will change your name to be able to accommodate what I'm going to do to you. The essence of your character and your life will change. You will become Abraham, which means the father of many nations. And it reminds me of what the Bible says will happen to you and to me when we're with Jesus. Revelation says that he will write a new name on our foreheads, whatever that means. It says to me that he will change our character, that he will make us after his own image, after his own life. So as we come to communion today, we come to say, lord, I desire fulfillment. I desire fruitfulness. But you've got to know God. And as you take the bread and the cup, and as you partake of that, the Lord has given us, I believe, several ways, but I want to mention two today. Two ways in which you can know Him. If the revelation, if the revelation is to proceed, how do we get this revelation? The first way, beloved above every other way, is to spend time with God. The Lord meets the ones who spend time with Him. If you spend time with Him, God will help you to know Him. The second way that he's concretely given us is the elements, right here. Somehow, by his own plan, we know God in the elements. We know of his heart by sharing communion together. And I want you to examine your own heart here for a few moments. And I want you to say, lord, El Shaddai, I want to know you in this way in my life today. I need fruitfulness. I need to see fulfillment. I want to know you in this way today. As you partake of that communion, let it be unto you an expression of obedience to the Lord that he would then work his promise of fulfillment in your own heart. Praise the Lord. Close our Bibles for a moment. Praise the Lord. Just ask you to pray with me silently for a minute, please. Thank you, Jesus. Praise the lord. Thank you, father.