El Shaddai Series

Title: El Shaddai

Text: Genesis 17

Proposition: You must look to good for sufficiency

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Have you ever been frustrated in life? I am talking about the time when you worked and planned and hoped, and after it was all done, everything turned to dust? No matter how hard you tried, you reached a point where there was just nothing else you could do. All of us experience times like that. Some of us suffer these defeats quietly, alone in our misery, some suffer publically for all the world to see.

Henry VIII experienced one of these terrible public failures. Henry VIII ascended to the throne of England in 1509. He was a powerful ruler who crushed his enemies and increased his power at every opportunity. He was a staunch Catholic as well as an astute politician.

He married Catherine of Arogine, of the royal family of Spain, to consolidate political power. Unfortunately she only provided a daughter, no heir to the throne. So he sought a divorce.

This was denied, so he dissolved the Catholic church in England and created a new church.

This church was Catholic in almost every belief, except that he was now the head instead of the pope. Interestingly, he rejected protestant beliefs - he wanted to be a catholic, he just wanted a different wife. Divorced, remarried, had another daughter. Had this wife beheaded.

His third wife finally had a son - James. James was sickly, and Henry feared he would not survive. Went on to marry a total of six wives. No more boys.

After he died, James ruled only six years - then Mary - bloody Mary.

Then Elisabeth I took the throne. Not only did His daughter rule

Had one of the longest rule of all the English monarchs

Finally welcomed the reformation to England, eradication Catholic rule

With all the might of the English military, with all the wealth of the English people, with all the energy henry could muster - All that henry had worked for, schemed for was gone within a dozen years after his death. Nothing came of his efforts. But God knew what he was doing. God used Elisabeth to strengthen and spread Christianity as He has used few people.

No matter who you are, there are always times in life when you are forced to accept that you just cannot go any farther. That you simply lack the resources or ability to make some things happen. Actually, you lack the ability and resources to make anything happen. Does that sound startling to you? Jesus challenged the leaders of his day to add one cubit to their height or one hair to their head. Well, of course you can’t do that, only God can do that kind of stuff, but of course most people figure they help God our by handling the little things in life. They only need God for the big stuff right. Some things are under our control. That’s what Pilate thought when He was frustrated with Jesus and asked if Jesus knew Pilate held the decision of life and death over Jesus. Jesus told Pilate that he could do nothing unless God chose to let it happen. The Roman governor with all the might of the Roman army backing him could not execute a single bound man sitting in front of him.

What Henry and Pilate failed to understand, what so many Christians throughout the ages have failed to understand is that we are nothing on our own. We can do nothing on our own. God doesn’t need our help to make things happen, and the more we try to help Him, the more we likely we are to mess everything up. We are insufficient on our own, but there is one who is all sufficient, who can do anything. Someone who is never stumped, someone who can meet any need. He is the one who never runs out of opportunity, or resources or ability. The one who never runs into brick walls or gets frustrated with dead ends. This is the one we are going to talk about today. This is El Shaddai, God Almighty.

Pray

Read Text - Genesis 17:1-8

Introduction

Back in Genesis 12, we read of God’s call to Abram. The Bible tells (read 1-3) us God came to Abram and told him to pack up his things and take his wife and travel to a far off land. This was a place Abram had never been. He was supposed to leave the security of all that he knew - home, business, family friends, everything - so that God could make a great nation of him. His descendants would multiply from generation to generation to generation until all the world would be blessed because of his people. And Abram believed God and stepped out in faith to follow Him.