Well, the name that we're looking at tonight is the name El Shaddai. El Shaddai. And this is another name for God in our series that we're looking at on names of God. We've, of course, talked about God revealing himself to us, wanting us to know more about him. And isn't that the most important thing to know about? God. We need to know more about God, don't we? Of course, there's a song more and more about Jesus and all these kind of things, wanting to know God. God has revealed himself to us. In what ways? How has God made himself obvious? Through creation. It's so obvious we take it for granted. We look up at the stars at night sometimes and we don't think about God. We just take these things for granted and they are incredible, amazing things that prove God's existence, the supreme God, the creator God, the true God. God has revealed himself and made himself very obvious. He has also made himself very, Knowable, how has he made himself knowable? Through his words. And one of the ways that through his words he has revealed himself to us is through his names. We've talked about El, the general name for gods. God is an El, right? He is God, a god. But he is not just a god, who is he? He is El Ohim. He is the God. He is not just one of them. He is the top God. He is above all other gods. And last Wednesday we saw that he also is not just Elohim, he is a unique name. He is Yahweh or something like that. Yahweh, Jehovah, and we talked about how those sounds have developed phonetically over the years. We don't exactly know what that name sounds like, but it's something like that. And it tells us essentially that God is self-sufficient. He needs nothing. He is everything all at once. He is always present and is always what you need. How many of you have needed Jehovah God this last week? Anyone? Needed a God who is always there and always everything that you need at any time? We need him in that way all the time and he is there. He's telling us that's who he is. Now tonight we're looking at another name and that is the name El Shaddai. We see this mentioned to us in Genesis chapter 17 and verse 1. And when Abram was 90 years old, and nine, so 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, that is, Shaddai El or El Shaddai, walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and God talked with him. and God confirmed his covenant to Abraham. The best evidence available, though it's sparse, we really don't have a lot of archaeological or historical evidence that gives us a very clear, explicit description of this name, El Shaddai, the Shaddai word, but it's used in the Old Testament scriptures some 48 times. And from the best that we can tell, it means something like God Almighty, God is like a mountain. God is like a mountain that towers far above impossible, imposing things. How many of you have ever viewed a large mountain for real? Let's see here, let me click a slide here for you. What is that mountain? It is not Denali. It is not McKinley. It is the largest mountain in the world. It is not Himalaya. That's a range. It's Everest. It is the largest mountain in the world. So let's think about this mountain for a minute. If we're thinking about God as a mountain, let's just try to get this in perspective. I like visuals. I have personally hiked Mount St. Helens. I've driven up to a certain point and then I've hiked the rest of the way, several hours, up to the summit. The summit of St. Helens is unique. Do you know what the unique aspect of the St. Helens mountaintop is? It doesn't have one. The top is gone. It's missing. It was blown up. At the Mount St. Helens, that mountain, it was a very, very large mountain. At this present time, it stands 1.6 miles above sea level to its peak. That's a pretty high amount. That's Mount St. Helens. That's in the state of Washington. I've hiked that mountain up to the edge and you walk all the way to the top and you stop and you realize this mountain blew out its top and its side. And there's this huge hole in the middle of this thing. I'll come back to that in just a minute. I've seen that mountain. It's very big. I've seen Mount Hood close up in Oregon. This is all while I was an intern in Bible College my sophomore summer. You get to do some pretty neat things in Bible College as a pastoral intern. I climbed St. Helens. I saw St. Hood. St. Hood is 2.1 miles high. It's a little bit higher. But put this in perspective, Mount Everest, is the tallest mountain in the world, five and a half miles high. Another way of thinking about this, I could give you the feet, that meant nothing to me, how many feet tall it is. So here's another way of putting this into perspective for us city slickers. It is like 20 Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other. You say, that doesn't sound too big. OK, well, here's the Empire State Building, at least part of it. It's not the whole thing. The bottom is chopped off. But I like this picture because it showed how big it is by comparison. Then guess what I did, because I'm a visuals person. You know what I did? There we go. That's about 14 partial Empire State Buildings. Really, I should have about six more, and the picture should be a little taller each. But try to visualize yourself way down here, a little speck of this green dot. Way, way, way down here. Stack these up about up to here. Drop it down. And imagine you're standing down here somewhere, looking up. Let me ask you a question. What if I told you, move that mountain? Is that mountain going anywhere? No, it's not. The Nepalese call this mountain Sagarmatha, Sagarmatha, the head of the sky or the goddess of the sky. Now, the Tibetans call this mountain Komolungma. The Chinese have another name similar to that. And the idea again is some kind of a god or some goddess. It's fascinating because when you study mountains and you study mythologies and various pagan traditions and views, mountains are often associated with gods and demons and these kind of things. Why is that? Because they're so imposing and so amazing and so awe-inspiring These things, these mountains, cause you to think about God. But what did I tell you about God? We try to push Him away through false religion. We create smaller gods, other gods, to squeeze between us and Him. And so we push away the obvious reality and we explain it in other ways. But this is one thing in creation that should cause us to think about God. Remember what I told you about Mount St. Helens? God is the one who can move mountains. He can take a huge mountain and blow the top and the side out. He can do that. We can't do that. Maybe we could do that a little piece of dynamite at a time, but we can't do that. Now, if you can sit and just kind of try to imagine what it'd be like to stand and see this thing, if we had Dawa here tonight, he could tell us what that's like exactly. He lives there nearby. Now take that all into perspective and look again back at Genesis 17. Abram was 99 years old. His wife was 89 or 90 years old. Was she past menopause, do you think? Yeah, she was way past. It was impossible for this lady to have a baby. Physically, impossible. Scientifically, biologically, it wasn't possible. There was nothing possible about it. Abraham was quite old himself, about 100 years old. He probably wasn't material for having a baby either. And here he is, he still doesn't have a child. And God comes to him and he says, I am El Shaddai. I am the God, the mountain that towers above every mountain. Walk before me. How do you walk before a mountain? You walk and you never lose sight of the mountain because it's always there. Here's the question I want to ask you tonight. What mountains are in the backdrop or the horizon of your life that overshadow the promises of God through various means? Perhaps, perhaps you find yourself looking at something that God needs to do in your life. Maybe you even have a promise from the Bible, and that thing is a physical limitation. You're not sure if the doctors can resolve it. You're not sure if anything can be done. It's a real thing. It's a mountain. It's immovable, and you are unable to move it and to make it change. But hear God saying to you, I am El Shaddai. I am bigger than that. Is there a skill challenge? Is there something that you need to be able to do but you just don't have the skills? You're not good enough. You're not smart enough. You're not strong enough. Is there a relationship that needs to be fixed? between you and somebody else, or there's somebody who needs intervention in their life so a relationship can be brought back to where it needs to be. Is there some relationship in your life or relationships? Maybe you've got a range of mountain relationships, a whole range of them, that you're overwhelmed. How do I see God work in all of these relationships, these people's lives? Maybe you have financial limitations. Maybe there are things staring at you that need to be done but the bank account doesn't have the ability to do them. Maybe there are dreams and visions that God has given to you, callings that God has given to you, goals that God has given to you, and you're getting old and they haven't been established yet. Or maybe you're young and you have plenty of time, but you see no way you'll ever get there. You feel like you'll never get there, you're gonna sell out for something less. God is bigger than that. Here's what happens. We walk through life. And as Abraham, we get older and older. And what happens when you get older and older? What happens to your stature and the way you tend to stand? You start doing this, right? What am I doing? I am shrinking, yes, but what else? I'm hunching, and what's the problem with that? The things that God wants to do in my life are looking higher and higher and bigger and bigger and bigger and more impossible. And I'm not looking up. In life, We need to continue to walk before him and keep our head up and realize, wait, yes, that is a big mountain, but there's a bigger one. It's so big, you have to look way up. You need to step back. It's so imposing, the other ones look like little pebbles. This mountain, the Empire State Building, the big buildings some of you walk around every day, these things are nothing compared to the mountain of God. And sometimes we need to step back and just look up in the heavens and say, that's my God. What am I so concerned about? Why do these things look so impossible? What is your mountain? As pastor, I am getting to know all of us better and better. We are about a week and a half away from one year here at Faith. Hard to believe. I didn't think we did too many things this last year, but I'm looking back and I don't know how we did all those things. This has been an amazing year. I want to share something with you, a faith vision, a goal that I have even for the next few weeks here. I'm going to share that for prayer. But I believe God has some great things ahead for our church. He's done amazing things in the last year. As I get to know you, one of the treasures and the joys of pastoring is I get to share in your life. And I get emails and phone calls and conversations. And I have the privilege that not many of you have. I get to store a lot of things in my heart. Kind of like Mary. Mary took the things that she learned from Jesus' life and she hid them in her heart and she pondered them for a while. There are things that I know that I can't share with other people. that I know about some of you because you've shared them with me and I'm getting to know all of you better and better. You know that's a privilege of a lifetime and I get to pray about those things and what might look like an ordinary development or might not even be known to some people when it's a development. I know about it and I know it's a big deal. Things like this happen. It's a joy. It's a pleasure. And I know more and more some of the mountains and more and more of our lives. And I would encourage each one of you as a shepherd tending the sheep, get your chin up. Get your head up. Stop staring at those mountains. You've got a whole range of them in front of you. As soon as you cross that one, there's going to be another one. That's just how life is. Get your chin up on El Shaddai. the God of the great mountain who is bigger than everything around. That's the God who made the promises. Whatever the promises are, you have excuses, don't you? But those are all the little mountains. He's bigger than those. So that's the simple challenge tonight. Get your chin up, get your eye on El Shaddai, God Almighty, the God of the Great, Great Mountain.