El Elyon "God Most High"

Victories: 1. The Rummage is done. Thanks to all who helped. Over 90 Volunteer hours went into the endeavor. It will be open after church

Prayer: Imago Dei Jeff Horseman & Pete Semple

Missionary Prayer: Doug & Jenny McGee - Pray for their leadership

Is God Strong Enough for You?

Is God strong enough for you? I know the answer most of you would give if I asked this to you individually, but as you think it through and really internalize it; the answer isn’t so easy. As I studied this week to prepare this message the night before I did the bulk of the work I had a really horrible night of sleep. I tossed and turned most of the night and it got so bad that I was angry at myself for not being able to sleep. As you can imagine I started my study the next morning with little to no energy and my prayer as I started my study was, “God, I am not sure where to go with this. I am just so tired and I am not sure I have the strength to do this subject justice.” Do you want to know what God taught me in that moment. Almost as soon as the words had left my mouth the Lord impressed upon me the weight of what I had just said. Perhaps it was the fact that I was beyond tired but I was overwhelmed with the selfishness of my words, My strength, my thoughts, my ability. As if studying for a sermon was all about me. I was then struck by what I knew would be the Lord’s response to me, “Curtis, you have never had enough strength, knowledge, or energy to do this. What in the world makes you think you could ever do this on your own.” I am not a crier but I was almost in tears.

The Rise of ME! I would like to think that after all the years of serving the Lord I could feel some confidence in my ability to do this, to prepare to teach, to study well, to be a good example. I want to stand up here and be someone whom you all will follow, who you will bring others to hear, to be the type of leader that people admire. But I will tell you as I stand here today I can’t do or say any of those things, more than that, I know that those desires are selfish and wrong. This is not a confession of my personal failure, it is not a resignation, but maybe it is. I confess that I will never have the strength to do all that I need to do, I confess that I will never be the leader that I think you deserve, I resign that my skills are never enough, I am not wise enough or good enough.

Do you know the best thing about saying that to you all? You can’t look at me and say, “There is a man who has it all together, I mean look at the success, and the poise. Wow!!” Do you know an even better reason for me coming to this conclusion? It is here that God meets me and says as He did to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Do you believe that? I mean it. Do you believe that? Is the grace of God sufficient for you? Do you see your weaknesses as being perfect in that they are how God is showing you His strength? Let me confess once again. I see my weaknesses as being failures and detriments to my life, my family, and my job. I spend a whole lot of time trying to pretend that I don’t have these weaknesses and I spend even more time trying to convince myself and those around me that my weaknesses aren’t that big of a deal. But I struggle to allow God’s grace to be sufficient, I fail at letting my weaknesses be made perfect in God’s strength, and I think if you are being honest with yourself you would have to agree with me.

If you don’t then I am sorry because it means that you might have so really hard days ahead of you. You can’t heal if you don’t know you’re hurt, you can’t grow if you don’t know you’re stagnant. I don’t want to make this a depressing sermon but I also don’t want to sugarcoat the problem. You and I will never be strong enough but as Paul said there in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “And He said to me, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

The first step in realizing that God is strong enough for you is believing in God but more than that is a belief that our God is the strongest, the wisest and the most trustworthy being in all of the Universe. As we open up the scripture today that is what we need to come to terms with do we believe that God is The Best, The Top, is our God the God most High. The Hebrew name that we are studying today is just that God Most High, El Elyon. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Genesis.

Bible Reading: Genesis 14:18-15:1

Does God Guide You?

This is early on in the history of Abraham so early that God has not yet changed his name from Abram. Here in Chapter 14 of Genesis Abram meets the king of Salem named Melchizedek. Melchizedek is an interesting character because he just shows up here and we don’t know where he is from or where he goes from this point on and yet we are given two incredibly important details about him. The first is that Melchizedek is the king of Salem. This is a kingdom in Caanan that one day will be the promised land and this king is a king of Salem the location is believed to be the future location of the city of Jerusalem. But we aren’t done with the details surrounding this King Melchizedek for the scripture here tells us that he wasn’t just king he was also the priest of the God Most High. Actually in the original Hebrew it looked like this: אֵל עֶליוֹן. The El stands for God and Elyon stand for Most High or The Highest God. Something special that we don’t have time to get into today is the fact that Melchizedek is the only person in the Bible prior to Jesus to hold both the title of priest and King which is why in Hebrews you will find that the author of Hebrews makes the case that Jesus is in the order of Melchizedek. But that is a rabbit hole we don’t have time to chase down today.

What we have here is not just a special Priest/King named Melchizedek but equally as important is the fact that Melchizedek took the time to bless Abram. Read 19-20 again. The reason why Melchizedek blessed Abram is because of the faith that it took for Abram to even be there. We are first introduced to Abram 3 chapters earlier in the genealogies following the Tower of Babel and then in Chapter 12 we see God speaking to Abram. Genesis 12:1 “Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” That is it just, get up, move from your family to a land God will show Abram. Why in the world does Abram do this? What could possibly have enticed him to leave his family and the comforts of his home to blindly follow God to a land that God will show Abram? Let me answer that question. Abram believed that God was Most High. Think that through. Abram believed that following after what God said was more important than the comforts of family and home. Abram believed El Elyon. There is no other answer that makes sense because there is no earthly reason for this Ancient Near Eastern man to do this thing, apart from believing that God was of Utmost Importance.

That is the lesson we must learn from El Elyon. If we believe that God is most High then what El Elyon tells us we must do. Does God Most High Guide you? If God spoke to you today would you listen? Would you stop what you are doing in order to follow after El Elyon? What if God asked you to pick up your life and follow after Him to the ends of the earth? What If God said that He had plans for you to make your name great and to bless you but that it was going to require you to put your life in His hands and let God guide your way? What if following after God Most High meant that you were going to have to change your ways, fix your sins, listen to the Word, serve others with your life, teach the Gospel, face persecution, and not live a comfortable life? Friends let me really scare you. Our God Most High, Our El Elyon is doing just that. He is asking every single one of us to give up on our own view of how we think we should live and instead live our lives as if He is our God most High. So then the question isn’t as much, “Does God Guide you?” but, “Are you willing to let El Elyon be your guide no matter where He takes you?”

Do you Trust God?

Let’s look at another time when this title El Elyon is used and this time it is another king praising the Lord. Ps. 9:1-10

We are not told when exactly David was writing this Psalm but it could have been at any number of times through out his life when it appeared that David’s enemies would get the better of him. At those times David would turn to the Lord and declare his praise and thanksgiving for David’s El Elyon. Right there in verse 2 we see David sing out in praise to God in the name, El Elyon, Psalm 9:2 “I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.” But David’s Psalm is more, it is a Psalm of remembrance and trust. David remembers when his enemies failed because of God. David remembers the righteousness that God has shown David throughout his life. David has seen nations fall to the Lord. David has watched as his God Most High has destroyed cites and wiped even the memory of them from history. David has fled to God in his time of need and in El Elyon’s arms he has found comfort and refuge. Psalm 9:10 “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.”

Why does David need to sing a song like this? Why didn’t he just trust that God would use His Supernatural power to get David out of this scrape or that problem? David, like all of us, lost sight of the goodness and trustworthiness of the Lord in the middle of the struggles of life and this song brought Him back to center. David could sing this song of trust in the Lord and remember the goodness of God, David could recite these words and be reminded of how God had protected him and how God had made him flourish. It is a song that turns David’s thoughts away from his own sorrows as he meditates on why God has been trustworthy in the past and that points David to the hope that God will again be faithful and trustworthy.

The Psalms are really good at this. They are meant to stir up in us emotions. When we read the Psalms it is as if we can not only sympathize with the authors but it can feel like they are speaking our pain, our doubts, our triumphs, and our praise through their mouth to our hearts. It is here that we must ask ourselves, “Do we Trust God?” Is God just some being that we passably obey on occasion or is He OUR MOST HIGH GOD? Are we willing to put our hopes and fears in His hands. Are we ready to submit and obey in all things? Is He just some god or is He EL ELYON? When it comes down to it for us we have to make a decision, “Do we trust The Most High God?”

In the aptly named book “Trusting God” the author Jerry Bridges makes this statement, “I mistakenly thought I could not trust God unless I felt like trusting Him (which I almost never did in times of adversity.) Now I am learning that trusting God is first of all a matter of the will and is not dependent on my feelings. I choose to trust God, and my feelings eventually follow… If we are to trust God, we must choose to believe His truth, We must say, “I will trust You though I do not feel like doing so.”

I think that at least in part this is what David is doing there in Psalm 9. David is reminding himself of why God is trustworthy and in doing so he changing his heart to follow his God Most High. This is exactly what we are to do as well. Sing out to our God most High. Remember God’s faithfulness to you. Trust that God will bring about goodness and know that even when you don’t feel like you can trust Him the process of placing your life in God’s hands over and over again will prove to the best solution.

Friends, we believe in a God who is strong enough to take on all of our challenges, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Our God Most High, is our strength. Praise El Elyon.

Friends, we believe in a God who can lead us where we need to go. We must heed the call of God to go wherever and whenever He calls for God alone knows what is best for us. Our God Most High, is our guiding light. Praise El Elyon.

Friends, we believe that God is trustworthy and despite our fear and our doubts we can trust God to bring us through ever part of our lives. We cry out to our El Elyon as David did, Psalm 9:1–2 “I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.”

Gospel

‌If you are here today and you know that you are not a believer, you have never asked Jesus into your heart, or maybe you did but haven’t ever allowed God to change you, then let me tell you how you can change that today. Your sin and your brokenness are there to point you to Jesus because only He can provide you with a real solution. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that solution. Here is the Gospel: Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and because He did, we can ask for our sins to be forgiven, and the Bible says He will forgive them. Jesus is the Lamb of God who died for your sins. God sent Jesus so that Jesus might take the punishment we deserve so that we might return to God and be called His own. Romans 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” ‌It is just that easy. You can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads. God holds out His outstretched hand for you. Are you going to continue in your sin, or are you going to take His Hand? He is calling, and all you have to do is believe.

‌It is just that easy. You can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

‌Dear Lord, ‌I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

‌Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

‌Benediction: 2 Corinthians 13:11 “Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” [Amen]