God has standards

God, in His faithfulness, speaks to His people, and He delights that His people reach His promises. As we were concluding the year, the theme that God gave us was Jeremiah 29:13. The last sermon was The Promise. The promise was that after 70 years, “I will remember you, people. You are mine, and even though you were captives in the land, I will remember you.” God remembered that He had a promise—a covenant—with His people.

In this covenant, we looked at four things the Lord wanted:

1. Once God has spoken, He has spoken. If He says 70 years, He will not remove even a minute.
2. He wanted the Israelites to know God personally and to stop seeing God as “the God of Israel who deals with Israel and not with me.” God wanted them to change this perspective, to know Him on a personal level, to call Him Abba Father, and to understand that He would answer them individually.
3. God was calling the children of Israel to grow to a level where they could listen to God and discern His voice. There were many false teachers with many promises, and God wanted them to know the difference between who was speaking. Once you are in a position where you can discern that it is God speaking to you, the lies of the world and the life we live today can be separated from the truth. You will continually walk with God because you will obey the Lord and hear His voice.
4. God was reminding us that He desires an obedient people.

This brought us to the end of the year, where God has been faithful and has not abandoned us. God has opened Himself to us, saying, “Now that you have sought Me with all your heart, you know Me.” Because you know that “I am the Lord, I change not,” and that He desires obedience, this year God wants us to know that He is God Almighty. He calls us to walk before Him, minding our walk with God, for He is an almighty God.

He wants us, as a church and as individuals, to walk before Him faithfully—going before God without looking at what others are doing or saying. God is before me; He wants me to look unto Him and be faithful in my life and in fellowship with Him. This is a year of being faithful to God in all things—in speech and in life. It is a year to be faithful.

Finally, God will look at us and say, “After it all, well done, good and faithful servant. You are blameless.” In our places of work, we have reviews that rate us, and sometimes contracts are not approved based on reviews, while others receive excellent reviews that the company cannot afford to lose them. In the same way, God will look at us as a church, judge us, and say that we have been blameless.

We will be breaking the theme over the next two Sundays, laying a foundation. The elders will take it to the district and will be sharing about a God who calls us to walk before Him faithfully and blamelessly, for God is great and He can do all things.

Our reading comes from Genesis 17

The theme today:

God Has Standards

Just as we have our own standards, so does God. We choose clothing, gifts, and things around us based on our standards. In our jobs, we have expectations and standards we must meet. God also has standards. When we enter into a covenant with Him, He will not fail to point out His standards.

Genesis 17:1
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.’”

All the days of the week, month, and year, walk faithfully and blamelessly before God. I want to start by saying that the person being commanded to walk faithfully and be blameless is someone God knows very well. As we enter into a covenant renewal service, we must remember that though God has standards, He is a Father and we are His children. He knows us well. At no time does He expect us to be saints by our own strength.

To understand this, let us revisit the life of Abraham, the man God is calling to walk faithfully and to know that He is God. God takes the opportunity to introduce Himself: “I am God Almighty.” Leaders usually wait to be introduced, but God comes to Abraham and tells him, “You have been hearing of a God, praying to one, and going to church. We sing to a God and offer Him offerings, but we do not truly know Him.” That is the beginning of this conversation: “I am God Almighty.”

This is not the first time God meets Abraham. In Genesis 12, God calls Abraham to come out of his land and go to a promised land he did not know. Abraham obeyed God. We finish with a promise and start with a promise. God told him, “I will make you the father of nations, give you children, bless you, and you shall be called blessed.” Abraham received the promise and began his journey.

However, Abraham had a false start. God kept His part of the covenant, but Abraham did not start well.

1. The first thing Abraham did was take Lot, the son of his brother, who was not part of the covenant. He did what the Lord had not commanded, and Lot was not part of God’s equation. Quarrels arose between Abraham and Lot. Whenever there are quarrels in a church, family, or business, the ending is usually not pleasant. God did not intervene until chapters 13 and 14, when Abraham separated from Lot. Then God spoke again and said, “Now open your eyes—what do you see?”
   There are moments when God keeps quiet. You can call upon His name, petition Him, and fast, but He remains silent because there are things accompanying you that are not of God. There are issues God will not intervene in until you sort them out and recognize what stands between you and Him. God may close your spiritual eyes and make opportunities invisible until you realize there is disobedience or sin. When Abraham separated from Lot, he resumed his walk with God.
2. As Abraham journeyed to possess the land of promise, he went into Egypt. He saw his wife’s beauty as a threat rather than a blessing and feared Pharaoh would kill him. He told his wife to pretend she was his sister. He faltered. If he had stood before Almighty God, God would have fought for him. God inflicted Pharaoh, and Pharaoh confronted Abraham, saying, “I honored you because of your sister. Why did you not tell me she was your wife?” God revealed the truth to Pharaoh. God will also reveal to your enemies who you are. When we are not faithful or truthful, God may reveal our sins even to our enemies.
3. God said, “I called you when you were 75 years old. I knew you had no child. You never asked Me for one; it was My own will because I had promised to bless you.” In Genesis 15, Abraham doubted God’s ability to give him a child at age 86. He questioned when the promised child would come and how he would possess the land. This is the greatest danger in our lives—when God has promised faithfulness, provision, and protection, yet we refuse to believe His Word. God has standards. God has standards.
4. Abraham refused to wait and substituted God’s plan with his own understanding. He accepted his wife’s advice to sleep with Hagar, her servant. He forgot God’s promise. Ishmael was born, and Scripture says he would live in hostility toward his brothers. Abraham failed to wait on the Lord and forgot that God fulfills His promises despite age.

God’s Word, once spoken, must come to fruition. Though Abraham sinned and had weaknesses like us, God did not treat him as he deserved. God revisited him and said, “You do not know Me.”

These are the four things God wants us to know:

• I am God Almighty
• Walk before Me, not before people
• Faithfully
• Blamelessly