Gen 17:1, Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. 
We now come to one of those scriptures that should enthrall us with the very expressed glory of God. It is the bedrock foundation of our belief on God. This is not one of those elements of human interpretation and theological dispute which has been used to establish some religious order. Neither is it an example of some aspect of the differences between denominational ordnances and descriptors. It is very simple and very basic right from the mouth of God. He recorded this exchange between Himself and Abram and included the greatest proclamation that mankind will ever hear. I am God Almighty… 
Think about this for a moment. Everything else that draws us to God is fundamentally and absolutely based on the fact that He is God Almighty. Without this reality, there is no reason to even believe in Him. If He is not God Almighty, we do not have any eternal security or salvation in Jesus Christ. If He is not God Almighty, we do not have any surety of His protection and His safety in our walk on this earth. If He is not God Almighty, why would we even consider sin and its horrible effects on our relationship with Him? Everything, including our holiness, our sanctification, our suffering for His name’s sake, our righteousness before Him, and our adoption into His family is meaningless if He is not God Almighty. Everything that we value in our earthly and our spiritual life is absolutely constrained by and assured in the unshakeable fact that He is God Almighty!
First of all, let us take into account the fact that when we consider God, we do so with all fear and trembling. We border on utmost audacity when we try to describe the Almighty, Infinite, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent God in terms of human language and understanding. He is so far removed from the limitations and the containments of mere mortality trying to define and to give voice to the Almighty One. Therefore, as we consider the scriptures, in terms of Who God is, we do so with utmost reverence and the realization of the faultiness of our insignificant understanding with regard to any description of Him. 
However, as we have only these limited tools to try to give some definition to the limitlessness of God, we do so with awe and with utmost humility and will stick to His scripture as our basis of methodology. We use the best descriptors that our language can supply in humbly giving voice to the infinite truth and being of God Almighty
Secondly, we must recognize that in dealing with this passage, we come to two distinct realities. The first is that when God states I am God Almighty… those elements that we use to describe Him in any limited manner will never be true of us. There are complete characteristics of God’s very nature, as we will see, to which we have no possible ability to partake on our own. Everything of God’s nature that is for our benefit will only be seen in terms as it relates to us in Jesus Christ. As the Children of God, in Christ, we are now made partakers of some of the shadowed aspects of the Divine nature. But it must be fully understood, without any misunderstanding, that we will never be gods unto ourselves. We will never have any divine power of our own! All that we are we are by virtue of being found in Jesus Christ!  
The other part, which we will develop in greater depth in our next session, Lord willing, is how God’s Divine nature is to have an effect on our lives in Jesus Christ. Certain attributes of God are His Alone. However there are certain truths of God which are to become evidenced in our lives by the power of Jesus Christ. This is the singular and ultimate authenticity of God which brings forth and bears witness to the entire course of the core of His creation of the universe and all that it contains. His entire essence of Being is manifested in fact that He is God Almighty. 
As a framework for our ultimately impossible task, we will use a scriptural list compiled by the Hope for the Heart Biblical Counseling Library. (from Hope for the Heart Biblical Counseling Library © 2006 by Hope for the Heart.) Please keep in mind that there is no list or manner in which we can give more than a cursory and feeble effort in describing the Altogether Indescribable One. We are absolutely inadequate to do so, as even this list will reiterate. 
I realize that this will be a review of some of those realities of God which we already value. However, it is never inappropriate to continually bring to the forefront of our minds and hearts and spirits the utter and unfathomable greatness and the awesomeness of our God. In so doing, Lord willing, we are brought before Him in the continual refreshment of Who He is and what He has done. We never, ever want to take anything about Him for granted! Our meager considerations of Him should always serve to increase our worship and our praise of God as we gather together and remind ourselves of Him as the Almighty One.
As a beginning, then, under this all-encompassing umbrella of God being the only true, living Almighty One, is the fact that God is Omniscient. He is the All-knowing God, from eternity unto eternity. Ps 139:1-4, O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar. Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, And art intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all. 
There is nothing that is hidden from the knowledge of God. Whether on a personal level, a familial relationship, in regard to our community, to the course of nations, to the history of mankind, to the depth of what He has instituted, everything is completely open to Him. This means that He is free to act in that foreknowledge to accomplish all that He wills to take place. His Omniscience is our security in the fact that all will be accomplished as He has so ordained and determined.
Next, as the Lord God Almighty, He is the only Omnipotent One. This means that He is All-powerful. There is nothing that He cannot do. There is no force that can stand against Him. There is no enemy who can defeat Him. He stands alone as the ultimate power Who inhabits all of eternity. The Prophet Jeremiah relates this to us in Jer 32:27, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?" With God on our side, what is there in any realm or sphere that can hinder or overwhelm or defeat us? As the Apostle Paul relates in the most encouraging manner in Rom 8:31, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 
The next characteristic of God held in the declaration, I am God Almighty… is that God is Omnipresent, He is everywhere. He is always with His people, no matter where they may wander. He is not limited by time or space or location. Again the Prophet Jeremiah relates this Word of God in Jer 23:23+24. "Am I a God who is near," declares the Lord, "And not a God far off? "Can a man hide himself in hiding places, So I do not see him?" declares the Lord. "Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the Lord. 
What possible fear of loneliness or of abandonment can we have when we are secure in the full knowledge that God is filling all of eternity with Himself. He is with us no matter what we are facing, no matter where He sends us, no matter where we might try to run. We are never alone and never forsaken or deserted. He is always with us as Our Guide, Our Comforter, and Our every Source of Wisdom, Truth, and Strength.
	This flows into the next reality of God that we have already alluded to in the terminology of His other characteristics; He is eternal. God is not encumbered by time as is humanity. He is not limited to divisions of time in terms of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, weeks, years, decades, centuries, millenniums or any such confining concepts. He far surpasses that very element. He is the One Who has put time into place for a short duration in order to fulfill to the utmost His plan and purpose in the giving of His Only Begotten Son. Deut 32:39+40, 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal; And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. 'Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven, And say, as I live forever,… 
We tend to panic and to be ruled by the length of days and the shortness of our moment in time to accomplish those goals and elements that we consider to be of greatest importance. God is never so hindered. He will do that which He will do when He knows it is best to do it. He will never run out of time, nor have to shorten His cause because the day seems to be waning. He is not bound by the frailty of earthly years. He magnificently orchestrates each day to bring forth all that He will have done to His glory for all of eternity. 
Next, in His declaration of being the only Almighty One, we come face to face with the fact that He is immutable or unchanging. He does not waiver in that which He knows must take place. He is not hindered by extenuating circumstances or the lack of resources or faltering public opinion. He is Who He is and He does that which He says He will do. Mal 3:6, "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. We can take absolute comfort in the fact that He will carry forth all His promises in His Word. There is nothing that will change His mind or influence Him to set aside one single iota of His Word. In it, He fully declares, to the best of human language, His eternal goodness and holiness and mercy and grace and love which can never be altered, hindered, or set aside. 
This brings us, then, to the next reality of Who God is in His Almightiness, and that is that He is incomprehensible. He is, as we have stated with all reverence and fear and trepidation, unfathomable and mysterious to our understanding. What He chooses to do and how He chooses to do it is not subject to the limitation of our minds and our thoughts. He far exceeds and excels beyond any measure of our understanding. He performs His will to the utter amazement and inscrutability of His love. Rom 11:33, Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! His ways are not our ways and His manifestation of Himself and His glory is not ours to try to manipulate and to control through any earthly means. What He does and how He does it simply places us into that arena of thanksgiving and joy that He is God Almighty.
As well, God, the Almighty One, is absolutely self-existent. He has all life in Himself. We need to receive life. First, earthly life as He so breathes it into us at our birth. Then, spiritual life as He so breathes it into us by the Holy Spirit when we accept His salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. All life comes from Him and, through His Son, indwells us for the rest of eternity. John 5:26, "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; Apart from Him, there is no true life. He is the source of life and its wellspring forever!
Additionally, God is completely and perfectly self-sufficient. He is able to act without any other influence being exerted upon Him. This is something that humanity has striven after since the Garden and will never find. God, Alone, the Almighty, is the Self-Sufficient One. Rom 11:36, For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. In this truth, we are blessed to know that we function perfectly within the sphere that He has set up for us in all His lovingkindness and tender mercy. He has made Himself to be our every sufficiency in Jesus Christ.
As well, God is infinite or boundless. There are no limitations or restrictions that fence Him in. Neither time nor space nor His laws of nature apply to Him. He transcends all in His power and His wisdom and His presence. Ps 139:7-12, Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Thy hand will lead me, And Thy right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," Even the darkness is not dark to Thee, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee. 
This includes the fact that He is transcendent, far above all measure of humanity’s understanding of what limits and drives and motivates action, response, reason, and behavior. God is never bound up in the fetters and the manacles of human intellect and understanding and ideology. He far exceeds and surpasses any constraint of our limited thoughts and imaginations. Isa 55:9, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. 
	And, finally for this morning, in His tremendous declaration that I am God Almighty…, God puts forth His sovereignty. He is the Supreme ruler of heaven and earth. There is no other that can overrule His absolute authority. What He wills will be done. What He chooses to accomplish will be finished and finished in unqualified perfection. Dan 4:35, "And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, 'What hast Thou done?' 
	Such is the course of the first element of this morning’s passage. We see some meager measure of those elements of God’s nature which are indisputable and which He, Alone, possesses to utter perfection. Again, it is with absolute humbleness of spirit that we even try to give any earthly description to God’s nature of Being. He is so far beyond any measure of our comprehension. But it is by His Word that we bring unto Him these elements of His faithfulness of Essence and Life. That is what we find in the first portion of the passage before us. 
  	When next we continue, Lord willing, we will consider the second aspect of this statement of God to Abram, Walk before Me, and be blameless. We will try to discover how God’s perfection of nature as the Almighty One is to have absolute and fundamental results in our lives as His Chosen ones in Jesus Christ. So be it!
Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. Amen.	

	This morning’s benediction is Isa 12:4-6. And in that day you will say, "Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted." Praise the Lord in song, for He has done excellent things; Let this be known throughout the earth. Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. Amen.