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Nothing is too hard for the Lord - Heb. 11:11-12, Gen. 17:17-21, Gen. 18:9-14, Gen. 21:1-6

By Ike Hughes | March 30, 2007

Have you ever been promised something so incredulous that you just laughed?

Have you ever been brought to a place in your life where you knew you were following God’s leading but it just didn’t seem as though God was going to come through?

How did you react?

Many of us, if we have to wait long enough, either give up, or take matters into our own hands.

Today we are going to look at Sarah and her responses to God’s promise of children for Abraham.

We have recorded for us in Genesis 15 and 17 God’s promise of children for Abraham through Sarah. God told Abraham that he would have children and descendents that would be more numerous than the stars in the sky and the sands on the seashore.

But as we read the narratives of Abraham and consider this promise of descendents we see, as Meredith Kline tells us, a theme of prolonged delay in the acquiring of the crucial first son of promise, the necessary beginning.

Abraham’s life between Genesis 15 and 21 is long and drawn out. Abraham and Sarah go through a lot to get to the point where they had the son that would start the line of descendents and nations. Abraham kept faith during this time. The beginning of Genesis 17 tells us that when God promised a child through Sarah, Abraham fell on his face in humble submission and laughed for joy over God’s promises.

Abraham had seen the promises of God worked out in his life in coming to the land that God had promised him. Sarah was not so fortunate. She was beyond the age for bearing children and saw no way that a child could come through her. We see this contrast in Abraham’s and Sarah’s faith in God’s promises first manifested in Genesis 16:1-4. Sons were very important in the Ancient Near East. Sons received the blessings and the property of the family when the father died.

Abraham had no son.

Sarah had been unable to bear a son for Abraham. There were three options open to Abraham and Sarah. First, they could trust that God would carry out his promises. Second, Abraham could give his belongings to a male servant. And third, Sarah could give one of her maid servants to Abraham in order for him to conceive a son.

Sarah chose not to trust God. Sarah chose not to entrust Abraham’s inheritance to a manservant. Sarah chose to take matters into her own hands. She gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham. And to human eyes this was successful. Hagar became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Abraham had the heir that was the crucial first step to innumerable descendents.

But this was not the way God had planned for this to happen. In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that Sarah would provide a son for him to be his heir. Abraham asks God to bless Ishmael, Hagar’s son, with the blessings intended for Sarah’s son, but God says no.

God tells Abraham that the covenant that was established with Abraham would be carried on by a son born to Sarah. Ishmael would receive blessings because of God’s covenant with Abraham, but the blessing of the covenant would come through and be guaranteed through Abraham’s future son, Isaac.

Genesis 18 goes on to recount for us the visit of three messengers of God to Abraham. While Abraham is entertaining these guests, they tell him that it will be only one year later that Sarah will bear Abraham a son.

Sarah is in the tent and overhears this conversation. When she hears the men promise a son, she thinks to herself, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”

Sarah was well past the age of childbearing. She had experienced menopause. The physical evidence casts doubt on the word of these messengers from God. And Sarah reacted once again with doubt. She laughed. Not the belly laugh of a great joke. Not the laugh of joy at God’s promise. But a laugh of doubt. Doubt brought on by a focus on what Sarah could see. Sarah was not focused on God’s promises.

The messengers of God rebuke Sarah for her laughter and she tries to get out of it by lying. The messenger reminds Abraham, and Sarah listening in the tent, that “nothing is to hard for the Lord,” and that at the appointed time, God would bless Abraham and SARAH with a son. Sarah is rebuked for her doubt.

Then in chapter 21:1-5, we see that God provided a son for Abraham and Sarah. Despite her meddling, despite her doubt, Sarah had a son. The prolonged waiting for the promised son was rewarded with Isaac, the forefather of the Messiah, the ultimate blessing to the nations.

Sarah’s life, in relation to the promises of God regarding Isaac, was marked with doubt. Sarah lived a life of doubt until she could see and feel the promises of God in her hands. Sarah lived live by sight and not by faith.

But Hebrews 11:11-12 paints a different story. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Sarah’s doubt is credited as righteousness. How can that be? We saw in the two instances that we looked at in Genesis that Sarah tried to take matters into her own hands and she laughed at God’s promise. Is that faith? How does the author of Hebrews get from Sarah’s doubt to Sarah’s faith? Which account can we believe?

We can believe both. Sarah had doubt and faith. The author makes no apologies for Sarah’s doubt. But he does highlight her faith. Sarah took more convincing of God’s power than Abraham. Abraham believed in God’s promises and was given salvation for that. It took the miraculous birth of Isaac for Sarah to find the faith she need to believe God’s promises.

Genesis 21:6&7 show us that Sarah laughed with joy and praised God for his miraculous act in her life.

Genesis 21:6-7 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Sarah’s doubt turned to faith.

But there is more to this than just Sarah turning from doubt to faith. Look again at verse 11. “She considered him faithful who had promised.” It is not just Sarah’s faith that got her into this Hall of Faith.

It was God’s faithfulness to his promise. God did not wait for Sarah to have perfect faith in order to carry out his will. For that matter, God does not wait for anyone to have perfect faith before he acts to carry out his will. God works and acts according to his timing to either bring about faith in a person or to work in spite of a lack of faith.

Sarah had doubt not faith and God elected to act in spite of her doubt. Then the faith that Sarah needed to be recorded in this hall of faith came when Isaac was born and Sarah saw first hand the fruit of God’s faithfulness.

God’s faithfulness flows through all the faith and promises that we see in this list of people. Without God being faithful, there would be no hall of faith. Without God being faithful, there would be no hope for the persecuted Christians of the first century.

There will be times when situations will overwhelm us. Money is tight; children are rebelling; we are betrayed by friends. During these times it is hardest to believe God and his promises.

We don’ understand how God could fulfill when the circumstances seem so stacked against us. And sometimes we don’t have faith in the midst of the trials, but God WILL work in spite of our doubt. He will either work to bring about faith in us. OR he will work despite our doubts and the faith will come after we see God’s faithfulness. God IS faithful to keep his will.

And Hebrews 11:12 follows up to tell us that because of Sarah’s faith and God’s faithfulness, Abraham had uncountable descendents. And one of those descendents was Jesus. One of the first things that we see from today’s texts is that God works in his own time. Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 90 years old. Both of them were well past the age of childbirth.

God had a plan through which he would bring salvation to his people. And he would bring his plan about in his timing. When we step in to try to “help” God with his plans, things get messed up. If we were to continue to read the story of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 16 we would see that Sarah and Hagar battled. Hagar left the household of Abraham and was told to go back by the angel of God.

There was strife in the family of Abraham because he and Sarah had tried to take things into their own hands. We cannot fulfill God’s plans; he must intervene in order for them to be fulfilled.

In the Hebrews passage, we see a theme of Abraham being as good as dead. This is an interesting phrase. Some people have explained this by saying that Abraham’s body was not physically able to produce children.

But I think this biological explanation misses a very important point. This theme of death has two very important implications for us today. First, Abraham was dead in his ability to secure the heir that God had promised. Sarah was well beyond the age of conception. There was nothing Abraham could do to bring about this child that would inherit the promises of God’s covenant with Abraham. The heir that Abraham had been promised was the person through whom the salvation of the world would come. There was nothing Abraham could do to bring about salvation.

The same is true for us today. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves. We are as good as dead when it comes to our standing before God. There is nothing within us that warrants salvation. Romans 5:6 tells us that salvation came for us when we were weak, when we were helpless, when we were dead.

And that leads us to the second implication. Salvation came through death. It took a miraculous intervention in the life and the body of Sarah to bring about the covenant heir, the next step in God’s plan of salvation. Salvation life came from death. Romans 5:6 goes on to say that at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Our salvation came through death, Christ’s death on the cross. And then new life came. We can have the promise of an eternal life because Jesus also rose from the dead.

Contrary to what James Cameron says, there is no tomb of Jesus because he rose from the dead and is seated with God in heaven. Salvation life comes from death.

By faith Sarah…Today we have seen that Sarah was credited as having faith. We have also seen that Sarah reacted to God’s promises with laughter and doubt. The physical evidence that Sarah had before her told her that there was no way that the covenant child could come through her. And she reacted the same what that most of us would. She doubted.

But in today’s passage we have seen that it was not only the faith of the patriarchs that brought about God’s salvation purpose. God’s faithfulness was what it took for all the promises of God to come to fruition. God’s faithfulness brought about Isaac even though Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead. And it was God’s faithfulness that brought salvation life out of death for his people.

Let’s pray.

Topics: Genesis, Hebrews, New Testament, Old Testament |

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