We are in our last in the series of Women of Faith, and it was hard to know which Scripture to start with, but we're going to look at a New Testament interpretation of Sarah, 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. Wives, likewise be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward, arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughter as you are, if you do good, and are not afraid with any terror. Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. Amen. Father, thank you for the many different scriptures we're going to be looking at this morning and having raised up an example of the faith in Sarah. And I pray that this time would be a blessing for each one here, men and women and children. We pray that you would keep me from speaking any error, enable me to faithfully deliver your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, there are a lot of interesting factoids about Sarah, at least as far as the limited information that we have about the ages of women in the Bible. Sarah is the oldest woman to give birth to a child, with perhaps Elizabeth being a close second in Luke chapter 1. Sarah was the first woman in the Bible to encourage her husband to have sex with another woman, and you know the horrible story of Hagar. And then she got really mad at Abraham for listening to her, and we would agree, we can understand where she would get upset with him. Because ultimately, she said, look, you're the boss, you're the Lord, and the buck stops with you. You can't blame your wife if she has badgered you into doing something wrong. Men are the leaders, and Sarah understood that. Several authors have pointed out she is the only non-metaphorical woman in the Bible to laugh, which is an interesting thought. Her first example of laughter was at age 89, where she laughs a cynical laugh of unbelief. And then the next year, she has a wonderful laugh of faith. And when I was reading in John MacArthur's writings, He convinced me that she has a lovely sense of humor, and we'll look at her sense of humor a little bit later on in the sermon. She is the first Israelite to be buried in the land of Canaan. She is the first, well, and the only woman outside of the Song of Solomon to be so frank about the pleasurable side of sex in later life. She is a woman who alternated, vacillated between faith and lack of faith. And so even though the Bible holds her up as an example and a model of faith, she did some pretty weird things that really have troubled a lot of Christians to this day. So much so that for a long time I debated whether I should even preach on Sarah. But how on earth can you have a series on women of faith and not preach on the one woman that the New Testament upholds as being the model of faith? You can't do that. And so I'm going to end this series on Sarah. And actually, I think the Lord has given me a breakthrough and finally helped me to understand how all of these things did fit together. And so I'm hoping that her life will be a blessing to you as it has been to me. Now before we get into some of the details of Sarah's life, let me get you a little bit of her family background. Joshua 24 verse 2 says that Abraham and Sarah grew up thoroughly immersed in the idolatry and the pagan worldview of the Chaldeans. Their thinking was pagan through and through when they first came to salvation. And this helps to explain, actually, some of the strange things that they both engaged in. Christians don't instantly put off and overcome or even recognize all of the unbiblical things that need to be put off when they first come to Christ, especially if they've had years and years of training in government schools. Many times they don't even recognize that the things that they're doing are utterly inconsistent with their Christianity. And so rather than judging Abraham and Sarah for the handful of grossly unbiblical things that they did. Maybe it'll help us to a little bit be sympathetic. You know, in our Christian walk, it does take quite a while to get rid of things that we have picked up over a lifetime of unbelief. And sometimes it actually takes multiple generations to get rid of inconsistencies. Which one of us does not have some inconsistencies that we keep recognizing, okay, that's another thing I need to get rid of in my life. Their dad's name was Tara, and yes, Abraham and Sarah were siblings. I know it seems strange, but it was not a sin. As genetic defects began to come into the human gene pool, God, at the time of Moses, which was much later, said you could no longer marry close relatives, but Adam and Eve, their children, they didn't have any choice but to marry their siblings. But there were no genetic problems back at that time. But even by the time of Abraham, most cultures frowned on siblings getting married, and there are hints that even Abraham and Sarah, you know, did think of it as a bit strange. They had two older brothers, Heron and Nahor. Now Heron was considerably older than both of them. Heron was born when Tara, their dad, was 70 years old. And then Abraham was born when Tara was 130 years old. And then Sarah was born when he was after, you know, Abraham's mother had died and he had married again when Tara was 140 years old. So sometime shortly after Abraham was born, It appears that the first mama died. Tara got married again. And so they weren't full siblings. They were half siblings. Jonathan Sarfati's commentary on Genesis is a pretty cool commentary. And he does the math and some of the other issues in there. One of the interesting factoids I found about her is that Shem, who was one of the sons of Noah, was still alive during most of their lives. In fact, Shem outlived Sarai by 13 years, which I find absolutely remarkable. And this means that a true knowledge of Christianity, of the true faith, was around during all of this time when many of Noah's descendants had apostatized. And for sure, Abraham and Sarah's ancestors had apostatized and were worshiping pagan gods. And to me, this is The application from this is that this is a tribute to the truthfulness of total depravity. Information alone does not convert people. It takes the grace of God. Sarah's ancestors worshipped other gods despite the fact that they knew God had judged the earth within Shem's lifetime for all of their sins and their iniquities. Mankind has always had a short memory span and rarely learns from history. And the Apostle Paul says, once you become a believer, that should completely change. Believers need to learn from history so that we don't repeat the mistakes of history. Anyway, at some point, their older brother, Heron, died, leaving three children behind, Milcah, Iscah, and Lot. The next oldest brother, Nahor, married the orphaned niece, Milcah, and Abraham adopted the orphaned nephew, Lot. And so this appears to be the first example of an adoption in the Bible. It seems that Abraham married Sarai shortly after adopting Lot, maybe thinking, you know, that Lot needs a mom. And so Sarai is an instant mother to a somewhat manipulative boy. Now, Lot did convert to the true faith under their tutelage, and 2 Peter 2, verse 7 calls Lot righteous Lot. Well, how righteous? He didn't give up all of the pagan ideas that he had. I think Abraham and Sarah gave up many more of their pagan ideas than Lot did. But he still was righteous. He was a genuine believer. And I will just point out that with adoptions, you do need to realize that if the demonic is not broken off, many times, much more of the patterns of their parents come through into your lives. And so it's very important that the demonic be broken off. But it does explain why Lot hung around and followed after Abraham and Sarah for decades. They appear to have been fairly close. And Lot was Sarai's nephew, but it appears she took care of him. God called Abraham out of his idolatry at approximately the age of 48. Now, we don't know for sure. There are some people who think it's a little bit older than I'm convinced it was right around 48. And since Sarai, which is what her name was called back then, since Sarai was 10 years younger than Abraham, that means that she left Ur at the age of 38, and she appears to have been converted shortly after Abraham was converted. And this seems to be the normal way that God does conversions. Let me just give you some statistics that have been true over the past hundred years that they've been looked at. When a child is the first one in a family to come to Christ, there is a 3.5% probability that the rest of the family will come to Christ. Not very high. When a mother is the first one to come to Christ, there is a 17% statistical probability that the rest of the family will come to Christ. And when a man is the first one to come to Christ, there is a 93% statistical probability that the whole family will come to Christ. And so I think this should impact what our emphasis on evangelism should be. While there's no sin about evangelizing children, it's not the emphasis that you find in the Scripture. Now, God can do anything that he wants. He's not bound by statistics, right? But these statistics, I think, are illustrating what the Bible itself says is God's normal covenantal way of winning families to Christ. I don't care how much a society fights against patriarchalism and hates patriarchalism, God is going to work. This is the way He has structured life and we just need to get over it. It doesn't matter if people abandon it, God still has structured life to function best under biblical and loving patriarchalism. We cannot escape His structured life. Commentators point out that their dad, Terod, did not convert. And again, that's not surprising. While he went out of Ur with Abraham and Sarai, it appears that he left for family and for business reasons. And they stayed in Haran for quite a long time. Most conservative chronologists say it was 27 years. There is some slight variation depending on how old you think they were when they left Ur. And Abraham, his name then was Abram, only left Heron when his dad died and he left his brother behind. Sadly, Heron was a hotbed of idolatry. Abram and Sarah remain faithful to the Lord, but not Tara. Anyway, as already mentioned, Sarah converted at age 38. And that's a lot of years of pagan baggage, 38 years worth of pagan baggage that would need to be undone in her life. Now, Abram and Sarai left most of their old pagan life behind immediately, but there were other things like raising a son through a slave girl, which is just bizarre, really, really weird, that probably continued on, ideas from their old life. And the New Testament, we'll get into that a little bit. The New Testament helps us to interpret that. But during all of this time, Sarai was unable to have children, no doubt a very heavy burden. Abraham, when he left Haran, when his dad died, well then the older brother is going to inherit all of his dad's wealth, and so Abraham is leaving Haran to establish his own dynasty, and not having any children, that would make it doubly a burden on Sarah, because how are you gonna have a dynasty without having any children? And so in a weak moment, Sarai made an emotional mistake and pushed her husband to make a compromise. But we're getting ahead of the story. That's chapter 16. In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai left the land of Haran for Canaan. Abram was 75, Sarah was 65, with still no children in sight. Now here's the weird thing. The Scripture says that at age 65 Sarai was such a stunning beauty that Pharaoh wanted her to be his wife to take her into his harem. There was something remarkable about her beauty. She stood head and shoulders about every other woman it appears on the beauty scale. And so Abraham was worried that the king would kill him in order to take his wife. And it's a heads up to you young girls to not covet the beauty of other people. Beauty can be a burden. It can be actually a danger in a pagan culture. And for those of you who are stunningly beautiful, it's a heads up to do exactly as Peter tells us. Don't focus on the outward beauty. Focus on the beauty of the heart. Don't let it get to your head. So there's lots of applications to every facet of her life. Nine years later, in Genesis 15, God entered a covenant with Abram where God himself passed between the pieces of the slaughtered animal on the altar, which was really signifying that if this covenant is broken, I myself as God will die. which is an incredible testimony that actually happened in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's committing himself to die. And this covenant had a powerful impact upon Sarai. But a year later, Sarai, longing to see this blessed seed that God had promised, which shows faith on her part. She really believes that God's promise is a true promise. But thinking God might need some help, shows that doubt can accompany faith, something that the Continental Reformed people didn't quite understand, but the Westminster divines had a great pastoral understanding of and did a fantastic job of counseling people through their doubts. So doubt can exist side by side with faith. It makes for a weak faith, but it doesn't necessarily obliterate faith. But we do need to put off, constantly cast off doubts. Anyway, in Genesis 16, she is 85 years old. She remembers a weird custom from her old culture, that when a woman is barren for two years, she is responsible to purchase a slave, because in paganism, it's the woman's fault, right? She's responsible to purchase a slave, then let her husband raise a son by that slave, and then sell the slave. And so the original idea among the pagans was that this slave girl would be a surrogate mother, and then once the baby is born, they'd get rid of the slave, and then the wife would raise that as her own son. And so she asks Abraham to have sex with her Egyptian maid Hagar, and the results are disastrous. Now, I'm not going to get into that right now, because right now I'm just trying to give you the broad contours of the story. But we see even this kind of gross compromise of Christianity today in the radical two-kingdom theory, where people are mixing the paganism that they grew up with together with biblical ideas in civics, in counseling, in economics, in so many areas of culture they're mixing the two together. And they don't even recognize that this is a compromise because they have been so immersed in the paganism it's just part and parcel of who they are. But it is just as much a compromise as Sarah's bringing her pagan idea of using Hagar to be a surrogate mom. You know when you've got Christians who have had 12 years of discipleship by the Canaanites in government school, and then they go to get their bachelors of paganism in the pagan university, and then they get a master's, now they're masters of a pagan worldview, and then they get a PhD. Is it any wonder that theologians and other believers are so compromised in areas like evolution and other areas of life? It's no wonder at all. God calls us to a radically Christian, biblically-based discipleship education from the ground up. And there's nothing new under the sun. It's no different than what Sarah imported in Genesis 16 from her 38 years of pagan discipleship. So really it does take a while to undo all of that. Then we get to Genesis 17 where God renewed His covenant with Abram and changed His name to Abraham, okay? Abram means exalted father. Abraham means father of a multitude. Now, Abram was 99 years old when he got that name change, and Sarah was 89 years old. A year later, Isaac was born to a laughing Sarah at age 90, and a joyful father at the age of 100. Application, our God is a God of miracles. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And Hebrews 11 says that Sarah came to firmly believe that God would indeed do a miracle in her life, and because she now had faith, God gave her strength to conceive, okay? Yet weirdly, later on in that same year, if conservative chronologists are right, in that same year, Abraham went down to Gerar where he once again succumbs to the sin of fear, begging his wife not to admit that she is his wife. And the text goes on to say that it was because he was afraid the king would kill him and take his wife. And she seems to be afraid of the same thing. She's doing this to save his life because she loves him. But as we'll see, it was ungodly to do so. Now she's still such a stunning beauty at age 90. that his and her fears are fulfilled, and King Abimelech took Sarah into his harem to be one of his wives. Fear is like faith. I actually call fear negative faith, or the inverse of faith. They both demand to be fulfilled. For example, concerning faith, Jesus said this, according to your faith, let it be to you, Matthew 9, 29. Well, Scripture says the same thing about fear. Proverbs 10, verse 24 says, And it's true of believers as well. Job said, And that's why it's so important that we put off fears and we boldly live by faith. But how could she be that beautiful at age 90? There are liberals who say, this is nonsense, this is ridiculous. But our God is a God of miracles. And in order for her to be able to bear Isaac, there probably had to be an age reversal, miraculous age reversal within her body. So she probably looked many years younger than she actually was. Now, why have I decided to include Sarah in this series on women of faith, even though she has messed up more than some of the women that we have looked at, at least according to some scholars. And John MacArthur summarizes the sins in her life that he sees and that many other people think that they see. And I think it's a bit of an exaggeration, but just as a counterpoint to our next point, let me quote from him. MacArthur says this. Let's be honest, there are times in the biblical account when Sarah comes off as a bit of a shrew. She was the wife of the great patriarch Abraham, so we tend to think of her with a degree of dignity and honor. But reading the biblical account of her life, it is impossible not to notice that she sometimes behaved badly. She could throw fits and tantrums. She knew how to be manipulative, and she was even known to get mean. At one time or another, she exemplified almost every trait associated with the typical caricature of a churlish woman. She could be impatient, temperamental, conniving, cantankerous, cruel, flighty, pouty, jealous, erratic, unreasonable, a whiner, a complainer, or a nag. By no means was she always the perfect model of godly grace and meekness. In fact, there are hints that she may have been something of a pampered beauty, a classic prima donna. Now, I personally think that MacArthur's portrayal of her is a gross exaggeration. She did have her moments. His book, by the way, on women of faith, I think is worth reading. It's got 12 different character things, and the rest of his chapter on her I think is pretty good. But that paragraph was over the top. She had her moments. But I think they were few and far between. And I have listed every one of her bad moments. We're not going to ignore them. And you're going to see they weren't a great many. But I want to emphasize, for the most part, there was huge growth in her life. For the most part, she was a woman of faith. So before we get to the embarrassing parts, let me prove that point. In fact, Peter calls her an ideal woman, a model woman that women today should imitate. We don't have a lot of her story. What we do have sometimes portrays her weaker sides, and we'll be seeing there's a reason why God did that. There's a reason. But she was indeed a woman of faith. In chapter 17 of Genesis, God changed her name from Sarai which means my princess, to Sarah, which simply means princess, with the my being taken away. Says, well, why would God bother to change her name? That's hardly any change at all. What difference does that make? Both of their names got changed there. Well, I believe God was telling Abraham, who also got the name changed, that he could no longer cling to her as his possession, as his idol. God had a plan for Sarah, and Abraham needed to treat her as a stewardship trust. Nations and kings would come out of her. She was no longer just Abraham's princess. She was now a princess to many nations, a real princess. And Genesis 17, 16 shows God blessing a woman. God wanted her for His special plan. He pursued her. He prepared her for a special plan. And the fact that it took many years before she was ready for God's plan does not lessen the esteem that the Bible has for this woman. For example, Isaiah 51, verse 2, called believers in Israel to look to Sarah and to imitate her faith. It says, look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. Now, if they were to look to Sarah, then that means that God was presenting Sarah to them as a model for their faith. That's Isaiah 51, verse 2. Hebrews 11 singles her out as a hero of the faith, saying this, So she had that faith at age 89, and God blessed that faith. In context, it's saying, it's not just Abraham who was a model of faith, Sarah was too. 1 Peter 3, verse 6 urges women to become daughters of Sarah. by imitating her confident submission, her confident willingness to call him Lord, both of which evidenced faith in her day-to-day living. Now, the reason I'm starting with these strong affirmations that she really was a woman of faith is that you read some books on Sarah, wow, do you get the impression that her life is characterized by failure. No, she lived 127 years, and we only have a few factoids here, and the Bible says she was a woman of faith, she was a woman of faith, okay? And so even, I wanted you to know, God's opinion of her is very, very strong, even though, like women today, she had some events she wasn't too proud of. And we're gonna look at some of those embarrassing events. The most famous sin was fear and deception, which almost led them to adultery. It certainly took the risk of adultery. They both pretended not to be married to each other in Egypt, and then later in Gerar, because they were fearful of what pagan rulers might do to Abraham. Genesis 12 says, she was stunningly beautiful, and Abraham was worried sick that the king might kill him in order to take her. Now, we rightly fault Abram for his lack of courage and lack of protectiveness of his wife, but I fault Sarah for going along with Abram's scream. What on earth was she thinking when outside of their tent, Abraham and Pharaoh's emissaries are negotiating a dowry to take her to their harem? I mean, Deuteronomy says it is her obligation to resist this, to scream if need be, but not to go into the harem. Otherwise, she bears guilt. Now, of course, God spared Sarah by bringing plagues upon Pharaoh, and you know that story. But sadly, both Abram and Sarah do it again in Genesis 20, and she's 90 at that point. But let me read that story. This is Genesis 20, beginning at verse 1. And Abraham journeyed from there to the south, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister. And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Indeed, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife. But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, She is my sister? And she, even she herself said, He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this. And God said to him in a dream, Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart, for I also withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours. So Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants, told all these things in their hearing, and the men were very much afraid. And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, what have you done to us? How have I offended you that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done. Then Abimelech said to Abraham, What did you have in view that you have done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife. But indeed, she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house that I said to her, this is your kindness that you should do for me. In every place, wherever we go, say of me, he is my brother. Then Abimelech took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants and gave them to Abraham. And he restored Sarah, his wife, to him. And Abimelech said, see, my land is before you. Dwell where it pleases you. Then to Sarah he said, behold, I have given your brother 1,000 pieces of silver. Indeed, this vindicates you before all who are with you and before everybody. Thus she was rebuked. So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children, for the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife. So I want you to notice that the king faults Sarah. He reproves her for not saying that she was married, and this passage shows her fear. And I'm glad that the Scripture includes the faults of the heroes of faith and not just their great things. In this case, it can be an encouragement to those of us who on occasion succumb to the sin of fear. There are hints that fear did not characterize her life, but she feared to do the right thing here. It also shows her failure to resist the sinful orders of her husband, something that many a modern woman of faith has had regrets over as well. Now, while we can sympathize, we cannot condone women being enablers of their husband's sins. It also shows her almost committing adultery, a sin so heinous that the Bible says it deserves the death penalty. Okay? The point is, women of faith must keep pressing into God by faith or they too can fall. Now it's true, Jude says, God is able to keep us from stumbling, but it's only as we lay hold of Him by faith. If we let go of God's hand, we can fall into sin just like Sarah and Abraham did. Okay? Genesis 16 shows another weird side of Sarah. She was so desirous of seeing God's promise of a seed fulfilled that she comes up with a shortcut. She thinks, well, maybe God's intention is to raise up a seed to Abraham, but not through me. So she tells her husband, why don't you have sex with my maid? We'll treat the child that results as if it's mine. And she thinks, hey, because I've given you permission, it'll be OK. Where in the world did she get that idea? Well, apparently it was a common feature of the pagan Ancient Near East. And let me read you one example from an A&E piece of literature. A&E is a short for Ancient Near East. This says, if within two years she, that is the wife, does not provide him with offspring, she herself will purchase a slave woman. And later on, after the slave woman will have produced a child by him, he may then dispose of her by sale, wheresoever he pleases. We see similar permissions given in Hammurabi's code, a Newsy text, Neo-Assyrian text. Basically, the pagans did not think that this was wrong, and it may very well have been a presupposition she brought and that Abraham brought from their earlier life. So her motives were right, her thinking was not, and her actions were not. And so, you know, if your wife thinks it's okay for you men to watch pornography, that does not make it all right in God's eyes. Both husband and wife must be held captive to the Word of God. And we're going to be seeing shortly how Peter clearly helps us navigate the messes of Sarah, and Peter wants us to only follow the faith-filled actions of Sarah. Let me repeat that. When we get to Peter, we're going to be seeing that He helps us navigate the messes of Sarah and only wants us to follow the faith-filled actions of Sarah. Now, just from the story in Genesis alone, we should have known that. Her suggestion about Hagar didn't work out too well, and both Isaiah and Paul use this story to teach us that what we do in our flesh In other words, what we do in our own strength, apart from God's supernatural, is not pleasing to God. Okay? Whatever is not of faith is sin. Whatever does not come from heaven, we're supposed to seek those things which are above, is hay, wood, and stubble that's going to be burned up on the final day of judgment. And we saw in the exposition of Tabitha's life last week the same principle, that the only way our works can be considered good works is if they, whether it's sowing of Tabitha or the carpentry of Jesus, is if we are doing it in faith to God's glory by the power of the Holy Spirit who unites us to Christ. In Galatians 4, Paul says that Abram's actions with Hagar represented the natural abilities that flowed from the fallen Adam, his ancestor, that's just natural, and from that covenant which leads to bondage and death. And he admonishes us to not trust the flesh in our service of God. We must depend upon the supernatural in all that we do. So the point is, Sarah's not just a good role model of how to live by faith, she's also a bad example of how easy it is for any of us to revert to living in the flesh. Anyway, she suggests a sexual compromise and then hugely regrets it. In fact, she gets angry at Abraham for going along with the idea. She tells Abraham this, Genesis 16, the Lord judge between you and me. And we'll make applications of that later. But the point is, even Sarah recognized that what she had done was a sin against God. John MacArthur mentioned that Sarah might have had a bit of a mean streak in her. He gets that from Genesis 16, 6 through 8. And let me read those three verses. So Abram said to Sarai, indeed your maid is in your hand, do to her as you please. And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai. Now later, Sarah kicks her out permanently in chapter 21. Was that being mean? Well, definitely not in chapter 21 because God totally agrees with her. and disagrees with Abraham, but possibly earlier. And we'll comment a bit more on that from 1 Peter 3 as well. But in those chapters you can see the frustration, the bitterness, the resentment building up in Sarah, And the point is, the heroes of the Bible are not perfect people. They do let their emotions get the better of them on occasion. In fact, faith more and more recognizes we will blow it apart from grace, and that's why we have to cling to Christ in faith every day. Now, what I found most surprising is that the very passage that Peter appeals to for Sarah being a model of obedience and submission is a passage that also shows her stumbling in faith. And I'm going to read those two passages back to back. 1 Peter 3, 6 says, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abram and calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. There's only one place in the Old Testament that records Sarah calling Abraham, Lord, and that's in Genesis 18. It's not the earlier passage where she went to be with a pharaoh, like one hyper-patriarchalist person said. It's Genesis 18. And why don't you go ahead and turn there. I'm going to read a number of verses in Genesis 18. In verse 5, Abraham offers food to the pre-incarnate Son of God and another, perhaps an angel. Verse 6 says, So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal. Knead it and make cakes. Now, that's rather abrupt, but without questioning Abraham, she drops everything she's doing. She does as Abraham commanded. Abraham then runs, has a servant butcher a calf. Once everything's cooked, he serves the guests. And so, Sarah's a submissive wife in verse 6, despite Abraham's rudeness. And we'll pick up at verse 9. Then they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife? So he said, Here in the tent. And he said, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son. Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord, being old also? And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I surely bear a son, since I am old? Was anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. And he said, No, but you did laugh. So even after Sarah does the right thing, Even after she's obeying Abraham, even after sincerely calling him Lord, she didn't respond in faith. She had endured the barrenness and its pain for so long that her first instinct was skepticism at God's Word. And you know, it's an amazing thing how our faith and lack of faith can alternate back and forth. If it was true of the chief models of our faith, Abraham and Sarah, we shouldn't be surprised if we on occasion struggle with that as well. Scripture includes these kind of stories to warn us, don't coast. Don't coast. We must constantly be on guard, constantly pressing to Christ. Because the moment we coast, we're going to lose faith. So how do we determine what is good and what is bad in Sarah? And for that matter, how do we determine that in any biblical biographies? We let doctrine guide us. While 1 Corinthians says that Old Testament biographies can be examples to us, we need to read them through the lens of doctrine and biblical ethics. Now, thankfully, in the case of Sarah, we've got an inspired interpretation in 1 Peter 3. And I'm going to turn back there and just go through that verse by verse. It helps us to navigate some of the things. and distinguish the good that we are to imitate and the bad that we are not to. Now, just as a heads up, maybe you guys aren't even aware that this goes on, but I have read a number of hyper-patriarchal pamphlets, books, tracts, blogs, listen to some of their tapes where they have repeatedly used Sarah to say that wives must have blind obedience to their husbands, treat their husband's voice as the voice of Christ, just unthinking obedience. For example, believe it or not, one radio broadcast Somebody asked the question, well, this seems sort of like wife swapping. What if my husband asks me to engage in wife swapping? Said, well, you need to obey your husband even on that, just like Sarah obeyed Abraham with regard to Pharaoh and King Abimelech. And just trust that God is going to protect you like he protected them. Let me tell you up front, that is a demonic and false doctrine flat out. And it completely misses the whole spirit. of what 1 Peter 3 is talking about and how she is a model. And it's gotten many women into trouble. So, Peter is going to help us to navigate this. First of all, the word likewise in verse 1 compares the submission of the wife to the submissions in the previous chapter. And the previous chapter allowed an Apostle Peter and an Apostle John to tell civil magistrates that they could not forbid what God had commanded, and they could not command what God had forbidden. And so they were planning to continue to disobey that edict because it was an ungodly edict. Now, they did so graciously. Yes, it's important that we do so graciously, but they still did did disobey. So submission is not just passively going along to get along. That word likewise shows that Peter is not calling for blind submission, it's submission of the Lord. And when we use Sarah to illustrate the later points you'll see she illustrates this point as well. Peter addressed the wives directly, unmediated through their husbands. Now, this is heresy on the part of many hyper-patriarchalists. Peter is preaching to the wives, okay? He's expecting them to think for themselves. Now, this was illustrated in Genesis when God spoke to both Abraham and to Sarah. This means that wives like Sarah are allowed by God to have independent thinking if their thinking is biblical, and especially if their husbands want them to be involved in sin. These wives who are being compared to Sarah had completely rejected the pagan worldview of their husbands. That does not at all sound to me like their husband's voice is the voice of Christ. No, they've rejected their husband's voice on paganism. They've embraced the Bible, and yet her independent thinking is still consistent with a radical submission to her husband, and it showcases the supernatural because it means she submits even though she might be smarter than her husband. It's not turning off the mind. It's precisely because her mind is held so captive to Christ that she is a testimony that can win him to the gospel through godly submission. And that's the third difference. Her submission did not mean that she could not try to win her husband to a different viewpoint than he currently had. Now, let's use Sarah to illustrate this. Sarah actually sinned by trying to win her husband to a different viewpoint than he previously had in regard to Hagar, right? Because what she's trying to win him to is a sinful viewpoint. Okay, that's Genesis 16, 2 through 3. And she bore the miserable consequences of doing that. But she rightly regretted having done so in the very next verses and told Abraham that he shouldn't have listened to her. And he shouldn't have. In Galatians 4, Paul actually agrees with Sarah in that case. He shouldn't have listened to her. Even though we should get input from our wives, we husbands are held accountable for what goes on in the family. The buck stops with us. Now, that second speech of Sarah's was a speech that was seeking to win Abraham to her new righteous viewpoint. And God later told Abraham that her viewpoint was righteous and Abraham must follow her advice. That's in Genesis 21. God Himself told Abraham, quote, God said, listen to her voice. Well, there's a similar application in 1 Peter 3 verse 1. Verse 1 says, that even if some do not obey the word, so those believing wives have obviously been sharing the word, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. So, Peter wants these wives to win their husbands to the gospel. That's the word he uses, to win them. to the Gospel that has already been shared to be sure to do so without any nagging, which tends to be some women's besetting sin. But it's clear they shared the Gospel, they shared the Scripture, they've obviously told their husbands about the Word of God, and the husband has rejected it, so then they stop speaking about that. They do not nag. Nagging is trusting ourselves. Not trusting God. It really is. It's trusting ourselves. It's not faith in God. Nagging is an evidence of lack of faith. But you can win your husband to a biblical viewpoint in faith, as Sarah did in Genesis 16, and as she did again in Genesis 21. Fourth, submission does not mean going along with sin. Sarah made that mistake when she went along with Abraham and told two kings that she was just Abraham's sister. But notice that 1 Peter 3, 2 commanded these believing wives to maintain chaste conduct. It is not chaste conduct to go into a king's harem. And so Peter disapproves of what Sarah did on those two occasions, and it takes the Holy Spirit in these believing women to navigate the vacillating desires of their husbands and still have a strong submission to their husbands. So don't follow Sarah. in Genesis chapters 12, parts of 16, and in chapter 20 by making sexual compromises. Do follow Sarah in Genesis 16, 15 by rebuking and disagreeing with sexual compromises. Do follow Sarah in Genesis 21 by bringing God's Word to bear in your husband's life when he has a hard time doing the wrong thing. Now Peter will quickly add, do so with a meek and gentle spirit, But God says to us men, just as He said to Abraham in Genesis 21, listen to her voice, whether she says it meekly or not. We need to have the humility to listen to God's Word that is being shared with us, whether they're doing it sinful or not. And if we've taken the log out of our own eye first, we might be in a better position to tell our wives afterward, after we've repented of our sins, Say, but you know what, you really could have done so more meekly. But we'd be in a better position. But we still have a responsibility to listen if their corrections are coming from the Bible. Fifth, submission does not mean being fearful or timid, according to verse 6. Now, it's true, Sarah did on occasion show fear, but most of her life was not characterized by fear or timidity at all. She was a strong woman, not a woman who was timid. She was not a rollover personality that found it easy to submit. In fact, I would dare to say, based on what most people think her personality was, she probably found it a struggle to submit in her own strength. OK? She probably found it a little bit difficult to submit. When she meekly obeyed Abraham's insensitive and curt command to drop everything and cook a meal for the guests in Genesis 18.6, without saying please, without showing any EQ whatsoever, and when she called him my Lord within her head, which means this is not just an outward thing, she really believed he was her Lord, that she was doing this out of faith. It had nothing to do with personality. She was not servile or fearful in her relationship to Abraham. Peter rightly interprets her submission as a strong submission that confidently flowed from faith and trusted God for the outcome. And then finally, Peter hints that her submission to Abraham did not do away with her equality in Christ. And Paul does exactly the same thing. In Galatians 4, he says that Sarah is equally a representative of the New Covenant and a model of the New Covenant, as Abraham was. And Peter here makes the point that there are heirs together of the grace of life in verse 7. And again, that makes this submission remarkable. Daughters of Sarah submit even when they know that they are equal. And for that matter, daughters of Sarah will submit even if they consider themselves superior, or maybe know that they are superior to their husbands, right? Submissions unto the Lord has nothing to do with equality, has nothing to do with gifts, has nothing to do with personality. It's a product of grace. It's received by faith as everything else in all of our lives is received by faith from heaven. And so this passage in 1 Peter 3 is a helpful tool for navigating the life of Sarah. Now, there's a lot of other lessons in 1 Peter 3 that I was dying to get into, but we can't. We don't have time. But let me end with three more general lessons from Genesis. First, Sarah followed Abraham out of an affluent and rich culture into a much more arid country with no knowledge of what the future would hold. She left durable buildings with actual walls and storage cabinets and other comforts of life to live for decades in tents. I mean, this was a huge sacrifice. She followed him out of a familiar and comfortable place and into a strange and dangerous land. This is a tribute to her trust. And it was a huge trip. On foot, or on donkey, whatever, it was 350 miles that they traveled. And she seems to be quite willing, you know, to leave Ur with Abraham in faith. Abraham built a stone altar as soon as he arrived, and God renewed His covenant with Abraham with the incredible promise that he himself would die if this covenant was broken. And it was such a bold promise, it's no wonder to me that Sarah's faith was strong in God as well. Though she eventually wavered in faith over having a child, she never, ever doubted that God was her God. And we can do the same. We can be very strong in our faith in some things that God has revealed and waver in our faith in other things that God has revealed. and have doubts, but she's a fantastic example of letting go of insecurities, stepping out into the unknown in faith. Second, Sarah appears to have had a good sense of humor and an ability to laugh at her own weaknesses and foibles. This is a strong characteristic. I appreciate women who can, even in difficult times, be able to laugh, have a sense of humor, even laugh at themselves. She, in this first case of her humor, she was laughing at something she should have not found humor in. By the way, I've shared with a few of you in the last month that the Lord has convicted me that my sense of humor has some ungodly aspects to it that need to be changed. It's, so you have all permission to remind me, Phil, that's another form of exaggeration or something. I wanna put it off. But it's when I say something that's so obviously false, you're not gonna think that I'm trying to convince you of that, but it makes it something funny. But I don't think we should find humor and anything that in any way misrepresents God as being a God of truth and wanting us to imitate. It's impossible for God to lie. So that's something that was a blind spot in my life, and I see this as another blind spot in her life. We're always growing in Christ. But let's look at both sides of her sense of humor. God renews His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, once again promising a child would be born to Sarah. God renews that promise that a son will come through Sarah in chapter 18, and then comes the laugh of doubt in Genesis 18. She finds this absolutely hilarious that a 90-year-old woman which is what she would be if she gets pregnant at 89, she's going to give birth at 90, that a 90-year-old woman is going to give birth to a child. And I mean, in one sense, you can appreciate that. It's so incongruous that it seems funny. But we should never laugh at God's promises if they are incongruous to us, no matter how incongruous they may seem to be. Let me give you some examples of things people laugh at. At least they've laughed at me when I've said this is what the Scripture says. If God says the world's going to be converted and every king is going to be serving Christ faithfully, I've had people laugh at me to scorn. That's ridiculous. No, this is what the Bible says. You're laughing at God. This is a humor that is not godly. It is wrong. We need to put it off. Likewise, when you laugh at God's promises that you can overcome your besetting sins, you're laughing a laugh of doubt. You're not living by faith. You're scoffing that you can conquer those sins. Now, I believe the world will be converted when Christians finally give up this kind of scoffing humor, and they begin to have faith that God will do as He promised, have the expectation, you know, to faith that expects great things from God and attempts great things for Him. So, humor can manifest unbelief, and God rebukes Sarah. And after God rebukes her, she believes and does not doubt again. According to Hebrews 11 verse 11, Sarah now had a firm faith that she would indeed conceive, and she did, by faith. She received strength. But this God-given faith that she now has, that she would have a child, does not mean she lost her sense of humor. Her humor had just become more sanctified. And at the birth of Isaac, she laughed a laugh of faith and named her son Laughter. And MacArthur thinks, and I believe he's right, that this was a laugh of faith that involved some humor. Let me read Genesis 21, 6 through 7. And Sarah said, God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me." She also said, "'Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have born him a son in his old age.'" MacArthur comments, despite her occasional bursts of temper and struggles with discouragement, Sarah remained an essentially good-humored woman. After those long years of bitter frustration, she could still appreciate the irony and relish the comedy of becoming a mother at such an old age. Her life's ambition was now realized, and the memory of years of bitter disappointment quickly disappeared from view. God had indeed been faithful. And I'll just give you one more application. MacArthur believes that her casting out of The Bond Woman was a great act of faith. And the fact that both Paul And God, in Genesis, agrees with Sarah, seems to vindicate MacArthur's view that this was a great act of faith. After Hagar was cast out, Abraham and Sarah returned to a monogamous relationship, and it seems that their waning years were full of joy and satisfaction. As they drew closer to God, they automatically began to be drawn much more deeply to each other. After Isaac was admitted to communion at age three, and after Hagar and Ishmael were cast out at Sarah's suggestion, at God's command, they enjoyed a beautiful marriage as it should be enjoyed. One man, And one woman devoted to God and through God devoted to enjoying and serving each other. They actually had another 33 years after this, after Hagar was kicked out, another 33 years of enjoying each other's company and watching Isaac growing in faith. And I'm sure it was an enormous loss to Abraham when she died at the age of 127. in Genesis 23. Now, there's a lot more that could be said. Some have wondered, you know, how she reacted to God testing Abraham's faith by sacrificing Isaac. I agree with MacArthur that she probably was not let in on that and didn't even find out about it until after the event had happened. God spared her of that trauma. But her waning years appear to be mature years in the Lord." And we'll end this series by saying, learn from the women of faith. Learn from their mistakes and don't repeat them. That's the message of 1 Corinthians 10. Learn from their life of faith and through their faith be stirred up to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God. That's the lesson of Hebrews 11. May we all seek to be men and women of faith. Amen. Father, thank you for the examples that you set in Scripture, both of things that should instill fear into our hearts, even as 1 Corinthians 10 uses those examples to instill fear over a badly partaking of the Lord's table. I pray we also look to the men and women of faith in the Bible and be stirred up to have a strong faith that believes you, that does not scoff, does not laugh at your promises. May we be men and women and children of the Word who unquestioningly believe you, have an implicit faith, not in man, not in the church, but in your scriptures. And I pray that as a result of that faith, you would richly bless this congregation with further growth. In Jesus' name, amen.