I trust you ladies have been thinking about Sarah. I had a nice reminder last night just before we were going to sleep. My wife rolled over and honey whispered in my ear, my Lord. I thought that was very sweet. I didn't say anything back, I didn't want to blow her eardrums out or anything, so. If you would please take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. We are going to be here for both of our messages this morning and consider what the inspired writer teaches us about Sarah. Hebrews chapter 11, and we'll begin reading at verse eight. Speaking about Abraham, her husband, Hebrews 11 and verse eight. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. And then our text for this message, 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. Take my watch off here. Sarah's life was obviously bound up with the life of her husband Abraham's. It's really impossible for us to isolate her from his life and influence. And so as we begin to think about Sarah's story, we obviously think about Abraham's story. And in terms of biblical history, it begins back in the book of Genesis in chapters 11 and 12. We learn there, along with some other biblical teaching from the book of Joshua, that Abraham and Sarah were living in Ur of the Chaldees, far to the east of Canaan, and they were idolaters. They were pagans. They did not have the knowledge of the true and living God like everyone else in their generation. They had pushed that out of their thinking and they were living for themselves and worshipping gods of their own making, gods that they wanted in their own lives. Their lives obviously were marked by sin and a waywardness and rebellion from God. But in an incredible display of grace, God came to Abraham and Sarah, and he called them to himself. He called them into a covenant relationship with him. And part of this new relationship that God established with Abraham and Sarah was the giving of promises to them. God promised that he would make Abraham into a great man. He would have a great name. God promised that he would make Abraham and Sarah into a great nation. They would have this incredible family. And he was going to give to Abraham a new land. And then, of course, ultimately, he would bring blessing to the entire world through Abraham's family. And this, of course, pointed into the future, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel, when God's good news would go out to all of the nations. Incredible to think that God took this couple, a pagan couple, not seeking after him, living in a foreign land, he called them to himself and he gave them all of these incredible promises that would lead down to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. in even the fact that we are sitting here today as followers of Jesus Christ because of that good news first announced to Abraham and Sarah. Now, though the covenant was made explicitly with Abraham, Sarah was obviously included. If Abraham was going to have this great family, Sarah would have to be involved. She would need to become the mother of any offspring that Abraham would have. Now, the book of Hebrews, and these verses in particular that we've just read, bring to our understanding the fact that Sarah wasn't just along for the ride. She, with Abraham, came to believe in God. She put her false pagan gods behind her and she embraced this God who had appeared to her husband with incredible love and mercy. She would own this God to be her God and she would embrace the promises that God had made to him. But there was a problem, a big problem. At the very beginning of the recounting of the story of Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis, the promises of God were set in an impossible situation. Let me just read for you briefly from Genesis 11. This is the first time we learn about Abraham. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. before it was changed to Sarah, and the name of Nahor's wife, Milca, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milca in Isca. Now Sarai was barren. She had no child. So even as Sarah is introduced to us here in the Word of God, we're told about this prominent feature of her life, that she was barren, that she was unable to have any children. That was clearly a defining feature for Sarah. We're not even told how old she was at this point, what color hair she had. It will only be later that her beauty we will find out. But clearly here, Moses, his pen guided by the Spirit of God, wants this feature of her life to stand out to us. She had something physiologically wrong with her. Her reproductive parts weren't working properly. She was unable to have any children. And so when God announces the covenant promises to Abraham in chapter 12, they would have known that it was humanly impossible to have this great family. And so right from the beginning you have this struggle set up. Would they believe God? Could they believe God? Would they trust that this God who had called them in covenant mercy could accomplish the impossible and make it so that Sarah could have a baby? Were his promises true? Now I'm pretty sure this morning that our circumstances are far different from Abraham and Sarah's. I don't know that there's any 65 year old lady here this morning waiting to have a baby. I don't know that anybody would be expecting such an announcement. But we still face the same basic issue. Are we prepared to trust in our God and the promises that he has given to us? Can we believe all of the wonderful things he has said concerning his love for us and his care for us and his amazing provision? Can we embrace the promises of God even when from our perspective they may appear to be impossible? Well, let's begin this morning by considering the struggle to believe, the struggle to believe. Now, when God comes to Abraham and announced the covenant promises in Genesis 12, we're not told Abraham and Sarah's immediate response to all that God had said and promised to them. But I think it's right for us to assume that they began, that their initial response was one of faith. After all, Abraham, along with his wife Sarah, left his home and made that long, dangerous journey all the way to Canaan. He and Sarah were prepared to leave their home, leave their families behind, and travel to a distant place that they didn't even know. If they had our hymn book, trust and obey would have been their hymn. because that's what they were doing. God made the promises, he told them what to do, and so they believed that, and they trusted, and they did what God had called them to. Now in this initial response, faith seemed to glow brightly. even in regards to the promise of a family. There was no objection. There was no argument with God. Well, wait a minute, how is this gonna happen? My wife is barren. Nothing like that at all. God had said it, and so they would believe it. And that kind of fresh, young faith is a beautiful thing to behold. when someone is just ready to cast themselves on the Lord. I had a beautiful illustration of that yesterday when we were in the pool with William. If you've ever been around water with William, he's really eager, loves water, loves to swim. And as a result, I have to really keep my eye on him, especially when Dan and Bethany aren't there. So he wants to jump, jump in the deep end. And you know, he gets up there on the side of the pool and he just flings himself in utter abandonment because he believes that I'm gonna be there with my arms up and I'm not gonna drop him. That's the beauty of this fresh, young faith. God has come to them. God has given them promises. There may be difficulties, but they're not focusing on those things. With abandonment, they just cast themselves into the arms of God, leave their family, go to Canaan, believe that God is going to accomplish all that he has promised. But as time went by, And as the impossibility of having a child just increased, their faith entered into a great struggle. Abraham had been 75, Sarah 65, when the promise was first given. That in itself would seem to spell impossibility to say nothing about the other physiological issues. And with the passing of time and more birthdays, that impossibility only seemed to increase. And as the impossibility increased, so did the struggle of faith. Why hadn't God given them what he had promised? Didn't he know that their chances were getting slimmer and slimmer? Though the Lord would often reiterate his promise over the years and illustrate how great their family would be. God taking Abraham outside on one starry night and said, look up to the heavens, that's how great your family is going to be. Still nothing happened and we find unbelief getting the upper hand. Finally, in Genesis 18, you don't need to turn there, I'll just summarize the story, you can read it later. Sarah finally determined that she needed to take things into her own hand. It had been 10 years since the promise had been made. God hadn't done anything, so she would, and she had the perfect plan to help God out with his promise. Genesis 16 is really the sad and devastating account of how Sarah tried to help God out. She even justified it by putting the responsibility on God. She said, up until this point, God has prevented me from having a child, so I'm gonna do something. Her plan was simple. She had an Egyptian maid servant, Hagar, and she would get Abraham to go to bed with her and they could have a baby and fulfill the covenant promise. Now apparently this was an accepted practice in the ancient world. If a woman couldn't have children then she could use her servant to have children in her place and they would be accepted as her children. So it seemed like a viable solution. But Abraham and Sarah weren't just ordinary people, anybody living in the ancient world. They were God's people now. They had abandoned their false gods and their pagan practices. They had committed themselves to belong to God and to live by his standards and to walk by faith in him. This was not only an immoral practice, it was a blatant statement of unbelief. God, you don't seem to be able to accomplish it, so we'll accomplish it on our own. We don't know whether she had concluded that God was unable to accomplish such an impossible thing or whether God just wasn't going to be faithful to his word. Whatever her thought, her struggle before God, her conclusion was that she could do what God hadn't done. It was a declaration of human cunning and ability to solve this great problem. Now Sarah thought for a little while that she was making progress in fulfilling God's covenant plan. But the whole text of Genesis 16 is a record of the tragedy created by unbelief. There is there the reminder of the devastating effects of unbelief on Sarah's mind and affections. Consider just to begin with, her giving her husband to another woman. How do you do that as a wife? How do you arrange it? My servant, she's gonna be in the bed tonight and you just go in with her and you do that thing that men do. How do you do that? That was the result of unbelief on her mind. And when her plan appeared to work and Hagar was found to be pregnant, then she became angry. She was angry with Abraham. She blew up at her husband. She even called God's judgment down on him for the trauma that they now entered into in their home. She dealt harshly with Hagar and threw her pregnant servant out into the wilderness to die just because she had gone along with Sarah's plan. And when God came to Hagar's rescue and sent her back to the family, there would be ongoing tension in that home. To say nothing of the fact that God refused to accept her solution. Ishmael, the son, would never be the covenant son. But only a constant reminder of the failure of unbelief and human scheming. If faith makes people beautiful, as we saw in Abraham and Sarah's initial response, unbelief makes them very, very ugly. Now, one more passage to be reminded of as we consider Sarah's struggle to believe. I talked about it a little bit last night in chapter 18, when the Lord and those two angels came to visit Abram and Sarah before they went to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. There in that opportunity, as the Lord sat down outside of the tent with Abraham and they enjoyed a wonderful meal together, The Lord reconfirmed his promise to Abraham and even put a timeline on it. He said, next year, I'm going to return and Sarah will have a child. The impossibility was again front and center because by this time Abraham was 99 and Sarah 89. Well advanced in years. And again Moses makes the comment that any remaining reproductive function in Sarah's body was totally shut down. And yet God continued to hold out his promise to them. Now Sarah must have been hiding just behind the tent door and she laughed to herself. Surely this was far beyond believability. Her body was so worn out. What chance was there for her to enjoy her husband again and have a baby? But the God who can do the impossible also knows everything. He knew that Sarah had left. He asked why. And he made this great faith-building declaration. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Sarah, is it too hard for me to work in your old body and enable you to give birth to a child? Sarah was confronted with the sovereign, all-powerful will of God. Is there anything that can hinder God when he is determined to accomplish something? Can an old, barren, worn-out body keep God from accomplishing his will? When she was confronted with her laughter by the Lord, she was obviously embarrassed, perhaps ashamed, and so she lied about it. And the Lord's simple rebuke was, no, but you did laugh. Her unbelief was duly noted. The struggle to believe. As sad as these accounts are in the book of Genesis, as ugly as unbelief is seen here, as dishonoring as it is to our God, it's important that we take a good look at those passages Because if we are honest, Sarah is a picture to us of our struggles to believe all that God has said to us. Here is a mirror for us to look into and see ourselves. We are those who confess to be believers, to be the people of God, the people of faith, faith in God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet how often is our experience marked by these same struggles of faith? struggles to believe the promises of God, doubts that make our almighty God look like a God who cannot do the impossible, or even worse, who will not do the impossible to help us. And as you know, by this time in her life, Sarah was not a young believer. They had been in the way for almost 25 years now. God had proven himself to be faithful to them time after time. It's important for us to remember it's not just young believers who struggle with these issues of faith. It's not simply those who are immature who go through such times of difficulty. It often can be older Christians, those who have been confessing their faith for many years, who come to doubt the promises of God, who wonder if He will really be true to all that He has said. So the struggle to believe. But then secondly, The triumph of faith. The triumph of faith. We've just been looking at Sarah's struggles to believe. But the text that's before us this morning, here in Hebrews 11, tells us about the triumph of faith in Sarah's life. Look again at Hebrews 11 and verse 11. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised. Now, what we read from this writer here in Hebrews 11, you'd almost think it's a different person from the accounts in the book of Genesis. Something has changed. Something has happened to make Sarah this strong, believing woman of Hebrews 11 that the writer of Hebrews can hold up before us as a model for our faith. What has happened? What has changed? Well, the Bible calls it sanctification. That promised change that God brings about in the lives of his people as he moves them from immaturity to maturity, from unbelief and doubt to a very strong faith. It's that very thing that Paul speaks of in writing to the Philippian Christians when he says, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. God had been at work in Sarah's life. He had patiently borne with her and his determination won the day. The commentator Bruce Waltke, speaking of the progress of the chapters in the book of Genesis, says this. Sarah's faith and strength also increases. Her early responses to the delayed promises are scheming, anger, and incredulity. However, by the end of the act, the end of the story, she is a faith-filled, decisive woman whose counsel is validated by God. And so the writer can make this beautiful statement here in Hebrews 11 verse 11. Now there are three things that I want you to notice from this verse. There is first of all the fulfillment of God's promise. We're told that she received power to conceive or more literally to lay down seed. Now here, in a compressed, not overly explicit or overt description of God's work in Sarah's body. He brought life where there had been death. He renewed what was worn out. He gave ability where there had been none. Now just think about this. What does it take to bring the body of a 90-year-old woman to the point of being able to have a baby. You just take some time and think about that. My mom's 96. She's, for her age, in incredible health. But if I said to her, Mom, what about having a baby? She said, no way, no way, I'm not interested at all. I have my kids, I love my family, but no more. And here's Sarah, 90 years old. What does God have to do in her body? to make this to be a delightful experience where she's thinking about lying in Abraham's arms again and then conceiving a baby and going through nine months of pregnancy at 90 years old. We've been watching Bethany this week. I'm glad she's not 90 years old. What did God have to do in the body of Sarah? to accomplish that incredible work. This was the fulfillment of God's promise. The language that the writer uses here is unusual, probably pointing to how unusual this was, this experience of Sarah. It's a literal picture of a farmer and he's laying down seed in his field, something that you might do if you have a backyard garden. And from that, of course, spring up the little plants. From that literal description, it becomes a vivid illustration of a man's part in procreation, laying down seed. And so as a result, many commentators on this passage have said that they think the reference here is to Abraham. But very clearly you can see it by the name and the pronouns. The biblical writer is speaking of Sarah and the language is referring to the renovation of her body and the actual conception of a child. And so after all the struggles and all the human scheming and the disappointments and the unbelief, God had fulfilled his word. His promise was good. Now the second thing we're told here in this verse is that this was accomplished through the instrumentality of faith. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive. The whole account begins here in verse 11 with those highlighted words, by faith, which are repeated over and over again through the chapter. By faith, by faith. This was Sarah's experience here, that by faith, she was given power to conceive. Now just those two little words tell us a great mountain of her spiritual experience. Clearly, Sarah had come to the end of herself. She had come to an end of scheming, trying out how she could help God accomplish the promise. She had come to the end of laughing unbelief. She was prepared to put her struggles behind her and just trust God. And that is exactly what she did. She embraced God and his promise. If God has said it, you can imagine her thinking, I'm going to believe it. Even though it seems impossible to me, he is God, he can do anything, nothing's impossible for him. I cast myself at his feet. And in doing that, God blessed her determination to believe, and she became pregnant. Isn't that incredible? What a story. Here's this woman all of her life struggling. She wants a child. She tries to do everything. And finally, when it seems most impossible, she says, okay, God, I give up. You do it if you want to. And she gets pregnant, 90 years old. The third thing we need to notice from this verse. asking the question, how did she get to that point of faith? How did she come to the point where she could believe God and fully embrace his promise? Well, our writer tells us here in verse 11. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Now the language indicates that Sarah made a decision. The verb he uses here means to make a decision after carefully weighing all the facts. Since the challenge was to believe the promise of God, she would consider the faithfulness of God towards them, probably going all the way back to their time in Ur of the Chaldees when God had called them to himself. So about 25 years. She asked herself some questions. Had God ever failed them? when they trusted and obeyed him and left their home and came all the way to Canaan, had God failed them? Had he ever failed to keep his word? And her answer would be clearly no. their journey to Canaan and their sojourn there, God had been with them, God had provided for them, God had protected them. Even in their time in Egypt or the land of the Philistines, when she was in Pharaoh's harem and then in Abimelech's harem, God had watched over her and kept her safe. When Abraham had faced the army from the east and his military exploit to rescue Lot, God had been with them and brought them great victory. God had protected them when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. The list goes on and on. Even when they had been foolish and unfaithful and unbelieving, even when they had wandered, when they had exhibited unbelief, God had visited them. God had assured them of his promises. God had provided for them in all of their needs. And so the obvious conclusion, he's been faithful. He's kept all of his promises. Why wouldn't I trust him now? Why wouldn't I believe that what he has promised, he is able to accomplish? This is the triumph of faith. The conclusion in a struggling soul that my God is a faithful God. Whatever he has said, he will perform. Now you know that the purpose of the writer of Hebrews isn't simply to give us some thrilling stories here in this chapter about how faith triumphed over unbelief. This is meant to encourage us as we face the same struggles. This is meant to strengthen our faith. You won't be able to take comfort from Sarah's circumstances because yours are going to be very different. but the struggles are the same, the struggle to believe the promises of God. Your difficulty may be the challenge of living with an unbelieving husband. For some, it may be the thought that romance has passed you by. Or you're fearful of being left childless. Maybe it's that you never will have a husband, Or perhaps the thought that your husband is going to die and you'll be left alone. Maybe your struggle is your own mortality staring you in the face. For some it's the heartache of unsaved children. And you want to know, does God have a word for me? Does God have a promise for me to cling to? Well, when we think about the promises of God in the Bible, it's almost embarrassing because there's so many of them. From cover to cover, God gives promises to his people, rich promises meant to encourage us and strengthen us. But let's just consider briefly one of the best promises in all the Bible. It's the promise given to us through the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans chapter eight and verse 32. Listen to these well-known words. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? No, it's a very simple promise full of gospel grace. It reminds us who are believers, what God has already done for us. He's given to us the gift of his son. Now, when you understand that in light of the Bible's teaching, you know that God has already given to us his very best gift. his beloved son, loved from all eternity, the son that he delighted in and the son delighted in his father. And in the counsels of eternity, God the father determined that he would give his son. And then, of course, Paul's words here in the promise points to the time in history when the Lord Jesus did come into this world, when God the Father sent His Son to be the Savior. And the Apostle Paul says, He didn't spare His own Son. He gave Him up for us all. So he's not merely thinking of God the Father sending the Lord Jesus to Bethlehem to be born there. He's not merely thinking of the human life of our Lord Jesus as he went through that time in submission to his parents in Nazareth and then entered into his public ministry. Paul is pointing specifically to that time. when the Lord Jesus went to the cross because that was his father's plan. And God the Father didn't spare his son. He didn't hold back one ounce of his holy righteous anger. Rather he poured it all out upon the Lord Jesus. all the wrath that we deserved as his people, the penalty that should have been ours, our hell for all eternity. God didn't spare his son. He poured it all out on the Lord Jesus for us because he would save us. And the promise is if God would give his son His very best gift for us. Will He not, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Now the promise isn't a foolish blank check like so many people make it out to be today. It's not God saying, well you come to me, you become a Christian, you believe in my son and I'll give you a mansion and make sure you're driving a luxury car and you'll have the best gold watches and on and on and on. No, what this promise is all about is the giving of every gift to get you to heaven. That's God's promise. He wants you in heaven with him. He wants you to spend eternity with him in that blessed state. And so he gave his son, first of all, to pay your great debt of sin, and now he's going to give us everything that we need to make sure that we make it to heaven safely. And so what do you need to make it to heaven? What do you need to make it to heaven? Do you need grace for every day? Do you need strength and empowerment for every day? Because you know what Jesus said, without me you can do nothing, you need that. Do you need the Holy Spirit indwelling you, empowering you, guiding you, convicting you, showing you the path? Do you need the Word of God and the rich ministry of the Spirit to help you understand these things? Do you need prayer? Do you need a church? Do you need the fellowship of believers? Do you need pastors to teach you and guide you? Oh, the list goes on and on. What do you need to make it to heaven safely? And this promise says, God will give you whatever you need. Do you need a husband? God will give you a husband. Do you not need a husband? Then God won't give you a husband. Do you need children as a means of sanctification? God will give them to you. If you don't, he won't. Everything that you need, God will give to you so that you make it safely to heaven. Do you believe that? Are you ready to embrace that promise and say with Sarah, he's proved faithful for so many years, how can I doubt him now? I've been privileged to minister to a lady with a severe bipolar condition. Since the time she was a teenager, she's had recurrent, serious nervous breakdowns about every eight to ten years. You can almost mark it on the calendar. She has to go into the hospital and stay there for a period of time and get her medications adjusted and so forth. Her last episode was a terrible one. She obviously, we could see it, she was going down. She ended up having to go into the hospital. And there some fellow who called himself a doctor, said that the diagnosis she'd had for decades was all wrong. He was going to change it. He was going to change your medications. And she descended into almost an earthly hell. She appeared to have lost her mind. And she began to have terrifying nightmares. She couldn't believe anymore that God loved her, that she was one of God's people. And she had dreams of waking up in hell, just screaming in the hospital room. It was my privilege to minister to her. We set up a visitation schedule where she'd have a pastor with her every day, and so I visited her every other day. And I felt so incompetent, what do I say, how do I help her? And I thought, I've gotta help her to focus on one of God's promises. So every day, I reminded her of the truth of Hebrews 13, five. God's promise, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Every time I was there, what does God say? I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now, do you believe that's the word of God? Yes, I believe that's the word of God. Do you believe that God would ever lie? No, God would ever lie, never lie. Well, then do you believe this? I will never leave you nor forsake you. Towards the end of the two months in the providence of God, she got a different doctor. They reverted the diagnosis back to what it was originally, changed her medications. She began to come out of that. She came out of the hospital gripping the promise of God. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And she said to me after that, I came to see that it wasn't just me holding on to God, but he was holding on to me. I think that's what Sarah came to see. Is that where you are, dear ladies? Are you trusting in God? Are you believing His promises? Can you look to Him with confidence? He's never failed me. How can I even think of Him failing me in the future? His promises are going to be good. By faith, Sarah. May that be the epitaph of your life, by faith, and you fill in your name. Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly Father, Thank you for this example of Sarah. May your word be the thing that grows our faith as we consider what you have said about this mother of faith. Lord, we confess we are people who struggle, Struggle with unbelief and doubt. How often our faith is weak. We get hit by trials and we go down to the bottom so quickly. Please, our God, minister to us out of your word and by your spirit. And may the words characterizing our lives be by faith. By faith in you, our God, and in your promises, grant us this, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.