to the book of Genesis chapter 17, please. Genesis 17. Tonight we're going to be hearing from God's Word in Genesis 17. It's sort of the middle of the chapter. We're going to begin in verse 15 and go through the 15th verse of chapter 18. Before we read and pray, let me bring to you our love. And our care, our congregation has been praying for you. We are excited, really excited about the results of your election on Friday. We're praying for that and are praying for Adam and Anne now as they consider that, but we're very excited with you for that. And we grieve with you for the loss of Danita in a tragic way. And as I offered to come and preach tonight to just help Keith out a little bit and encourage you all, I didn't really know what to preach about. The reality is I haven't spoken with many of you about what's gone on. I don't know what you're thinking about. I don't know if you're struggling with anger or with sadness. I don't know. But what I do know is that every trial, every tragedy is an opportunity to trust God and a temptation not to. And whatever you're facing whatever is kind of rolling around in your heart tonight, and I don't pretend to know All of it ultimately is met by the need for you to have faith in God. And so that's what we're gonna talk about tonight. We're gonna go back to the basics and talk about what does it mean to trust in God? And what is the nature of the faith that God has given to us? So that's what we're gonna consider tonight as we hear sort of this familiar story about Abraham and his wife laughing at God. So we're gonna begin in chapter 17, verse 15. Let's pray before we read. Lord, we are glad to be together tonight. We're thankful for Your Word. It's true. It's powerful. It has authority. Lord, we trust it because we trust You. Lord, it's read and preached now. Help us. Help me to preach well and joyfully. We pray that You would open ears, eyes, and hearts that we might understand, believe, and obey. We pray for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Genesis 17, beginning in verse 15. And God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her. And moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations. Kings of people shall come from her. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to God, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. God said, no, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father 12 princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.' When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all those born in his house were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house. And he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised, and all the men of his house, those born in the house, and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, and said, O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on, since you have come to your servant. So they said, do as you have said. And Abraham went quickly into the tent and said to Sarah, quick, three seals of fine flour, knead it and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. They said to him, where is Sarah, your wife? And he said, she is in the tent. The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old. Advanced in years, the way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I am worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, No, but you did laugh. Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way." This is the word of God. We do love our predictions. We love it when sports commentators make their predictions. We love to hear what people think is going to happen in the future. We respond differently to predictions. When we were in seminary, several times we went and preached at a very small country church to fill the pulpit when they were without a pastor. The first time we were there, Lisa was pregnant with our first child. And a kindly lady came up to us and said, I have a word from the Lord for you. Your child is going to be a boy. So we went back a few months later, and lo and behold, it was a boy. And I said, well, to be fair, you had kind of a 50-50 shot. Not that impressed just yet. She said, I have another word from the Lord. I have another prediction. This child will be a prophet. This child will proclaim the word of the Lord. We're still waiting on that one. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Some predictions are easy to listen to. Some are safe to make. Some predictions are harder than others. And here God comes to his servant Abraham and to Sarah and makes a prediction. We get to watch them as they respond to what He promises them, and as they learn the nature of real faith. You may have noticed as we began in the middle of chapter 17, which really indicates we're in the middle of a story. We're not really reading the whole story tonight. And the story is that God has called Abraham and has gathered him out. And in chapter 17, he meets with them. And again, he gives to him the covenant promises. He tells Abraham all the things he's going to give to him. The land, the offspring. Make your offspring as many as the stars in heaven. And your offspring will bless all the earth. Those types of great covenant promises. And then he gives to Abraham a new... Abram really gives to him a new name. Abraham. indicating His greatness in the plan of God. In the middle then of that story, we picked it up in verse 15 where God is continuing this conversation with Abraham. And the story that we're reading tonight then comes to us in three scenes. There's three very different scenes, but they're all really one story. The first scene is this conversation between God and Abraham and how they're going to talk to each other. The second scene is Abraham obeying and going and having all the men in his household circumcised. And the third scene is out by the oaks of Mamre where God comes with two others and talks to Abraham and Sarah and how they respond this second time to him. So if we look at the beginning, we find God continuing to talk with Abraham. In verse 15, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah. Abraham, the name Abraham is significant. It means the father of many nations. So when God gave him that name, it was really important. When God changed Sarah's name from Sarai to Sarah, the name of Sarai means princess. The name of Sarah means princess. We're not really sure what the changed name means. It might indicate that now Sarah is going to be a princess, not just to herself and her family, but to all nations. But she now has a new name to go with her husband's new name. They have the new name smell about them. And they have all the promises to back that up. God then reiterates His promise in verse 16. He says, Not only will I bless you, Abraham, but I will bless her. God had previously promised Abraham that he would have a son despite his age. But now he's making that promise even more clear. He's making it more specific. Not only will you have a son, but I will bless Sarah, and I will give you a son by her. You see, previously, Abraham and Sarah had believed the promise of God. When God said, you're going to have a son, they said, yes, we believe that promise. But they didn't necessarily understand or believe that the son would come through Sarah. And so Sarah gave Hagar, her handmaid to Abraham, had a son by Hagar whose name was Ishmael. He'll come back into the story in just a minute. And that's how they tried to kind of force the promises of God to come true. Kind of go around the promises of God. We'll give God some help to make the promises come true. But God now comes back to them and says, no, let me be more clear. Let me be specific. It's not by Hagar, but by Sarah that you will have a son. And it's very clear that despite her age, this is God's plan. And then we get to see Abraham's response. The first episode of laughter in this passage. Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, will a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Will Sarah, who is 90, bear a child? as we watch Abraham laugh and see him fall down in his laughter, we might think at first glance that he's being disrespectful. That he's doubting God. But what's really significant are two things, especially how he is responded to by God. So Sarah's going to laugh, and God's response to Sarah's going to be different because here, God responds to Abraham. He doesn't rebuke him, which indicates that Abraham, as he laughs, is not laughing a laugh of disrespect. but some type of astonishment that Abraham does believe the promise of God. He's not here laughing because he doesn't believe. He's laughing because it's amazing. And because he doesn't understand what's going to happen. The difference between Abraham's response and Sarah's response is a lot like the difference between Mary's response in the book of Luke and Zechariah's response. When they're both told that they're going to have children that they shouldn't have, they both respond almost the same way, but not exactly the same way. Zechariah has a little twinge of doubt, and Mary believes. Abraham believes, and his wife is going to have a little twinge of doubt. So he believes, and he falls down before the Lord in this reverent sort of astonishment, and he begins to speak to God, even in his heart. He says, will a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Abraham doesn't understand, and we should be sympathetic to Abraham. When God says something that is very difficult to believe that would go against all sort of laws of physics and aging, it makes sense that Abraham would have these questions in his heart. I don't understand how we're going to have a child. But the great thing is that you don't have to understand how God is going to keep his promises to believe the promises of God. And Abraham believed the promises of God. It was credited to him as righteousness. He believed that God was gonna give this child. He just didn't understand and he falls down before the Lord laughing with this reverent astonishment. And then he goes on and he says to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. And we might be tempted to think that when Abraham says, oh, that Ishmael might live before you, he's actually offering to God an alternative. God, instead of giving us a son, which really is impossible, let's just all work together to bless Ishmael. And that's often how this passage is read, but the problem is that that's not what the Bible says. Abraham is not offering to God an alternative to what God had just promised. He's asking God that not only would God give him the son he's just promised, but in light of that son, that he would still be gracious to Ishmael. This is not Abraham disbelieving the promise of God, but believing the promise for Isaac. And then asking God, please still be gracious to Ishmael. Oh, that Ishmael might live before you, he cries out. He has this genuine request. He has a genuine love for his son, Ishmael. And God responds. And God says, no. And just keep that in mind. When we pray, often God has a couple of responses. And one of them sometimes is, no, but I have a better plan. And so Abraham is actually asking, sort of, that Ishmael and the new son would both be included in the covenant. And God says, no. Isaac's going to be in the covenant, but Ishmael will be blessed. I will take care of him. I will bless him in a worldly way. He will become great. God showed kindness to Ishmael at the beginning of his life. He showed kindness to Ishmael all throughout his life, despite him not deserving it at all. So this conversation happens. Abraham receives the news. And he pleads for Ishmael. But God comes back and focuses him on Isaac. You will have a son. You're going to name him Isaac. And I'll be back in a year. And you can say, yeah, you were right. I'll be back in a year to say I told you so. So Abraham believes God and cries out for Ishmael, but receives the promise about Isaac. Look at verse 22. So that's the end of the first scene. In verse 22, it says, when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. That's sort of a little transition between one scene and another scene, but we shouldn't let it pass by that when God decides the conversation's over, it's done. And God had spoken what He wanted to to Abraham, and throughout this passage, God is sovereign. He's not in debates. He's not in negotiations with Abraham. He said what He wanted to say, and God's done. So when God had finished speaking, God went up. And Abraham, the text is very clear, makes it very painfully clear that Abraham that very day took Ishmael, his son, everyone born in his house, everyone he had bought, every slave, every servant he had, Abraham took everyone that very day and had them circumcised. We didn't read this part, but if you go earlier in the chapter, you'll see God saying, I'm gonna give you all this, and the sign of the covenant is going to be circumcision. The sign on your body of what I'm promising you is going to be the circumcision of all the males in your household. So Abraham, without delay, comes to his son, comes to all the men in his home, and says, we have work to do. And I like to imagine that conversation. It must have been a little awkward. Hey guys, I just had a conversation with God, and I have some bad news. But some good news too. But what's really interesting is not how awkward that conversation was, but in verse 26 it says, that very day. that Abraham is concerned at this point to obey God scrupulously and immediately. I'm not waiting. I'm not going to falter in faith anymore. Abraham has turned a corner from how he used to operate with God, how he used to sort of believe God and sort of follow God's commands. He says, I'm not going to do that anymore. From here on out, I'm going to obey God immediately and fully as best I can. And then we come to our third scene, which is chapter 18, verses 1 to 15. And they're sitting outside now. We don't know how much time has passed between that day and this one. Probably not too much time. The Lord appears to him by the oaks of Mamre. Abraham doesn't know at first who it is. Three men come up. Abraham, in good ancient Eastern form and in good godliness, is extremely hospitable. And we have this picture of Abraham getting up, 99 years old, it says Abraham runs inside and says to Sarah, he's not even polite about it, he says, three cakes, quick! And he runs out to the herd and he finds the best animal he can find and throws it out at this young man and says, kill it, prepare it, quick! And we see Abraham running around so that these three men will be blessed. And this is, of course, great hospitality and a good picture of what godly hospitality looks like, a kindness to strangers, and a genuine love for people. But as we go on, we begin to find out more about this conversation. They ask him in verse 9, where is Sarah, your wife? Well, how'd they know about Sarah? Now we're getting a little indication that something supernatural is going on. And he said she's in the tent. And then in verse 10, it becomes just abundantly clear. The Lord said, I will come back to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. Which is a repetition of the conversation we already had. So Abraham now knows. to whom He's speaking. At this time, as God is speaking to Abraham, if this were a movie, the camera would cut to inside the tent. And inside the tent, there would be Sarah. And she would have her ear pressed up against the wall of the tent, or whatever you do. She's eavesdropping. She hears her name, and whenever you hear your name, your ears perk up and you pay attention. She pays attention. She's listening now. Don't know whether Abraham had told her the fullness of everything he'd heard from God. But now she hears it from God's mouth specifically. Sarah's going to have a child. I'll be back in a year to say I told you so. And she begins to laugh to herself. And she laughs to herself and has sort of the same argument inside of her that Abraham had. After I'm worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? Sarah laughed and her laugh was different than Abraham's laugh. Sarah's laughter was the laughter of disbelief. And the reason we know that, even though it's so similar to what Abraham did, the reason we know that is how God responded to her, and how she responded to God. When God came back to her and said, why did you laugh? What did she say? Oh, she said, I didn't laugh. She lied. Right? She lied to God. And that lie is just an indication of what's going on in her heart. She's not yet on board. She's not yet full of faith in the promises of God. The big problem in Sarah's heart is disbelief. It's focusing on the reasons she has to not believe God. She's clear that she knows her own body. And the text is clear, and you adults know what she's saying when she says the things she says. But there's no reason to believe that she will or can have a child. And so she gives some logical arguments, but inside of her, she's really just not believing the promises of God. God speaks to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, about this time next year, I will return, and Sarah will have a son. But Sarah denied it, saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, No, but you did laugh. The second laugh was an indication that Sarah's not yet full of faith as Abraham is. God responds to her. She responds again with a lie. And then the story begins to turn away from there to another story. And so that's the story. We have these three scenes, the conversation, the obedience, this time of hospitality and God confronting Sarah with her unbelief. But now let's pause and ask the question, why did God write their story this way? Why did God want Abraham and Sarah not just to have a child? We know why He wanted them to have a child, just so that the covenant people could be propagated and could be built. But why did God in His providence leave Abraham and Sarah without a child till their old age? Was God intent on simply showing off? Was God leaving them without a child until they were 190 years old, simply so that He could show His power and say, hey, look what I can do. No, rather God is writing their story in this way to teach them, and the Israelites who would read this, and you, about the nature of faith. The reason God wrote their story this way, the reason He let them go so long without a child, the reason He wanted them to have this child in their old age, was to teach us about the nature of faith, to teach us what it means to trust God. And so that's what I want to consider then, first up then, is the nature of faith. And under that heading, I'd like to consider two things. The nature of our faith, of true Christian faith. Two aspects of our faith. The first is that Christian faith is supernatural. Christian faith is supernatural. In other words, to be a Christian, you have to believe in the supernatural. You have to believe that there are things outside of this world, there are things that are not part of what your senses can sense. You can't be a Christian and not believe in the supernatural. And in previous generations and in previous centuries of human existence, this wouldn't have been a big deal. In fact, for the vast majority of human history, it would not have been a big deal to stand up in a group of people and say, I believe in the supernatural. But now it kind of is. Now as we as a nation, as a society, keep sliding into scientific materialism and into naturalism, it's more and more a bigger thing to stand up and say, I believe that the supernatural is real. I believe in things like angels and demons. I believe in the afterlife. That kind of makes you weird now, depending on where you say it. But the Christian faith is, at the root of it, supernatural. What was the second thing that Abraham and Sarah did? Abraham fell down and he spoke to God. Sarah lied about it. Sarah did not believe necessarily in the supernatural, but Abraham did. Here's how J.G. Voss wrote about this. He said, Sarah was like the multitudes of people of the present day. who can only think in terms of what is possible according to natural law. Natural law is what we would call the laws of physics, the laws of nature. And there are many people today, perhaps even some of you that I don't know yet, who are sitting here, and maybe you can only think in terms of what's possible according to natural law. Maybe you can only think in terms of what's possible. Maybe you think the only people who can have children are people of a certain age. Maybe you think that old people can't have kids too, just like Sarah believed. We are just a few miles away from Purdue University, one of the premier universities in the nation where people come to study what they call the hard scientists. They come to study the things that you can put in a beaker. They come to study the things that you can measure, the things that you can see, taste, touch, you can listen to them, that they measure them. We know there's hard sciences. But how many of the people studying over at Purdue, even this year, think that they would be unfaithful to their calling as a scientist or an engineer if they were to allow for the reality of something supernatural? And maybe you feel that tension within you today. Maybe you feel like, I would be unfaithful to science. I would be unfaithful to the laws of nature that I believe to be real and true and good if I were to believe that there's something supernatural. But that's not unfaithful at all. If I were to say to you, well, I have two friends, and you were to say to me, well, that's amazing. How can you be friends with two people? How can you be friends with both of them? I'll say, well, they're both very nice people, and I like them both. I'm friends with them both. It is possible for you, you understand then, to believe in science. to appreciate science, to appreciate the hard sciences, and understand that those things are good, and yet also to believe in the supernatural. And it doesn't make you crazy, and it doesn't make you unscientific, and it doesn't make you anything other than a faithful Christian to believe in both the supernatural, and in what God has put unbuilt into the world around us. There are more and more, in the church even, materialistic Christians who believe that God is bound to the physical order that He created. And that was Sarah's problem. She believed that God was bound in the universe that He had made. That God had to live within the rules of physics and science that He had created. In other words, she's committing sort of the same error that many of us commit often, which is believing that God is a lot like us. Which is often the root of the problem of doubt and of weak faith. But God is not like us. God is not bound to the physical order that He created. God does not have any reason that He has to follow the rules and the laws of nature. And so those of you here who have lost a sister and a friend, we believe in the afterlife. We believe in heaven. And not for a second do we think that we can prove it scientifically. Right? But we believe in it. We're right to believe in it. Christians believe in the supernatural. We believe that God is not bound by the physical order He created around us. This is one of the reasons why worship and spiritual disciplines are so important. You live in this materialistic world. You live with the increasing pressure of a scientifically minded society. You need to return to worship and to the Word of God on a regular basis just to remind yourself that the supernatural is real. and that there are things beyond this world that are just as real and just as true as the things I can see and taste and measure. So the nature of Christian faith is that it is supernatural. The second thing we see about Christian faith in this passage is that it is obedient. Christian faith is obedient. Abraham showed his faith by what he did. Plain out for us the conversation that James has in James 2, where James imagines a conversation between two people and one person says, I have faith, and I'll show you my faith by what I say. And the other person says, that's great, but I'll show you my faith by what I do. And faith is justified by its works. We are justified. That is, we prove ourselves to be Christians not by what we say, but by what we do. Abraham, to be clear, was not saved by his works, but his works proved that he was saved. And this is true for any of you. You are not saved by what you do. And we need to make that really clear, really clear, because it's really important to say that those who are saved will obey the Lord. You are not saved by your works. But brothers and sisters, you are not saved without works. You were saved to obey the Lord. And true Christian faith isn't just an intellectual faith that says, I believe in the supernatural and I believe in heaven. The true Christian faith obeys the Lord. That day Abraham went and took his son and all his men and had them circumcised. Imagine the first audience that was to read the book of Genesis. Moses wrote the book of Genesis. He wrote it for the Israelites who were walking in the wilderness. And these Israelites all were circumcised. They all had on their bodies, at least the men did, the mark of the covenant. That circumcision was to be to them a blessing, a reminder of God's grace to them. but instead they made it into a sign of self-righteousness. How often in the Old Testament the Israelites depended on their works instead of depending on God. They became obedient to their own desires instead of obedient to God. But God here is calling them not just to have the sign on them, but to live up to what the sign means for them. If you've been baptized into the church of Jesus Christ, you have the sign of the covenant on you. And that sign of the covenant isn't only a symbol of God's goodness and promises to you, it is a call to obedience. You're not saved by what you do, but you're not saved to do nothing. You're saved to obey the Lord. And true Christian faith is a faith that obeys the Lord. The nature of faith is that it is supernatural and it is obedient. Now the genius here of what God is doing in this story is that it works on an even deeper level. Not only is God teaching us the nature of faith that it is supernatural and it is obedient, but God is teaching us here the object of our faith. In this passage, God is teaching us the object of our faith. If you think back to the times when you've watched news, or maybe you get on Facebook, and it seems like every few weeks or so you'll see somebody posting something about what they call a miracle baby. Maybe you've had a miracle baby, or you know families that use that phrase. We use that phrase to talk about a child that shouldn't have lived, and it did live, praise the Lord. We talk about a child that was born to parents that thought they couldn't have children, and then they have a child, and they call it a miracle baby. And that's fine, maybe not a real miracle, we'll get into that later, that's a whole different thing. But it's an interesting thing to us. We love the idea of these babies coming into this world in ways that we don't expect. We love it also because the Old Testament is full of them. Have you ever noticed that? That the Old Testament is full of babies that shouldn't have been born. God seems to take a great delight in giving children to women who couldn't have children. Or who shouldn't have been able to have children. This isn't the only one. It happens multiple times in the Old Testament. Why? Well, of course, it's not just because God loves babies. And it's not just because God wants to show off. But every time God gives a child to a woman who shouldn't or couldn't have a child, every time that this particular miracle comes into this world, it is a bright, flashing arrow pointed to the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The reason that so many of these miracles exist in the Old Testament is because God is preparing His people for the greatest one. There was to be born a baby that broke all the laws of physics, that broke all the laws of science, because there wasn't even a dad. This particular miracle points us then to the reality of the Incarnation and to the object of our faith. True Christian faith, true trust in God, doesn't simply have characteristics. It has an object. It's not enough to say, well, I have the characteristics of supernaturalism, I believe in the supernatural. It's not enough to say that I'm obedient, but our faith must be based on a person. Our faith doesn't just have characteristics, it has an object. Our faith isn't just like something, it is on someone. True Christian faith is faith that is placed on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. I'd like to talk now about grammar. We don't always love grammar, but a little grammar lesson. Some of you kids need to pay attention now. You can take this into school and be really impressive this week. There are transitive verbs, and there are intransitive verbs. Transitive verbs have to have an object. Intransitive verbs don't. An intransitive verb would be something like the word run. I can run. I don't need to run something. I don't need to run someone. I can just run. But there are transitive verbs that must have an object to make any sense. Transitive verbs would be verbs like believe, trust, and worship. And one of the great heresies of modern man is that we've taken transitive verbs and tried to turn them into intransitive verbs. We've taken verbs that need an object and we pretend like they don't. And how many times have you spoken with a person who would say, I am a person of faith? That doesn't make any sense. You can't be a person of faith in what? Faith needs to have an object to be real and to make any sense at all. Well, I often worship. We don't worship. You have to worship something. You have to worship someone. Our faith has an object. Our object is Jesus Christ Himself. We must remind ourselves of this a lot. Because Satan wants to pull our minds and our hearts away into little nuances and rabbit trails of theology or Bible study. Getting us to forget that ultimately the reason we do anything we do in the Bible is to remind ourselves of who Jesus is. And to put our faith on a person. And so God has called you as a church to trust in the Lord. Again, I don't know all that you're struggling with, but I know that. I know that you need to trust God. And it's not enough to say, well, I need more supernaturalism and more obedience. No, what you need is more Jesus. What you need is a heart and a mind that is more set on the living Christ. On what He does, did, and will do. Now because of whom the object of our faith is. Our faith is certain. And that's why God gives us this story ultimately, and this is our final point tonight. God's goal in this passage is to protect Abraham and Sarah, protect the Israelites, to protect you from doubt. And doubt is a common thing. Most Christians, in fact all Christians I would argue, struggle with doubt at some point. Doubt can seep into our hearts in any number of ways. Satan has all sorts of ways to use doubt. Our hearts don't even need Satan to get there. We can do it on our own. But God's goal with this story is to protect you from doubt. God's plan for you is to thrive in the faith. God's plan is for you to have a strong faith in Jesus Christ. To be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy when he causes you or calls you to doubt the Lord. So this miracle is a lot like the miracles in the New Testament as well. Did you ever notice that in the New Testament the miracles that Jesus committed never brought anyone to faith? And Jesus even said that. He said, even if I showed you amazing things, none of you would come to faith. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, not by seeing miracles. The reason miracles existed in the Old Testament and in the New Testament wasn't to bring anyone to faith. It was to help those who were of the faith. It was to give them confidence in the Lord. And this is why Jesus did His miracles. This is why this miracle exists here in the Old Testament. This miracle exists so that Abraham and Sarah and the Israelites would believe in God and be certain of the promises of God. God doesn't want your faith just to be weak. He doesn't want you to be rocked by doubt. Rocked by the waves of doubt that come to us. He wants you to have a firm faith. And so He gives you this miracle. He shows you this baby that was born. It was a baby born to a woman that was 90 years old. And to a father that was 100. And if He can do that, then He can do anything. When Satan comes knocking, when your heart and your knees begin knocking. You can use this. You can use the certainty of God's actions and His strength and His track record. Whether it's happening to you right now, or it happens sometime later this week or next month, your heart is going to be tempted to not believe God. You're going to be tempted to not trust Him, to not believe His strength, to not believe His goodness. You are going to hear the question in your heart that's asked in verse 13. Why did Sarah laugh and say, shall I indeed bear a child now that I am too old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Another translation would be, is anything too wonderful for God to do? God is asking that question in v. 13, but that same question is asked in a sarcastic way by Satan and by our own hearts. Satan's going to ask us, is anything too hard for God? And he wants us to answer, yes. He wants us to say, well, I don't understand how God can bring people back from the dead. He wants us to say, I don't understand how heaven and hell can be real. I don't understand the spiritual things that God has promised. Is anything too wonderful for God? When that question comes to you, When your heart or the enemy comes and tests you, there's a right answer to that question. When the question comes to you, is anything too wonderful for God? The right answer is no. No. There's nothing too wonderful for God. There's nothing too hard for God. My God, made this world in the space of six days by talking. My God, when he was done with the sins of this world, sent a flood to cover the whole thing, saved the one family he wanted through a boat that he designed. My God, many times throughout history, opened the wounds of women who shouldn't have had babies and gave them babies. My God went to His people when they were in Egypt, and He went to war against all the Egyptian gods, and one by one, He took them down. My God led His people out of Egypt, and He walked between them and an army, the greatest army of the land, and it was the people of God who walked out clean and safe on the other side of the Red Sea. My God sent His people to act as fools as they walked around Jericho. He had them shout and jump up and down and play trumpets. And my God brought the walls down. My God, at the invitation of His people, stopped the sun in its tracks just to prove that He was God. My God became a man. unlike any other god in the pantheon of gods. My God, without stopping being a god, became man. My God, when He walked this world, He healed the sick, He raised the dead, He fed the hungry, He gave sight to the blind, He walked on water, and He walked out of the grave three days after He died. And so when Satan comes to you and says to you as a church, look at all the things that are too hard for God. Is there anything too hard for God? You have an answer. And the answer is no. And when you read the promises of Scripture that those who died in faith will live again and they will live forever in the presence of God, and the world says, do you prove it? The world says, how can you believe things that aren't scientifically verifiable? We come back to Him and say, but you don't know my God. Let me tell you what my God can do. That's what this is about. It's about what your God can do. And the same God who gave a child to a 90-year-old woman and a 100-year-old father is your God today. The same God who worked miracles then loves to do miracles now. And so we say no to Satan, no to our doubt. There is nothing too wonderful for God. As we close, I want to give you a word of encouragement. Perhaps you are like Abraham today and you are firm in your faith and you are quick to obey. But surely some of you here identify a little more tonight with Sarah. It's hard to obey sometimes. It's hard to obey when we have really logical reasons sometimes not to. But I want to tell you that Sarah's story doesn't end here. The book of Hebrews in chapter 11 gives us insight into Sarah's life. And here's what it says. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered Him faithful who had promised. We don't actually have this recorded in the book of Genesis. It's recorded in the book of Hebrews. That at some point in the next couple months, Sarah would have faith. She would believe that God is able And by faith she gained power to conceive, even though she was past the age, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Which is just a good reminder to all of us, it is not too late to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not too late to trust in God. It's not too late to be built in faith and strengthened in your faith. If you have lived as Sarah for very long, it's time now to have faith in God. It's time now. Again, I don't know all that God wants to do with your church. All the reasons that He brought a tragedy to you. But I'm sure this one, that He brought it to you so that you would trust Him. It's time. It's time to trust God. To give Him your hearts. Believe His promises. Push back the enemy. Fight with the shield of faith that God has given to you. Be strengthened in your faith. Because God has given you every reason you need to believe Him. Let's pray together. Lord, we are grateful for this story. It's remarkable. It reveals to us, Lord, how easy it is for us to doubt, just like Sarah. So we do pray, Lord, that You would forgive us. And that You would take away our doubt and replace it with faith. Lord, perhaps there are some here tonight who are considering becoming a Christian. Lord, give to them that faith that is supernatural, obedient, and focused on Christ. But Lord, I plead for this church as a whole, as you have brought them again into the valley of the shadow of death, that they would fear no evil, that they would trust you. Lord, every time we've trusted You, every time we've leaned on You, we've always found You worthy. You've always been faithful to Your promises. So help us now to trust in You. We pray for it in Jesus' name. Amen.