1. Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we begin our
Advent Midweek Series, “Nothing is Impossible with God,” is taken from
Genesis 18.1-15 & 21.1-7, it’s entitled, “Is Anything Too Hard for the
Lord?” Dear brothers and sisters in
Christ.
2. Genesis
18.1-2 & 10-14 says, “And the Lord appeared to [Abraham] 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. . . .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?” (Gen 18:1–2,
10–14)
3. When
Abraham was 75 years old, God told him to leave his country and his home and go
to the land of Canaan. God promised Abraham that he would make him into a great
nation, and that all people would be blessed through him and his descendants.
Though Abraham was childless, he followed God’s words. Abraham went with Sarah
his wife, a few relatives, and all their possessions to this new land in which
they were strangers and foreigners.
4. The
Lord later confirmed his promise to Abraham. He told Abraham that his
descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. It is written that
Abraham believed the Lord’s word, and God counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham
trusted what God said, even without any evidence, and through that faith, that
reliance on the Lord’s promises, he was declared righteous before God.
5. In
today’s reading, Abraham is 99 years old, and Sarah his wife still has had no
children and is, of course, now past the age of childbearing. But, Abraham, is
still clinging to the Lord’s promise, despite the fact that, humanly speaking,
it seems impossible. You can imagine how their faith must have been tested in
these 24 years. The waiting must have seemed endless. It appears that Sarah has
all but given up on the promise. In the midst of his weakness, Abraham
continues to hold to God’s Word.
6. Advent
is all about that sort of waiting in humble faith. Not only did Abraham wait
for the fulfillment of the promise, not only did the people of Israel wait for
the coming of the Messiah, but we now wait for fulfillment of the Messiah’s
salvation on the Last Day at his second coming. As we prepare to celebrate
Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, we pause to meditate on the fact that much of
the Christian life is characterized by waiting, looking forward in hope to what
is yet to come.
7. Sometimes
the waiting can be discouraging. It can seem so long. The doubts begin to creep
in: “Is the promise really real?” We can begin to turn the focus of our
hearts to other things that give us more immediate results. We push the
promises of Christ to the side instead of dwelling on them in faith and eagerly
anticipating their fulfillment. Patient waiting doesn’t come easily for us
sinners. But it is written in the Psalms: “Wait for the Lord; be
strong, and let your heart take courage” (Ps 27:14); “I wait for the Lord, my
soul waits, and in his word I hope” (130:5); “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For
with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption”
(130:7).
8. We
see that steadfastness being demonstrated here in the life of Abraham and
Sarah. In his grace, the Lord comes to Abraham to announce that the waiting is
just about over. Abraham prepares a special meal for his special guest. And in the
context of that meal, the Lord confirms the promise one last time: “I will
surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have
a son” (v 10). In the same way, the angel of the Lord also came to Joseph
in a dream to announce Mary’s pregnancy by the Holy Spirit: “She will bear a
son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their
sins” (Mt 1:21). The waiting was almost over for the whole people of God;
the Christ was coming.
9. Sarah
and Mary’s reactions, though, were a bit different. When Sarah heard what the
Lord said, she laughed and said to herself, “After I am worn out, and my
lord [husband] is old, shall I have pleasure [of having a child]?” (v 12).
Sarah focused entirely on the unlikeliness of the whole concept. Now Mary also
wondered how she, a virgin, could conceive. But when the angel explained that
it was by the power of the Holy Spirit, she said, “Behold, I am the servant
of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). Mary responded
in faith, focusing not on what was humanly impossible but on what was divinely
possible.
10.
When confronted, Sarah tried to deny
that she had laughed, but the Lord then posed the question, “Is anything too
hard for the Lord?” (v 14). The
obvious answer is no, Nothing Is Too Hard for the Lord. The angel said to Mary, “With God nothing
will be impossible.” And so it was that a 90 year-old Sarah gave birth to a
son who would be the direct ancestor of the Messiah, and the Virgin Mary gave
birth to that Messiah himself, the Savior of the world, God in the flesh.
11.
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
Certainly not; and that includes not only causing miraculous births but also
saving poor, miserable sinners and giving them new life. Once Jesus’ disciples were
despairing that if even the most excellent people on earth aren’t good enough
to get into heaven, who then can be saved? Jesus said, “With man it is
impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mk
10:27). Not even the best of us can enter the kingdom of God by our own
strength. But God has made the impossible possible through Christ. Even we poor
sinners are saved by his holy birth among us. Though we were dead in our
trespasses and sins, God made us alive together with Christ through his death
and resurrection. Nothing is too hard for the Lord, not even saving us. That is
the Word of the Lord that God calls you to believe.
12.
Abraham believed that nothing is
impossible with God. He believed, as Romans 4 says, that God “gives life to
the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he
believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he
had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he
considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a
hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No
unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in
his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what
he had promised” (Rom 4:17–21). God brought life out of death, and Sarah
gave birth to a son. They called him Isaac, which means “he laughs.” For
where Sarah had laughed before, God had now brought laughter and joy to Abraham
and Sarah and Isaac by fulfilling his promise.
13.
And God has done the same thing for
us. He has brought life out of our death and has given us joy and laughter
through the birth of the Son of God. The long-awaited promise of the Savior has
been fulfilled. In him, we’re set free from sin and fear and death. In him, we
have hope in the midst of this hopeless, impossible, fallen world. In him and
his cross and his resurrection, we truly are the children and descendants of
Abraham.
14.
For remember, Abraham was father to
Isaac, Isaac was father to Jacob, Jacob became the father of the twelve tribes
of Israel, out of Israel came the Messiah Jesus, and we have been baptized into
Christ; we are one with him by faith. Therefore, Abraham truly is our father as
Christians. It is written, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s
offspring” (Gal 3:29). Just as Abraham was accounted righteous before God
by faith, so are we who trust in God’s promises in Christ.
15.
God has done for us just what he did
for Sarah and for Mary. He has conceived new and eternal life in us by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Out of the barrenness of our sin, he has created a
living faith. In the emptiness of our souls, he has caused Christ to dwell, to
fill us with his love and his merciful presence. He makes our hearts his
manger. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
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