June 30, 2025 • 24 mins
As we continue our Promises Made, Promises Kept series, Pastor Joe shares how God visited Abraham with a promise that Sarah would bear a son within a year, even though it seemed impossible. Despite Sarah’s doubt and laughter, God reminded them that nothing is too hard for him. This message encourages us to trust in God’s faithfulness to fulfill his promises, no matter how unlikely they appear.
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(00:00):
Genesis 18 one through 15.
And the Lord appeared to himby the oaks of memory.
As he sat at the door of his tentin 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,
(00:20):
and bowed himself to the earthand 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 morselof bread, that you may refresh yourselves,
and after that you may passon, since you have come to your servant.
(00:42):
So they said, do as you have said.
And Abraham went quickly into the tentto Sarah, and said, quick,
three sees a fine flour needed,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
(01:03):
that he had prepared,and set it before them.
And he stood by them under the treewhile 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 youabout this time next year.
And Sarah, your wife shall have a son.
And Sarah was listening at the tent doorbehind him.
(01:24):
Now Abraham and Sarah were old,advanced in years.
The way of womenhad 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, isanything too hard for the Lord?
(01:46):
At the appointed time I will return to you
about this timenext 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.
Everybody,welcome to Christ Community chapel.
(02:07):
So glad you're here. Thanks for coming.
If you are here at our Westservice on Sunday,
I am on the screenbecause I am preaching live in East.
And let me tell you why I am preachinglive in East.
We are growing.
I had a pretty fast rate so fast.
We count empty seats, every week
(02:27):
to find out where new people can sit.
And, the most empty seats we have are inour East service and our 830 West service.
So if you are at a very crowded serviceand you want to give up your seat
and go to one of the other services,that would be great.
I love having to ask you to do thatbecause I love
what's going on with ourchurch, so thanks.
(02:51):
All right.
This is our sixth week ofour ten week series in the Old Testament.
We are looking at the life of Abraham, andwe're calling this series Promises Made.
Promises kept.
One of the things I love about preachingis it forces me to sit
with a passage of Scripture for hours and,
(03:11):
just try to look at itfrom different angles, try to figure out
what God is saying, why God is saying it,and what it means to us right now.
You know, last week I preached onGenesis chapter 17 and Genesis
chapter 17 was about Godmaking a promise to Abraham.
He actually made the promisein chapter 12.
(03:32):
It was a promiseto make him into a great nation,
which meant lots of descendants.
Chapter 1724 years later,
Sarah, Abraham's wife,still hasn't gotten pregnant.
And my three points last week was Goddelays.
Abraham laughs and God responds.
Now this week, God shows up again.
(03:53):
But this timeit seems to be for the benefit of Sarah,
who is eavesdropping.
And Sarah also laughs.
But it seems like it's a more cynicallaugh than Abraham's laugh.
At least it does to me.
If you have your Bibles,
you can go ahead and turn to Genesischapter 18 if you want to follow along.
(04:14):
And one of our Bibles is on page 12,where you can just wait
for the verses to come up on the screenthat I'm going to highlight.
And I really just have three observations
about the 15 versesthat we had read to us.
All right.
Here are my observations about God.
Number one, God is a multitasker.
(04:34):
God multitasks. That's number one.
Number two is God usesdifferent approaches for different people.
He uses different approachesfor different people.
And number three,God loves to flip scripts
to completely turn things on their head.
All right, let's get started.
The first is God is a multitasker.
(04:56):
I think that makes sense to us.
We all hope God can domore than one thing at one time.
But when I was looking at this passage,something jumped out at me that I hadn't
seen before.
So God makes a promise to Abraham
that he's going to be a great nationand have multiple descendants.
And he appears to Abraham in chapter 12,and then again in chapter 15,
(05:20):
and yet again in chapter 17.
And he makes it clear to Abrahamthat his promise involves Sarah.
But Sarah can't conceive,
and infertility is hard.
I've talked to couples, coupleswho have struggled with infertility.
And if you are strugglingwith infertility, I just want you to know
(05:44):
I'm sorry.
I knowit's it's really hard in Abraham's time.
It was brutal, especially for the woman,because it was always
considered the woman's fault.
And you can tell how brutalit was for Sarah
because of what she does inGenesis chapter 16.
(06:05):
In Genesis chapter 16,she goes to Abraham and says,
why don't you try to have childrenwith my servant girl Hagar?
And of course, that just explodes.
And you, you can figure out why.
First, Abraham is unfaithful.
And I don't know if Sarah kind of knew how
(06:25):
that would just breaksomething inside of her.
Then she has to watch Hagargo through nine months of pregnancy,
and then when she gives birth,
she gives birth to a baby boy,and Abraham is overjoyed.
And that cuts into Sarah like a knife.
And Sarah finally has to come
to grips with the factthat she must be the one that's broken,
(06:48):
because Abraham has shownthat he can have children,
just not with her.
So she is devastated.
And then these three mysterious menshow up
and Abraham starts barking orders.
He wants them to stay for a mealand he has of a fatted calf killed.
And you can't really tellif that's just Middle Eastern hospitality,
(07:12):
where he realizes who they are.
But eventually he does realize thatit's another visit from God,
and they sit down to talk.
And Sarah is eavesdropping,and this is what she hears them say.
This is verses nine and ten.
And they said to him, to Abraham,where is Sarah, your wife?
And he said, she's in the tent.
(07:34):
The Lord said, I will surely return to youabout this time next year.
And Sarah, your wife will have a son.
And Sarah was listeningat the tent door behind him.
That's the first
time that she has heard the promise
directly from the mouth of God.
But it doesn't renew her hope.
(07:55):
She doesn't, like,come out from behind the tent and say
this, this wonderful news.
I had all but given up. But here you are.
And you've made the promise to me.
That's not what she does.
This is what she how she responds.
This is verse 12.
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,
(08:16):
after I am worn out, am I, Lord is old?
Shall I have pleasure?
Okay.
There are two words that I want to
kind of highlight to you.
The first is the word that's translatedworn out.
That's a very strong word in the Hebrew.
(08:36):
It means after I have become worthless,
after I have no value to anyone.
What she is saying is
I am utterly and completely in irreparably
broken.
Sarah is self-loathing.
(08:59):
That's the first word.
The second word that I want to point outis the word pleasure.
She says, after I am worn out,my Lord is old.
Shall I have pleasure in this?
It's easy to kind of inferfrom the context that she's saying,
well,I have the pleasure of having a baby.
That's not what the word means.
That word pleasure is the wordfor physical intimacy.
(09:23):
What she's saying is that
Abraham and I aren't like thatwith each other.
Not anymore.
What she's saying is that she is alone,and you can understand why.
I mean, you have Abraham's infidelity.
You have what she would feel like,his constant disappointment
(09:44):
in her month after month after month.
You can feel her just saying now I amabsolutely worthless or whatever it is
their marriage
is broken and this is why I saythis is what hit me.
This is why I saidthat God is a multitasker.
Because God is going to fulfillthis promise to Abraham
(10:05):
to make him a great nation.
But in the process of doing it, he'salso going to repair their marriage.
He's going to make Sarah whole again.
He's going to save her from self loathing.
And this is my point,
is that God's promises toyou always have fall out.
(10:27):
You know, I told you last weekthat God's promised to you
if you are a follower of Jesus,
is to make you into something you're not.
That God is slowlybut surely making you into
more like Jesus,
and that will have an impact on everythingand everyone.
(10:47):
One God is multitasking through youto impact your spouse and your kids,
and your parents
and your friends and your classmatesand your neighbors and everyone.
When you know that Godis doing something in you,
but not just for you,
he is multitasking with youinto other people's lives.
(11:10):
That's the first point.
The second point is that
God uses different approachesfor different people.
That shouldn't be a surprise to us.
And if you are a parentwho has more than one child, you know
you need to probably handle your childrendifferently.
Like, I had one childthat was pretty strong willed,
(11:31):
and that meant that I needed to give her
direct and firm discipline.
I had another childthat if you look sideways at her,
she would just collapse because she feltthe weight of my disappointment.
You know, when I played basketballin high school, in
college, my my best coaches,
always knew how to handledifferent players in different ways.
(11:55):
My my best coach.
My favorite coach, would never yell at medirectly.
He would yell at one of my teammatesand hope I heard, hey, I love that.
So in
three weeks ago, I preached onGenesis chapter 15.
If you missed that sermon, then,
(12:16):
you can read the chapterafter this service.
But chapter 15Abraham comes into contact with God.
It is wild and wooly.
It involves like sacrificing animals,
splitting them in half, creating a path,
a flaming torch, a smoking fire pot.
Deep, dreadful darkness.
(12:37):
The holiness of God descending on Abraham,pushing him to the ground.
It is terrifying.
That's Genesis chapter 15
here in Genesis chapter 18.
You have three men show upthat seem pretty ordinary,
and they're sharing a meal,
(12:58):
and they're
there
communicating.
They're talking with Abraham,but they're communicating
with Sarahbecause they know she's eavesdropping.
They're there for Sarah.
They're speaking to her indirectly,like my favorite coach.
Right.
And they're they're so gentle with her.
(13:21):
Like. Like what?
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,after I'm worn out
and my lord is all shall have pleasure.
The Lord said to Abraham,why did Sarah laugh
and say, shall I indeed bear a childnow that I'm old?
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
I mean,
(13:42):
that is so amazing.
It's like he knows Sarah feels worn out.
He knows she feels worthless.
And when he says there's anything
too hard for the Lord, that word,
that phrase can also be translatedas anything
to wonderful for the Lord.
(14:05):
It's like God comes
and he says to Sarah, Sarah, I see you.
I have always seen you.
And he's saying, it is what I've come.
I've come for you.
I've come to do somethingwonderful for you.
And even after that, when she
(14:27):
denies laughing, she lies about laughing.
And God says to her, oh,but you did laugh.
And you can almost see his smilewhen he says, oh, but she did laugh.
And he's saying, Sarah, I see you
and I still love you.
You couldn't have
two more different approaches
(14:50):
that God would take to Abrahamand then to Sarah.
And my, my point is this, that
you may be sitting next to somebody
who had a completely different experiencein coming to Jesus than you did.
I mean, the the very the coreof what it means to be a Christian.
This is what you have to believe,
(15:11):
but you have to believethat you're a sinner,
that you need a Savior,that that Savior is Jesus,
and he saves you by his gracethrough his death and his resurrection.
Some people might cometo that kind of realization
because sin has demolished them,
and they feel the coming judgment of God,and they are terrified
(15:36):
about the whole thingthat's going to happen.
And they cry out to Jesus.
Then there are there are other people
who aren't terrifiedby the holiness of God,
but they're captured by the by the love,
by the, by the wonder,
(15:57):
by the gentleness
of a Godwho's like a shepherd who leaves the 99
and comes after the one.
So sometimes people tend
to want to take their experienceand put it on everybody else.
And then some people, they
they are jealous of other people'sexperience listening.
(16:19):
If you have experience,if you came to Christ,
if somebody you know came to Christbecause
they're terrified of the holiness of God,don't try to talk him out of it.
Don't try to say, oh, no,you shouldn't think about God like that.
He he's like the shepherd who left the 99and came after the one.
Yeah. He is, he is.
But maybe that's the way
(16:39):
God approached them,because God knows them.
And if somebody feels like God is sowonderful to leave the 99 come after them.
Don't.
You don't have to tell themand just say you don't really understand
the holiness of God.
You should be scared to death.
God uses different approachesfor different people.
(17:02):
That's my second point.
My third point is that God loves to flipscripts to just turn things on their head.
And this is what I mean.
So God makes this promise to Abraham,
and the promise isthat you're going to be a great nation.
You're going to have multiple descendants.
But then
Sarah doesn't get pregnant.
They lose patience.
(17:23):
They shattertheir marriage in multiple ways.
Sarah feels completely worn out,like she is worthless.
And that.
And God comes and visits herand just says, is
anything too wonderful for me?
And Sarah laughs
and God says, why did you laugh?
(17:44):
And then she says, I didn't laugh andGod says, but you did laugh.
Put a pin in that for a second, right?
And then, because God is multitasking,
he not only is going to fulfillhis promise to Abraham,
he's going to heal their marriage.
And he does because they reconcile,because nine months later
(18:07):
they have a baby.
And we pick up the storyin chapter 21 of Genesis.
This is what it says.
The Lord visited Sarah, as he had said,
and the Lord did to Sarah,as he had promised.
And Sarah conceived and bore Abrahama son in his old age,
at the time of whichGod had spoken to him.
Abraham called the name of his son,who was born to him, who Sarah bore him.
(18:32):
Isaac and Abrahamcircumcised his son Isaac
when he was eight daysold, as God had commanded him.
Abraham was 100 years oldwhen his son Isaac was born to him,
and Sarahsaid, God has made laughter for me.
Everyone who hears will laugh over me.
And she said, who would have said toAbraham that Sarah would nurse children?
(18:52):
Yet I have borne my son in his old age,
when she says,
God has made laughter over me,and everyone who hears will laugh with me.
She'sshe's actually making a play on words,
because what God says to Abraham
is, okay, now you you have this son.
(19:13):
I want you to call his name Isaac,
which in Hebrew means laughter.
So what God does to Sarah
is he says, why did you laugh?
Is anything too wonderful for me?
And she says, but I didn't laugh.
And he said, you did laugh.
And then he says, okay,
(19:33):
now I want you to call your son.
Laughter.
So at every time Sarah called Isaac home,it was like laughter.
It's time to come home for dinner.
Laughter. Go clean up your toys.
Hey chuckles, it's time to go to bed.
All right.
Every time God was reminding Sarah
(19:54):
you laughed because you were so cynical.
You thought you were worn out.
You thought I didn't see you,but I saw you.
And I've done something so wonderful.
And I don't want you to ever forget
there is something God loves.
He took cynical laughterand he turned it on its head.
And he said, from now on, wheneveryou call your son, you'll be reminded.
(20:18):
You'll be remindedthat I'm a God who does this.
My older brother Brian,
wrote a book years agocalled splendor in the ordinary,
and my favorite story is in his lastchapter.
It's about,a guy that lived on his freshman dorm,
named Charlie Crone.
(20:39):
This is the way he starts the story.
He says the year was 1974.
Beanbag chairsand lava lamps were the rage.
Dorm rooms were not yet filled with VCRs,CD players, and personal computers.
You can see how old hehow many years he wrote this.
You know, go because he's stilltalking about CD players.
We were collegefreshmen living in a freshman dorm.
(21:00):
Charlie was on my floor.
Charlie was about five foot fourwith sandy blond hair and red rimmed eyes.
He was also the most profligate sinnerI had ever met in person.
I mean, Charlie was a party reptile.
He cussed like a sailor.
My apologies to sailors drankwith a frat house flourish, marijuana
smoke wafted underneath his closed doornearly every night until the wee hours,
(21:22):
and he regularly had his girlfriendin for days at a time.
They weren't studying.
For some reason,I also remember he was an English major.
Now, Charlie also happened to bea nice guy, a good Ole boy.
He laughed a lot, got decentgrades, seemed to have plenty of friends,
but Charlie was aboutas far from being interested in Jesus
as anyone you could imagine.
(21:43):
Then he picks up the story.
13 years later, he says the year is 1987.
Beanbag chairs and lava lamps are the rageonly in resale
shops and garagesales have long since worn out.
The college sweatshirtI bought as a freshman.
While flipping through the monthlyalumni publication, my eyes
fell upon the following entry in the notesfor our class of 1978.
(22:06):
Charlie Krohn, class of 78,
and his wife will begin their first termwith Wycliffe Bible Translators this fall.
They'll be serving in West Africa.
I love that story.
It's like God says to Charlie,
you didn't know whyyou're an English major, but I knew
you're going to be a Bible translator
(22:26):
in West Africa.
Listen, whoever you're praying for,
don't stop praying.
Whatever you're praying for.
Don't stop praying for it.
Because God loves to flip scripts
to turn something completely on his head.
(22:47):
God is a multitasker.
He is multitasking through you
to people you know, peopleyou don't know yet, right?
God uses different approachesfor different people.
That's true too.
But the third thingis probably the best thing.
God loves to flip scripts
(23:10):
because nothing is too wonderful
for him.
Promises made and promises kept.
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven.
I love,
this whole story.
I love the way you, appeared to Abraham
(23:32):
in Fire and Smoke and terror and holiness.
Because that you
also love how gentle you were with Sarah.
Endured not
loving, chasing after,
knowing how broken and worn out she felt.
But thanks for approaching each of us
(23:54):
that are here right now in different ways.
Thanks for being
relentless in your pursuit of us.
Thanks for multitasking.
Through our lives,I pray that you will impact, the people
that are in our lives right nowthrough us.
But I thank you most of all,
because you delight
(24:17):
in turning cynical laughter into joy.
You delight in turning, profligate
sinners into Bible translators.
You delightin turning what we were into what we are.
Thanks for a wonderful Savior.
We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Genesis 18 one through 15.
And the Lord appeared to himby the oaks of memory.
As he sat at the door of his tentin 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,
(00:20):
and bowed himself to the earthand 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 morselof bread, that you may refresh yourselves,
and after that you may passon, since you have come to your servant.
(00:42):
So they said, do as you have said.
And Abraham went quickly into the tentto Sarah, and said, quick,
three sees a fine flour needed,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
(01:03):
that he had prepared,and set it before them.
And he stood by them under the treewhile 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 youabout this time next year.
And Sarah, your wife shall have a son.
And Sarah was listening at the tent doorbehind him.
(01:24):
Now Abraham and Sarah were old,advanced in years.
The way of womenhad 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, isanything too hard for the Lord?
(01:46):
At the appointed time I will return to you
about this timenext 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.
Everybody,welcome to Christ Community chapel.
(02:07):
So glad you're here. Thanks for coming.
If you are here at our Westservice on Sunday,
I am on the screenbecause I am preaching live in East.
And let me tell you why I am preachinglive in East.
We are growing.
I had a pretty fast rate so fast.
We count empty seats, every week
(02:27):
to find out where new people can sit.
And, the most empty seats we have are inour East service and our 830 West service.
So if you are at a very crowded serviceand you want to give up your seat
and go to one of the other services,that would be great.
I love having to ask you to do thatbecause I love
what's going on with ourchurch, so thanks.
(02:51):
All right.
This is our sixth week ofour ten week series in the Old Testament.
We are looking at the life of Abraham, andwe're calling this series Promises Made.
Promises kept.
One of the things I love about preachingis it forces me to sit
with a passage of Scripture for hours and,
(03:11):
just try to look at itfrom different angles, try to figure out
what God is saying, why God is saying it,and what it means to us right now.
You know, last week I preached onGenesis chapter 17 and Genesis
chapter 17 was about Godmaking a promise to Abraham.
He actually made the promisein chapter 12.
(03:32):
It was a promiseto make him into a great nation,
which meant lots of descendants.
Chapter 1724 years later,
Sarah, Abraham's wife,still hasn't gotten pregnant.
And my three points last week was Goddelays.
Abraham laughs and God responds.
Now this week, God shows up again.
(03:53):
But this timeit seems to be for the benefit of Sarah,
who is eavesdropping.
And Sarah also laughs.
But it seems like it's a more cynicallaugh than Abraham's laugh.
At least it does to me.
If you have your Bibles,
you can go ahead and turn to Genesischapter 18 if you want to follow along.
(04:14):
And one of our Bibles is on page 12,where you can just wait
for the verses to come up on the screenthat I'm going to highlight.
And I really just have three observations
about the 15 versesthat we had read to us.
All right.
Here are my observations about God.
Number one, God is a multitasker.
(04:34):
God multitasks. That's number one.
Number two is God usesdifferent approaches for different people.
He uses different approachesfor different people.
And number three,God loves to flip scripts
to completely turn things on their head.
All right, let's get started.
The first is God is a multitasker.
(04:56):
I think that makes sense to us.
We all hope God can domore than one thing at one time.
But when I was looking at this passage,something jumped out at me that I hadn't
seen before.
So God makes a promise to Abraham
that he's going to be a great nationand have multiple descendants.
And he appears to Abraham in chapter 12,and then again in chapter 15,
(05:20):
and yet again in chapter 17.
And he makes it clear to Abrahamthat his promise involves Sarah.
But Sarah can't conceive,
and infertility is hard.
I've talked to couples, coupleswho have struggled with infertility.
And if you are strugglingwith infertility, I just want you to know
(05:44):
I'm sorry.
I knowit's it's really hard in Abraham's time.
It was brutal, especially for the woman,because it was always
considered the woman's fault.
And you can tell how brutalit was for Sarah
because of what she does inGenesis chapter 16.
(06:05):
In Genesis chapter 16,she goes to Abraham and says,
why don't you try to have childrenwith my servant girl Hagar?
And of course, that just explodes.
And you, you can figure out why.
First, Abraham is unfaithful.
And I don't know if Sarah kind of knew how
(06:25):
that would just breaksomething inside of her.
Then she has to watch Hagargo through nine months of pregnancy,
and then when she gives birth,
she gives birth to a baby boy,and Abraham is overjoyed.
And that cuts into Sarah like a knife.
And Sarah finally has to come
to grips with the factthat she must be the one that's broken,
(06:48):
because Abraham has shownthat he can have children,
just not with her.
So she is devastated.
And then these three mysterious menshow up
and Abraham starts barking orders.
He wants them to stay for a mealand he has of a fatted calf killed.
And you can't really tellif that's just Middle Eastern hospitality,
(07:12):
where he realizes who they are.
But eventually he does realize thatit's another visit from God,
and they sit down to talk.
And Sarah is eavesdropping,and this is what she hears them say.
This is verses nine and ten.
And they said to him, to Abraham,where is Sarah, your wife?
And he said, she's in the tent.
(07:34):
The Lord said, I will surely return to youabout this time next year.
And Sarah, your wife will have a son.
And Sarah was listeningat the tent door behind him.
That's the first
time that she has heard the promise
directly from the mouth of God.
But it doesn't renew her hope.
(07:55):
She doesn't, like,come out from behind the tent and say
this, this wonderful news.
I had all but given up. But here you are.
And you've made the promise to me.
That's not what she does.
This is what she how she responds.
This is verse 12.
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,
(08:16):
after I am worn out, am I, Lord is old?
Shall I have pleasure?
Okay.
There are two words that I want to
kind of highlight to you.
The first is the word that's translatedworn out.
That's a very strong word in the Hebrew.
(08:36):
It means after I have become worthless,
after I have no value to anyone.
What she is saying is
I am utterly and completely in irreparably
broken.
Sarah is self-loathing.
(08:59):
That's the first word.
The second word that I want to point outis the word pleasure.
She says, after I am worn out,my Lord is old.
Shall I have pleasure in this?
It's easy to kind of inferfrom the context that she's saying,
well,I have the pleasure of having a baby.
That's not what the word means.
That word pleasure is the wordfor physical intimacy.
(09:23):
What she's saying is that
Abraham and I aren't like thatwith each other.
Not anymore.
What she's saying is that she is alone,and you can understand why.
I mean, you have Abraham's infidelity.
You have what she would feel like,his constant disappointment
(09:44):
in her month after month after month.
You can feel her just saying now I amabsolutely worthless or whatever it is
their marriage
is broken and this is why I saythis is what hit me.
This is why I saidthat God is a multitasker.
Because God is going to fulfillthis promise to Abraham
(10:05):
to make him a great nation.
But in the process of doing it, he'salso going to repair their marriage.
He's going to make Sarah whole again.
He's going to save her from self loathing.
And this is my point,
is that God's promises toyou always have fall out.
(10:27):
You know, I told you last weekthat God's promised to you
if you are a follower of Jesus,
is to make you into something you're not.
That God is slowlybut surely making you into
more like Jesus,
and that will have an impact on everythingand everyone.
(10:47):
One God is multitasking through youto impact your spouse and your kids,
and your parents
and your friends and your classmatesand your neighbors and everyone.
When you know that Godis doing something in you,
but not just for you,
he is multitasking with youinto other people's lives.
(11:10):
That's the first point.
The second point is that
God uses different approachesfor different people.
That shouldn't be a surprise to us.
And if you are a parentwho has more than one child, you know
you need to probably handle your childrendifferently.
Like, I had one childthat was pretty strong willed,
(11:31):
and that meant that I needed to give her
direct and firm discipline.
I had another childthat if you look sideways at her,
she would just collapse because she feltthe weight of my disappointment.
You know, when I played basketballin high school, in
college, my my best coaches,
always knew how to handledifferent players in different ways.
(11:55):
My my best coach.
My favorite coach, would never yell at medirectly.
He would yell at one of my teammatesand hope I heard, hey, I love that.
So in
three weeks ago, I preached onGenesis chapter 15.
If you missed that sermon, then,
(12:16):
you can read the chapterafter this service.
But chapter 15Abraham comes into contact with God.
It is wild and wooly.
It involves like sacrificing animals,
splitting them in half, creating a path,
a flaming torch, a smoking fire pot.
Deep, dreadful darkness.
(12:37):
The holiness of God descending on Abraham,pushing him to the ground.
It is terrifying.
That's Genesis chapter 15
here in Genesis chapter 18.
You have three men show upthat seem pretty ordinary,
and they're sharing a meal,
(12:58):
and they're
there
communicating.
They're talking with Abraham,but they're communicating
with Sarahbecause they know she's eavesdropping.
They're there for Sarah.
They're speaking to her indirectly,like my favorite coach.
Right.
And they're they're so gentle with her.
(13:21):
Like. Like what?
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying,after I'm worn out
and my lord is all shall have pleasure.
The Lord said to Abraham,why did Sarah laugh
and say, shall I indeed bear a childnow that I'm old?
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
I mean,
(13:42):
that is so amazing.
It's like he knows Sarah feels worn out.
He knows she feels worthless.
And when he says there's anything
too hard for the Lord, that word,
that phrase can also be translatedas anything
to wonderful for the Lord.
(14:05):
It's like God comes
and he says to Sarah, Sarah, I see you.
I have always seen you.
And he's saying, it is what I've come.
I've come for you.
I've come to do somethingwonderful for you.
And even after that, when she
(14:27):
denies laughing, she lies about laughing.
And God says to her, oh,but you did laugh.
And you can almost see his smilewhen he says, oh, but she did laugh.
And he's saying, Sarah, I see you
and I still love you.
You couldn't have
two more different approaches
(14:50):
that God would take to Abrahamand then to Sarah.
And my, my point is this, that
you may be sitting next to somebody
who had a completely different experiencein coming to Jesus than you did.
I mean, the the very the coreof what it means to be a Christian.
This is what you have to believe,
(15:11):
but you have to believethat you're a sinner,
that you need a Savior,that that Savior is Jesus,
and he saves you by his gracethrough his death and his resurrection.
Some people might cometo that kind of realization
because sin has demolished them,
and they feel the coming judgment of God,and they are terrified
(15:36):
about the whole thingthat's going to happen.
And they cry out to Jesus.
Then there are there are other people
who aren't terrifiedby the holiness of God,
but they're captured by the by the love,
by the, by the wonder,
(15:57):
by the gentleness
of a Godwho's like a shepherd who leaves the 99
and comes after the one.
So sometimes people tend
to want to take their experienceand put it on everybody else.
And then some people, they
they are jealous of other people'sexperience listening.
(16:19):
If you have experience,if you came to Christ,
if somebody you know came to Christbecause
they're terrified of the holiness of God,don't try to talk him out of it.
Don't try to say, oh, no,you shouldn't think about God like that.
He he's like the shepherd who left the 99and came after the one.
Yeah. He is, he is.
But maybe that's the way
(16:39):
God approached them,because God knows them.
And if somebody feels like God is sowonderful to leave the 99 come after them.
Don't.
You don't have to tell themand just say you don't really understand
the holiness of God.
You should be scared to death.
God uses different approachesfor different people.
(17:02):
That's my second point.
My third point is that God loves to flipscripts to just turn things on their head.
And this is what I mean.
So God makes this promise to Abraham,
and the promise isthat you're going to be a great nation.
You're going to have multiple descendants.
But then
Sarah doesn't get pregnant.
They lose patience.
(17:23):
They shattertheir marriage in multiple ways.
Sarah feels completely worn out,like she is worthless.
And that.
And God comes and visits herand just says, is
anything too wonderful for me?
And Sarah laughs
and God says, why did you laugh?
(17:44):
And then she says, I didn't laugh andGod says, but you did laugh.
Put a pin in that for a second, right?
And then, because God is multitasking,
he not only is going to fulfillhis promise to Abraham,
he's going to heal their marriage.
And he does because they reconcile,because nine months later
(18:07):
they have a baby.
And we pick up the storyin chapter 21 of Genesis.
This is what it says.
The Lord visited Sarah, as he had said,
and the Lord did to Sarah,as he had promised.
And Sarah conceived and bore Abrahama son in his old age,
at the time of whichGod had spoken to him.
Abraham called the name of his son,who was born to him, who Sarah bore him.
(18:32):
Isaac and Abrahamcircumcised his son Isaac
when he was eight daysold, as God had commanded him.
Abraham was 100 years oldwhen his son Isaac was born to him,
and Sarahsaid, God has made laughter for me.
Everyone who hears will laugh over me.
And she said, who would have said toAbraham that Sarah would nurse children?
(18:52):
Yet I have borne my son in his old age,
when she says,
God has made laughter over me,and everyone who hears will laugh with me.
She'sshe's actually making a play on words,
because what God says to Abraham
is, okay, now you you have this son.
(19:13):
I want you to call his name Isaac,
which in Hebrew means laughter.
So what God does to Sarah
is he says, why did you laugh?
Is anything too wonderful for me?
And she says, but I didn't laugh.
And he said, you did laugh.
And then he says, okay,
(19:33):
now I want you to call your son.
Laughter.
So at every time Sarah called Isaac home,it was like laughter.
It's time to come home for dinner.
Laughter. Go clean up your toys.
Hey chuckles, it's time to go to bed.
All right.
Every time God was reminding Sarah
(19:54):
you laughed because you were so cynical.
You thought you were worn out.
You thought I didn't see you,but I saw you.
And I've done something so wonderful.
And I don't want you to ever forget
there is something God loves.
He took cynical laughterand he turned it on its head.
And he said, from now on, wheneveryou call your son, you'll be reminded.
(20:18):
You'll be remindedthat I'm a God who does this.
My older brother Brian,
wrote a book years agocalled splendor in the ordinary,
and my favorite story is in his lastchapter.
It's about,a guy that lived on his freshman dorm,
named Charlie Crone.
(20:39):
This is the way he starts the story.
He says the year was 1974.
Beanbag chairsand lava lamps were the rage.
Dorm rooms were not yet filled with VCRs,CD players, and personal computers.
You can see how old hehow many years he wrote this.
You know, go because he's stilltalking about CD players.
We were collegefreshmen living in a freshman dorm.
(21:00):
Charlie was on my floor.
Charlie was about five foot fourwith sandy blond hair and red rimmed eyes.
He was also the most profligate sinnerI had ever met in person.
I mean, Charlie was a party reptile.
He cussed like a sailor.
My apologies to sailors drankwith a frat house flourish, marijuana
smoke wafted underneath his closed doornearly every night until the wee hours,
(21:22):
and he regularly had his girlfriendin for days at a time.
They weren't studying.
For some reason,I also remember he was an English major.
Now, Charlie also happened to bea nice guy, a good Ole boy.
He laughed a lot, got decentgrades, seemed to have plenty of friends,
but Charlie was aboutas far from being interested in Jesus
as anyone you could imagine.
(21:43):
Then he picks up the story.
13 years later, he says the year is 1987.
Beanbag chairs and lava lamps are the rageonly in resale
shops and garagesales have long since worn out.
The college sweatshirtI bought as a freshman.
While flipping through the monthlyalumni publication, my eyes
fell upon the following entry in the notesfor our class of 1978.
(22:06):
Charlie Krohn, class of 78,
and his wife will begin their first termwith Wycliffe Bible Translators this fall.
They'll be serving in West Africa.
I love that story.
It's like God says to Charlie,
you didn't know whyyou're an English major, but I knew
you're going to be a Bible translator
(22:26):
in West Africa.
Listen, whoever you're praying for,
don't stop praying.
Whatever you're praying for.
Don't stop praying for it.
Because God loves to flip scripts
to turn something completely on his head.
(22:47):
God is a multitasker.
He is multitasking through you
to people you know, peopleyou don't know yet, right?
God uses different approachesfor different people.
That's true too.
But the third thingis probably the best thing.
God loves to flip scripts
(23:10):
because nothing is too wonderful
for him.
Promises made and promises kept.
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven.
I love,
this whole story.
I love the way you, appeared to Abraham
(23:32):
in Fire and Smoke and terror and holiness.
Because that you
also love how gentle you were with Sarah.
Endured not
loving, chasing after,
knowing how broken and worn out she felt.
But thanks for approaching each of us
(23:54):
that are here right now in different ways.
Thanks for being
relentless in your pursuit of us.
Thanks for multitasking.
Through our lives,I pray that you will impact, the people
that are in our lives right nowthrough us.
But I thank you most of all,
because you delight
(24:17):
in turning cynical laughter into joy.
You delight in turning, profligate
sinners into Bible translators.
You delightin turning what we were into what we are.
Thanks for a wonderful Savior.
We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
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