Doing The Impossible

Doing The Impossible

Genesis 18: 1-15 (NLT)

Intro:How many of you like magic? I guess ‘m a kid at heart when it comes to magic. I’m not a big fan of America”s Got Talent but it seems that every time I surf through that channel, (that’s what I do, I surf. We have to buy me a new clicker about every two or three years because certain numbers cease to work due to excessive use) but as I surf past the talent show, there is a magician on and I will stop and watch them. These guys can do some amazing things. Especially the mentalists. They can make you think that they can read your mind.

. Thers a show called fool us and it is hosted by the magicians Penn & Teller and these magicians come and perform and try to fool them. The goal is for Penn & Teller to be able to figure out how you did your particular trick. Not many people can fool these professional magicians but some do. When they fool them, you never find out how they did the magic.

. While all of that is entertaining, we all know trhat there is a trick. You see, when you look at something and think that is impossible, it is. You see man cannot do the impossible.

. We are bound by the forces of nature and when you think we do the impossible, there is always a trick.

. Not so with God. God does not have to perform a trick in order to do the impossible. He is not bound by the forces of nature, He created the nature and it answers to Him, not the other way around.

. Our scripture this morning tells us about God doing the impossible. How when we think something is impossible for man, we are right but for God, nothing is impossible.

. We are back in Genesis as we continue this sermonic journey through the book.

. Genesis 18:1-15. We won’t read all fifteen verses but we will fill in where we don’t read the actual scripture.

1The LORD appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day.

2He looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground.

3“My lord,” he said, “if it pleases you, stop here for a while.

4Rest in the shade of this tree while water is brought to wash your feet.

5And since you’ve honored your servant with this visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.” “All right,” they said. “Do as you have said.”

. Abraham went and told Sarah to bake some bread and he went out and chose a young calf and told his servants to kill it and prepare a feast. When all of this was ready, they bought the food out and they all ate with Abraham serving them.

. We pick back up in verse 9

9“Where is Sarah, your wife?” the visitors asked.“She’s inside the tent,” Abraham replied.

10Then one of them said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife, Sarah, will have a son!” Sarah was listening to this conversation from the tent.

11Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children.

12So she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?”

13Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’

14Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

15Sarah was afraid, so she denied it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But the LORD said, “No, you did laugh.”

. What news this should have been for Abraham and Sarah. They had been waiting a long time for this.

. Remember that Abraham was 75 years old and Sarah was 65 when God called them to be the parents of the nation of Israel. The beginning of a nation.

. Remember , God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation.

. He and Sarah got tired of waiting on God, (Abraham was 76 and Sarah was 66) and Abram slept with one of the servant girls and the result was a son named Ishmael. They thought that this would be the heir that God had talked about. It was not

. Abraham was now 99 years old and Sarah was 89 and God told them that Sarah was going to have a son within the next year.