IT TAKES FAITH (part six)
Hebrews 11:11-12
As we continue through Hebrews 11 we come to the story of Abraham and Sarah having a child in their old age. It took faith to believe the unbelievable but we'll see that it wasn't easy. Today we'll see that although Abraham had great faith he didn't have perfect faith. That's important for us because we can look at the heroes of faith and think their faith is beyond our capabilities. But seeing that their faith wasn't perfect helps us to see them as human; just like us. So therefore we can better relate to them and maybe more importantly understand that we don't need to have perfect faith in order to have great faith.
1) I believe but I need a little help.
Hebrews 11:11-12, "By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore."
Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born. God had promised Abraham that Sarah would bear him a son and he made a covenant with Abraham telling him to look up into the sky and if he could count the stars then he would be able to count his descendants. Abraham believed what God told him. However, although Abraham believed he still needed some convincing now and then.
Gen. 15:1-8, "After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
It's interesting that Abraham believed God regarding the promise of a son and descendents beyond what he could count but then wanted a sign when it came to possessing the land. Abraham believed God but then asked for assurance. And if you read the following verses you'll see that God provided a sign. God did not rebuke Abraham for asking for a sign. So I don't think Abraham's request was because he doubted, he just needed a little help being completely convinced; probably because it just seemed so unbelievable.
Abraham believed but he probably had a hard time trying to take it all in so he asked for a convincing sign. Sometimes we believe but we don't fully understand. Sometimes we believe but things seem way out there and we ask God to give us something to confirm what he has said. Abraham didn't need the sign to believe, he asked for the sign to help solidify what God had said.
That's the difference between Abraham and the religious leaders of Jesus' day when he rebuked them for asking for a sign. The religious leaders weren't believers who were asking for a sign of confirmation, they were skeptics putting Jesus to the test. There had already been plenty of signs. Jesus had been healing the sick, raising the dead, multiplying fishes and loaves to feed thousands, etc. They already had the proof they needed to believe but they didn't; that's why Jesus said, 'a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign'.
What we have with Abraham is different. Abraham didn't have the issues the Pharisees had. The religious leaders were challenging Jesus to prove himself when he had already done so. God had already proved himself to Abraham for he already believed so the asking for a sign stemmed from a different motive than needing proof that God was who he said he was.
There are people today who ask for signs in order to believe but they choose not to be convinced by the signs they've already seen. They are skeptics; demanding proof when the proof is already there.
That's different than the one who already believes but is asking for confirmation on something specific. Like Abraham, we can have strong faith but there may still be times where we need some confirmation regarding certain things; and that's okay.
2) Leaning on our own understanding.
Gen. 16:1-4a, "Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived."
What we have here is Abraham and Sarah making a decision based on their own understanding without seeking God. There had been a considerable amount of time since the proclamation had been given; almost 10 years. And when you're already up there in age that's a lot of precious time gone. I get it; if God gave me a promise and 10 years had gone by and no fulfillment had come I'd be wondering why God was taking so long and therefore be getting a little antsy at this point.
When Sarah proposed this to Abraham he may have thought, "Well, God said, 'a son coming from your own body' he didn't say anything about Sarah so maybe this is what he meant. I mean, it makes sense since Hagar is much younger where Sarah is long-past the child-bearing stage."
I wonder if the absence of Sarah's name in Gen. 15 was meant to be a test? I would think that God's declaration to Abraham would've implied Sarah but, in any event, Abraham and Sarah decided to lean on their own understanding and have Hagar be the surrogate mother for her child.
Sarah may have had a problem with trust or patience; or both. So, since she wasn't pregnant yet and time kept ticking away she decided to do the next best thing-have a child through a surrogate mom-Hagar. Abraham agreed to it and that's when the fallout began.
Gen. 16:4b-6, "When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.” “Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her."
I can understand why Sarah was mad. She is discouraged because she's still barren. And I'm sure she struggled with the idea of handing her servant over to her husband. What wife wouldn't? What wife wants her husband to sleep with another woman; especially for the purpose of fathering a child-the child you haven't been able to give him?
And then the pregnancy happened. That made Sarah feel worse. Perhaps up until this time Sarah was wondering who had the problem-was she sterile or was it Abraham. Now she knew. And maybe now Abraham was excited and began to dote on Hagar and Sarah would be left feeling pushed out. With the realization that Hagar was despising Sarah it is understandable why all that led to her blowing up at Abraham.
And although Abraham's reaction looks like he doesn't care, in reality it was normal in these times for husbands to be hands-off when it came to their wives' servants. So, with the green light from Abraham, Sarah reacts by mistreating Hagar so Hagar responds with taking off.
I have to say at first I was having a problem with miss Sarah for making Abraham responsible for her suffering. She was the one who came to Abraham with the idea and now that it backfired on her she blames Abraham! Not that Sarah doesn't bear some responsibility but the truth is Abraham bears the brunt of the responsibility here. He should've refused her request until he sought a confirmation from God that this was his will.
Just like Adam and Eve. Eve took the first bite but it says Adam was there with her and then he ate too. Instead of Adam slapping the fruit from her hand and saying, "What's the matter with you!", he lets it happen and joins in. Likewise, Sarah may have been the one with the idea but it was up to Abraham to say, 'we're not doing anything until I hear from the Lord'.
Abraham believed God would do what he said but he didn't inquire of God as to how to go about it. We can be like that. We can believe the word of God but then come up with our own plan to carry it out. Or we can see God doing something through a character in the bible and conclude that it automatically pertains to my situation.
That happened last week when I preached about Abraham's faith in being willing to go although he wasn't told where. There was someone who had been contemplating making a bold move and saw it as confirmation to go ahead with it. Knowing the situation I had already been expressing my concerns. But sometimes when we want something bad enough it doesn't take too much to convince us.
We need to consider Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."
We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart but oftentimes all we're trusting is our heart. We follow our heart; we go with our feelings. But Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is deceitful. Therefore, the heart cannot be fully trusted.
That's why we shouldn't lean on our own understanding of things we need to seek the Lord and I believe that also means we should seek other people's understanding. Oftentimes other people will give us insights and perspectives we weren't considering because we were looking at things through rose-colored glasses and not objectively.
Many times we lean on our own understanding because we're impatient. We think God is slow to action regarding our circumstances so we go ahead and act before it is time to act and then it backfires. I think that's what's going on with Abraham and Sarah. God gave the promise but it had been 10 years and no son. So, perhaps due to impatience, Sarah gives up hope that it will happen through her and moves forward with the next best thing. We can believe God but that belief needs to be coupled with patience. It takes faith to be patient and wait on God.
So, Abraham had a son through the servant girl, Hagar. But this was not the son of promise that God had spoken of. Although his son Ishmael would help fulfill the announcement of Abraham having descendents that outnumbered the stars in the sky, the true covenantal son was to come through Sarah.
3) What's with all the laughter?
Gen. 17:15-19, "God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”
"He laughed". In the Hebrew this can mean both in a mocking sense and in a delighted sense. Commentators conclude that Abraham's laughter was one of delight. For one, we have Abraham falling facedown when he heard God's promise and that wasn't because he was laughing so hard it was because of his reverence and humility.
But the main support that Abraham's laughter was not in disbelief comes from scriptures like Romans 4:19-22, "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness."
So this would support that Abraham's laughter was not due to unbelief but joy and amazement. And it is strange that in Gen. 15 when Abraham was told he would become the father of countless descendents, Abraham believed God and was credited with righteousness but here, when the promise is reiterated (with the insertion of Sarah's name), there is laughing.
But, to entertain the possibility of there being some doubt in Abraham's mind it could be due to the fact that so many years had passed (hence Abraham citing their ages) since the original declaration nearly 25 years ago. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that the laughter could've been a combination of joy and confusion.
Then the Lord made an appearance to both Abraham and Sarah to pronounce the coming miraculous birth. Gen. 18:9-15, “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said. Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.
So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.” Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
Both Abraham and Sarah laughed upon hearing the announcement. However, as it seems most likely that Abraham's was due to delight, Sarah's was due to skepticism. With the Lord saying "is anything too hard for the Lord" and Sarah lying about laughing it would imply that Sarah's laughter was of the negative kind. And when she was confronted she thought that since it was to herself she could get away with claiming it wasn't true.
But I believe Sarah no doubt walked away with an understanding that she wasn't in the company of a stranger but with the Lord himself; for how did he know her name and how did he know of her laughter? I would think it was at this point she reconsidered her lack of faith and took to heart the proclamation. As the KJV translation of Heb. 11:11 states, "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised."
Sarah became convinced that nothing was too hard for the Lord. There's a lesson in there for us as well. When we see the promises of God is there a part of us that snickers and says, 'yeah, right'? Do we read the stories and laugh to ourselves and think, "there's no way the flood actually happened"?
If we are dealing with any amount of doubt when it comes to what God is capable of doing we need to face that and hopefully get to the place where we conclude that nothing is too hard for the Lord; that he can do exceedingly abundantly more than all I could ask or imagine; that I can do all things through him who strengthens me. It takes faith to act upon the promises of God.
When the promise came to pass, the laughter this time was from joy, not doubt . Gen. 21:1-7, "Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him.
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
The Lord was gracious to Sarah, even though she had a bout with doubt. The bible says that Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. It doesn't mean he excuses them for he rebuked his disciples for their lack of faith but he was gracious to them at the same time. We need to strive for the unwavering faith of Abraham but take solace in the fact that God is gracious in our moments of weakness.
It took faith to believe that they would have the ability to have children well past child-bearing years. For Sarah to have a baby at 90 is nothing short of miraculous. Then you have the factor of patience. There was a 15 year span between the announcement God gave to Abraham in chapter 17 that Sarah would have a child to when it actually happened. And a total of 25 years from God's original promise to Abraham that he would have descendents more numerous than the stars in the sky.
Abraham stayed committed to God because he believed in the promise; even though it was far off. We don't have any indication they knew the promise wasn't going to be fulfilled until many years later so that's years of wondering, waiting, struggling; even though God did reiterate the promise a few times over the years.
But Abraham's faith caused him to overcome and persevere. We need to understand the people in Hebrews 11 had great faith but that doesn't mean they had perfect faith. All the scriptures pertaining to Abraham's faith are absolutely true but that doesn't mean he had perfect faith. It takes faith to believe the unbelievable but we may still have moments of uncertainty along the way.
