Between Laughter and the Power of Faith
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:1-3
Intro: What would it take to shake your faith.
We are living in a time of confusion and chaos.
We need to remain strong and faithful and trust in God to develop our faith.
You may have been a Christian a long time or a short period of time.
What would it take to shake your faith in God?
Well, for some of you it may take a great deal…, before your faith could be shaken.
But for others, maybe it wouldn't take quite so much.
In fact, a whole lot of difficulty,
a whole lot of heartache,
and maybe you'd begin to say, "Well, God, where are You"?
And what you thought was an absolutely unshakable faith you may begin to question.
Well, there are a lot of things in this world that are being shaken up
and God is behind some of that shaking
and some of it He's not behind.
Some of it is of the devil, the deceiver, the false prophet, the author of confusion.
When it comes to shaking your faith
and attempting to shake your faith,
that certainly would not be of God.
But there are other things that are going on around us
that certainly are the result of God shaking up a sense of false security,
shaking us at the very core of our life,
at the core of our nation,
the core of this world.
Far too many Christians are settling for the ordinary, and the worldly
when you were redeemed for the extraordinary and divine.
We're settling for less than what God wants us to be.
And at the heart of this settling…, is the lack of faith.
Today, I want to talk to you about “The Power of Faith.”
Hebrews 11:1-3 begins
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Faith is described using three words: confidence, hope and assurance.
You all know how much I love Christmas.
Remember with me…, when you were very young and Christmas day drew closer.
You were excited and anxious.
You were confident you were going to receive gifts
And there would also be treats
But you also hoped there would also be a special surprise.
And as a child you had this assurance
that you were going to receive gifts and joyful things at Christmas.
So Christmas combines anticipation and assurance.
Just like faith does!
Based you past experience
You know what God has already done.
And you know he can do it again.
And there is often an added bonus or special blessing
that comes when you have faith and trust in God.
A few verses farther in Hebrews 11
We are introduced to a lady named Sarah,
Sarah is the wife of Abraham.
Hebrews chapter 11, verse 11, verses 11 and 12.
"By faith, even Sarah herself received the ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life".
"She considered him faithful who had promised;
therefore, there was born even of one man,
and him as good as dead,
at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number
and innumerable as the sand, which is by the seashore".
God had made a promise that he repeated five times in the book of Genesis,
from chapters 12 through chapters 21,
that Abraham and Sarah were going to have a baby
that would lead to the birth of a nation.
That's what God said.
That was the word that came from God.
That was the promise.
But the promise had a problem.
The problem was…, number one, Sarah was barren.
So she couldn't get pregnant.
But the promise was, "You are gonna have a baby".
But the problem was the ability to have a baby she didn't have.
So, the promise didn't match the problem,
and the problem didn't match the promise.
Not only are we told she was barren,
she didn't have the capacity to conceive, we're told that she was old…, 90 years old.
So, she even if she had the power to conceive, had long passed the timing of being able to conceive.
There is a promise…, but there are problems that contradict the promise.
I can't conceive. I'm too old.
So, I have to question the promise. (Her faith is being shaken)
Don't ever let the facts cancel out the faith.
Verse 11 says, by faith, she got the ability to conceive.
So, even though the facts are not in your favor, the facts, in fact, look contradictory to the faith.
The problem looks bigger than the promise.
That's the reality.
While not denying the facts, don't let the fact cancel the faith.
She is caught in a situation of a major promise.
God said, "I'm going to build a whole nation from this one couple".
So, she decides God has obviously made a mistake.
So, in Genesis chapter 16, in order to help God out, chapter 16 said,
"Now Sarai, Abraham's wife, had born him no children,
and she had an Egyptian maid, whose name was Hagar.
So, Sarai said to Abram, 'Now, behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.
Please go with my maid.
Perhaps I will obtain children through her.'
And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarai"...
Stay with me on that. I'm coming back to that.
"And Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan.
Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid,
gave her to her husband, Abram, as his wife.
And Hagar, conceived.
And when she saw that she had conceived, Sarai despised Hagar.
The temptation,
when you've been trusting God for something, and God hasn't come through,
is to try and take matters in your own hands.
Because if I can accomplish this by myself…, then I don’t need God.
The flesh is a human approach/to solve a problem/in a different way/other than the way God wants it done.
Sarah was trying to do it without trusting God.
She says, "Perhaps God's promise is gonna come through me giving you to our maid".
So, she goes to the flesh to accomplish a work of the Spirit.
So, Abraham and Hagar have a baby and name the baby Ishmael,
Later we know that Abraham and Sarah do have a son, and they name their son Isaac.
and these two brothers and their descendants have been fighting ever since,
because Ishmael is the father of the Arabs.
Of course, Isaac is the father of the Jews.
And everything you see in the Afghanistan
And everything you see in the Middle East today is because Sarah circumvented God.
She did what the Bible says don't do, and that's be double-minded.
Double-minded is a term from the Book of James 1:7-8 and again in 4:8
It is the opposite of being faithful.
It is being double hearted or having divided loyalties.
Jesus taught us it is impossible to serve two masters
You can’t maintain friendship with the world and friendship with God.
Let me put it in terms a child can understand.
You can’t dance the hokey pokey
and live with one foot in and one foot out and be faithful to God.
That is double mindedness, that is an unstable situation
You have to surrender all the Jesus.
So, God had made a promise.
This principle of flesh and Spirit, based on Hagar, is brought up in the New Testament,
in the book of Galatians chapter 4:21
Paul the apostle writes in verse 21, "Tell me, you who are under the law, do you not listen to the law?
For it is written that Abraham had two sons,
one by the bondwoman, Hagar,
and one by the free woman, Sarah.
But the son of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh,
human approach,
and the son of the free woman through the promise".
He goes on to say, verse 27, "For it is written, 'Rejoice barren woman who birth no children
Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor.
For more numerous are the children of the desolate and barren
And you, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
But what does the Scripture say? 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son,
for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir to the son of the free woman.'
So, then, brethren, you are not the children of the bondwomen but of the free woman".
So, he takes Abraham, and he talks to the Galatian Christians,
you and me, We are the Galatian Christians…
and he says, don't be a bondwoman's baby.
Don't operate according to the flesh,
because the flesh and the Spirit can never operate together.
One of those kids and their mama had to leave.
Hagar was put out,
and he uses that to talk about law and grace,
and he uses that to talk about how we ought to live our Christian life according to the Spirit,
God's point of view,
God's promise, not according to the bondservant, the flesh approach.
So, if you and I want to experience the promises of God,
the decision you have to make in order to experience that power
is to not go to the flesh to help out the Spirit,
even when it looks like there's no way the Spirit approach can ever work.
Because guess what? The problem is too big.
So, Sarah comes up with this brilliant idea to help God out,
and all she did was create a bigger mess.
Can anybody testify to that?
You begin leaning to your own understanding.
You try to do this thing your way,
thinking you were gonna help answer God's prayer for God,
even though you were doing it in a way unprescribed by God,
and now, "Oh, my God, what did I do"? Okay?
That was Sarah's situation.
And now there's chaos in the house,
chaos with the kids,
chaos with the woman, chaos.
So, that's our situation.
But in Genesis 17, God comes back to Sarah and Abraham and says,
He said, "I told you what we are gonna do".
Verse 15, "Then God said to Abraham," Genesis 15:17, "
'As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her.
Then I will bless her, and you shall be a mother of nations.
Kings of people will come from her.'
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed in his heart".
So, "that's good news for folk who messed up yesterday,
and you're still hearing God's Word today".
But the problem is, even though they messed up,
they had not grown up in faith.
'Cause when God repeats his word,
Abraham says, "You've gotta be kidding me".
He laughs.
It's a joke.
This is funny.
She can't have a baby.
She's old.
And he laughs in God's face.
"Will a child," verse 17, "be born to a man 100 years old?
And will Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child?
Oh, that Ishmael," Abram say, and he tries to bring it back to Ishmael as being the one that is the answer to God’s promise, he says, "might live before you". It's about Ishmael.
But no. It is not about Ismael.
Gods says, "I just told you that this is going to happen through Sarah,
and you keep going back to the flesh.
You started with the flesh,
and now you're staying with the flesh.
And the reason why you started with the flesh
and you're staying with the flesh
is that the problem looks too big to be resolved".
You say, "I'm 100 years old now.
My wife is 90 years old.
She's barren.
She can't have a baby.
What are you talking... God, this is a joke".
Okay, but he's not the only one laughing.
Chapter 18, verse 9, "Then they said to him, 'Where is Sarah, your wife?'
And he said, 'She's in the tent.'
He said, 'I will surely return to you this time next year.
And behold, Sarah, your wife, will have a son.
And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him.
Now, Abraham and Sarah were old".
We keep being told how old these people are.
"Sarah and Abraham were old, advanced in years, and Sarah was past childbearing".
So, they want to get this point over.
The girl is old!
"When she hears this," verse 12, "Sarah laughed to herself, saying,
'After I have become old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?'"
She said, "It ain't just about me.
There are two folk with problems in this house".
So, God tells her, "You're gonna have a baby". And she breaks out laughing.
This is the funniest thing she's ever heard in her life.
She's laughing in the face of a promise.
And the reason she's laughing is the problem looks too big.
And so here we are.
But when we started our sermon today, we started the sermon in verse 11 of the book of Hebrews,
which says, "By faith Sarah gained the ability to conceive".
Didn't we read that? THIS IS WHERE I HAVE BEEN BRING YOU TO THIS MORNING
But I don't think we've seen any faith, yet.
We've seen the flesh. Okay?
We've seen her laughing at God,
We’ve seen her not believing his Word,
'cause his Word sounds too ridiculous to come true.
But in Hebrews 11, she gets pregnant by faith.
That means something has happened between the time she's laughing
and from the time Hagar has given birth to Ishmael,
and the time Isaac is born in chapter 21.
Something has happened in these chapters to spark faith in Sarah that she did not have.
Now watch this.
The gap between God's Word and his promises,
and its fulfillment in your life, is always tied to your development in faith.
So, here we are.
The question is what happened between chapters 16, 17, and 18,
from Hagar to Ishmael,
to him laughing, to her laughing,
to all of a sudden, she getting faith to conceive?
Something happened.
The first event is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sodom and Gomorrah were five valley cities in Palstine.
Lot was a nephew of Abraham
And Lot had moved to the area of Sodom and Gomorrah
These cities were known for their wickedness
The bible clearly talks about the unnatural lust of the men of Sodom
It is where we get the word Sodom or in the context of two men having sex
And God judged Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sinfulness. (Genesis 18-19:24)
God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven,
and Abraham and Sarah got to see heaven open up,
and they got to see the power of God destroy two cities at one time.
They looked up and went, "Whoa"!
While saving his nephew Lot and his family,
they saw the power of God manifested from heaven.
That's the first thing that happened.
But then there's a second thing that happened, and it's even deeper.
Abraham is a fairly weak man.
He goes to Abimelech, and he tells Abimelech Sarah is his sister, 'cause he's scared.
He figured they're gonna hurt him, 'cause even at 90 years old, Sarah was a very beautiful woman.
And he's so terrified of Abimelech that he says, "She's my sister".
So, Abimelech, thinking that Sarah is single, takes Sarah into his harem.
And he's gonna make her one of his wifes or his concubine,
because he thinks Sarah is single, because Abraham has said, "She's my sister, not my wife".
While he's sleeping, Abimelech has a dream.
Genesis chapter 20:3, "God came to Abimelech in a dream that night
and said, 'Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman which you have taken, for she is married.'" You're a dead man.
To make a long story short, Abimelech said, "I didn't know!
He didn't tell me that.
He told me she was his sister.
You can't blame me".
Angels messenger says "I know, but I want to let you know how serious this is".
So, don't put your hands on her. Okay? Okay,
"Don't touch her". And he says,
"I will deliver you, if you keep my word and don't mess with Abraham's wife,
who I know he told you is his sister".
But now, what's all this got to do with Sarah getting pregnant?
Verses 17 and 18 of chapter 20.
"Abraham prayed to God,
and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maids, so that they bore children".
Now, what's Sarah's problem?
She can't have children.
"For the Lord had closed fast all the wombs of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife".
Okay, watch this now.
See, one of the things you have to learn to make is spiritual connections.
You have to see how one thing connects with another.
When Abimelech took Sarah,
God closed all the wombs of Abimelech's house
and all the wombs of Abimelech's kingdom.
Nobody getting' pregnant until Sarah is out of here.
When Sarah is out of there, everybody getting' pregnant.
Why is God including this story?
To let Sarah know, "I control who gets pregnant and who doesn't get pregnant.
I control that". So, he let Abraham and Sarah see his power in Sodom and Gomorrah,
Abraham and Sarah see in the opening and closing of wombs in Abimelech's kingdom,
to increase their faith.
And the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised,
'cause his promises are good.
So, Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age,
at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.
Abraham called the name of his son, who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
Guess what Isaac means?
Isaac means, "He laughs".
Sarah couldn't have children, and it says Abraham couldn't have children,
because he had even gotten too old.
Both of them laughed at the face of God,
so both of them needed to see God's power,
so that both of them could come together and have a baby.
I know some of you have been waiting for God for a long time.
You've been trusting God for a while.
God is still developing your faith.
The problem was bigger than the promise.
But the reason God gives us her age is to let us know or let you and I know
that when God finally comes through in giving his promise,
he gave her time to enjoy it.
He made her wait 90 years,
but he kept sister Sarah alive for 37 more years.
So, even though the wait was long, she had 37 years with her baby boy.
So, once you get this faith thing right,
and once you act in faith,
and once God comes through,
if it's a promise for you,
he'll give you enough time to maximize your enjoyment and participation in it,
but he won't do it as long as you keep going through the flesh.
There is power embedded in faith.
When you and I learn to live and act and walk and talk and move by faith,
we can see God go beyond the ordinary and introduce us to the extraordinary.
We can see the natural transform into the supernatural,
because faith brings power alongside of it, divine power,
God's power, that is not limited to what your five senses are aware of.
Don't cut short the power of God operating in your life, because you refuse to live by faith.
