There are a whole lot of things which yesterday seemed impossible, but which today are not only not impossible, but also are everyday, ordinary.
A hundred years ago, who would have thought it would be possible to send pictures through space? Who would have imagined that somebody standing in front of a camera in New York could be seen by people in Washington? Who would have supposed that instead of waiting for the news to arrive in a newspaper, you could see it happening for yourself? A hundred years ago, they would have said it was impossible. But not to us. It’s television, and it’s everywhere you go. In fact, kids today can’t believe it when I tell them I grew up without television. When I was a child, TV seemed impossible. Now, to kids today, doing without TV seems impossible!
There are a whole lot of things which once seemed impossible, but which today are not only not impossible, but everyday occurrences. Flying in an airplane, 7 or 8 miles up. Taking a submarine, a boat that goes under the water instead of on top. Impossible?! No, we know it can be done. It’s done all the time.
What that means is that we should be really careful about how we announce that certain things are impossible. We don’t know that these things are impossible. We just know that they haven’t happened yet. But that doesn’t mean that they can never happen. We need to be very careful about just declaring that something is impossible. Maybe some of the impossibilities will be possible, later on, at the right time. Maybe some of the things we hope for, like cures for cancer and treatment for AIDS, will really happen. Maybe there will be an end to war, maybe we will have understanding between whites and blacks, maybe someday there will be love instead of prejudice, prosperity instead ofpoverty -- maybe all of these impossibilities will be possible, later on, at the right time. I certainly want to think so. I want to hope so. I want to be very cautious about saying that any of this is impossible.
The Bible says, “nothing will be impossible for God.” What will be impossible for God? Some things? Most things? No, Nothing will be impossible for God.
I
Just about two thousand years ago, in the land of Israel, a man named Zechariah and his wife, named Elizabeth, had just about given up. They figured that it was all over. They had been married for a long time, but they didn’t have any children. They had hoped and prayed for children, but nothing. And now they were getting along in years. They just kind of forgot about it. Having children seemed impossible. So let it go, right?
So Zechariah went about his business every day and more or less forgot about becoming a father. But one day Zechariah was praying in the Temple, where he was a priest, and suddenly, God’s messenger came and said, “Zechariah, go home, and get ready, because your wife is going to have that child you’ve been wanting. It’s going to happen at last, Zechariah, this thing you’ve been waiting for all these years.”
Put yourself in Zechariah’s place. Would you think Zechariah would have been overjoyed? You might have expected him to whoop and holler and start passing out cigars. But, no, you see, Zechariah had waited so long that by now he had given up. He had absolutely given up. And the first thing that pops into his mind is that this is impossible. Hey, Mr. Angel, don’t you know that Elizabeth and I are old now? We’re past all that. My wife having a baby? That’s impossible!
Brother Zechariah found out real fast that God’s messengers don’t like the idea of impossibility! God’s messengers do not take very well to being told that their message is not welcome! So the angel told Zechariah, I am trying to bring you good news here. But if you don’t want it, if you won’t believe it, then let me give you the deal here. The deal is, Zechariah, that you are not going to be able to speak until the baby gets here. Zechariah, if you cannot say thanks to God for what God wants to do for you, then you just won’t be able to say anything!
You know, sometimes God has to shut us up so that we can listen to Him and find out for sure what He is doing! Sometimes God just has to shut us up before we refuse what He wants to do for us, and so He has to take away something we already have so that we can receive something new. And it’s not that God wants to punish us. It’s not that God is trying to be hard on us. It’s that we are so cocksure about what can and cannot happen that we resist the best things that God wants to do for us. You know, I remember that when my daughter was a little girl, she would get so talkative, well, so loud, that she couldn’t and wouldn’t listen to what we were trying to say, so every now and then I would just put my hand over her mouth so that I could stop the flow of words and get in a few of my own. I had to shut her up so that she could listen to me!
Maybe God shuts us up, too, so that we can listen to Him and find out that what we thought was never going to happen is going to happen. Maybe God takes something away from us, not because He wants to punish us, but because He wants to get our attention. The issue is that we, like Zechariah, have given up on God. We think that what we want is impossible. But nothing will be impossible with God. Nothing.
II
Well, as this story proceeds, you find that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth, in the sixth month of her pregnancy, gets a visit from her cousin Mary. Now Mary was much younger than Elizabeth, probably just a teenager, and Mary was still single. Engaged, but not yet married, and totally inexperienced. Just a kid, really. But when Mary comes to see her cousin Elizabeth, Mary has quite a story to tell.
Now look, try to put yourself in Elizabeth’s place. You’re sitting there, six months along, kind of uncomfortable, trying to look halfway dignified, and this little slip of a girl waltzes in and tells you that while it’s nice that you, my cousin, are going to have a baby, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
She says: that God’s messenger visited her too, and she too is going to have a baby. Just like the messenger has visited Zechariah and promised that Elizabeth would have a child, Mary says that she has been visited, and that she is to have a child. But can you top this? Her child is to be called the Son of the Most High. Her child is to be the Savior. Mary’s child is to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Now if you had been Elizabeth, what would you have thought? If you are Elizabeth, what do you think about this? Do you get jealous? Do you pooh-pooh the whole business? Do you put down your young cousin?
No, Elizabeth was glad for Mary. Elizabeth believed Mary and blessed her, congratulated her. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth found joy in Mary’s miraculous situation. And why? Because, you see, once you have found out what God can do, you believe it can happen for other people too. And you spread hope. You spread encouragement. Once you find out for yourself that “nothing will be impossible with God” then you help others see that too.
Brothers, if God has done something for you, tell somebody. If God is doing something for somebody else, be glad for them. Hope is contagious. Joy is catching. And wherever you find somebody who thinks that their life has got to an impossible place, tell them what the Lord has done for you, and you will help both them and yourself. You will encourage them and you will boost yourself as well. Believe it and tell it, “nothing will be impossible for God.”
III
And you know, at the right time, at God’s time, you are going to find out that believing in the God of possible impossibilities will guide you, it will heal you, it will empower you, and it will make you strong. Believing that nothing will be impossible for God, and trusting God to do for you and in you what He really wants to do .. when it all plays out, you will be incredibly strong. You will be able to do what you need to do, not just what others expect of you.
At the end of this story, Elizabeth’s child is born. All the neighbors and friends gathered around and started suggesting names for the boy. Most of them said, “Why, he looks just like his father. Let’s call him Zechariah, Junior.” Hey there, little Zeke!
But Mom said, No. Mom said, we’re going to call him John. John! Why would you do that? Nobody in your family is named John. Look at him. Does he look like John? Well, said Elizabeth, that’s what the messenger told my husband that God wanted. We need to do what God wants. Got to follow the God’s instructions.
Well, they all looked at poor old tongue-tied Zechariah. Remember, he has been silent as a stone for nine long months. So I don’t know what they expected him to do. What was he going to say about this? Zechariah took a tablet and a pen, and on it he wrote, “His name is John.” And do you know what happened the minute he wrote that? His mouth was opened, his tongue freed, he could talk again. He could talk and sing and shout, it was all fixed.
What’s the point? If you keep hope alive, if you believe that nothing will be impossible with God, you’ll get the moral courage to do what God wants you to do, not what the crowd wants you to do, and you’ll get your self-respect back. If you trust God, that God wants to do for you more than you even thought possible, He may have taken something away to get your attention. But I tell you, if you trust Him and let Him do things His way, in His time, if you will do things God’s way and not the way of the streets, not the way of the crowd, not the way folks who know nothing about nothing try to push you ... then God will give you the strength to do it. God will heal your brokenness. And God will give you back your self-respect.
For nothing, nothing, nothing will be impossible for God. Throw away that word impossible. It does not belong in your vocabulary. If God wants to give you a gift, wait for it. Believe in it. Receive it. It will come. It will be yours. He will do something for you. For nothing will be impossible for God.
