In the movie “It Could Happen to You” which is said to be loosely based on a true story, Nicolas Cage plays a cop who stops in to a diner and doesn’t have enough money to give a tip to the waitress, so he makes an unbelievable promise. He says that he has a lottery ticket and if he wins, her tip will be half of what ever the prize is. The waitress laughs it off, and who could blame her, but to the amazement of everybody the cop wins the lottery and he comes to that same diner, and fulfills his promise and he gave the waitress a 2 million dollar tip. The funny part of the movie is watching Nicolas Cage explain to his wife that he had to give the waitress 2 million dollars because…he had promised her. Now the producers of that film claim that it is based off of a true story, but we may find that hard to believe, primarily because if the absurdity of the promise, but even more so that such an absurd promise was kept.
We’ve become accustomed to being skeptical of big promises. I got an e-mail awhile back that said that Bill Gates was giving money to people who sent this e-mail to at least 10 other people, that it was being tracked by Microsoft and there was a picture of a person holding a check that was signed by Bill Gates. I was skeptical but I thought why not, and needless to say, I still haven’t received a check from Bill Gates.
Now whenever a person makes a promise, whether it be a preacher, a politician, or a spouse, two things that you must consider about that person is their ability to keep the promise (some people make big promises with good intentions but they lack the resources to carry them out), and that person’s trustworthiness. Is this person just blowing smoke trying to get you to do something. Now when it comes to the many promises that God makes to us in His word, we must look at God’s ability to keep those promises and His faithfulness to uphold His promises. In the scriptures, we read about a loving heavenly Father who has made to you many precious promises. Promises that tell us that our needs our taken care of, that our sins our forgiven, that we will never be overwhelmed beyond our ability to bear, and he has promised the gift of everlasting life. Now God has both the power and the integrity to fulfill each and every promise He has made. He has proven His power and His faithfulness time and time again, and like a loving Father, God cares for each and every one of us and He has promised that whatever happens He will always be there for us.
Now although we may know this and truly believe this, at times we may find it difficult to believe all that God has promised. On occasion, whether because of circumstances or because of our inability to see the promise being fulfilled, we may doubt God on occasion. Sometimes God’s promises may go against everything we see and feel, and on the surface they may appear to outlandish to believe.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of Sarah. I picture Sarah in a nightgown like my Grandma wore shuffling across the floor in her dearform slippers with the aid of a walker to take her teeth out by the sink, and then to hear that when as she is celebrating her 90th birthday she will be giving birth to a bouncing baby boy. Is it any wonder why Sarah laughed when she heard this?
Now maybe you’ve laughed at God’s promises to you. When God says that all things will work for the good of those who love Him and called according to His purpose, you laugh and say, “Hah, how can any good come from this!” Maybe it’s the promise that God has made to meet all your needs and you are looking at a stack of bills higher than the Eiffel tower wondering how you will pay the electric bill next month. What I want us to do today is to look at the promise God made to Sarah, why she laughed at it, and how God responded to her laughter and then conclude with some assurances we have when it comes to the promises of God.
So let’s start off by looking at why Sarah laughed at God. The first and foremost reason I can think of is that the promise was just that absurd! Now I’m not into age discrimination, 90 year old women can do a lot of things, but I would dare say that child birth is not one of them. Imagine trying to get your health care provider to pay for that one. I picture Sarah telling her friends in the nursing home, I can’t make it to Bingo Wednesday, I got Lamaze class. 90 year old women don’t give birth. Everything we know about the human reproductive system tells us that this just doesn’t happen, but we know that at least on one occasion it did. Max Lucado said that if Sarah were to give her testimony it may sound like this, “I did things my way, I get a headache. I let God take over, I get a son. You try to figure that out. All I know is I am the first lady in town to pay her pediatrician with a Social Security check.”
Now as absurd as it may sound for a 90 year old woman to give birth, the bible is filled with many absurd things. In his book “Reimagining Spiritual Formation”, Doug Pragitt wrote, “I’m not sure what people are referring to when they talk about The strange beliefs of alternative cultures, but it’s got to be really out there if it’s going to out –strange a faith that professes a Savior of the world who was born of a virgin, walked on water, healed people with His spit, died a death that had meaning enough to defeat sin and death in all the universe, rose from the dead, and promised a physical return and a remade heaven and earth. We are the people of peculiar beliefs and practices!”
We do believe some pretty amazing things. That’s why one author called the Christian faith the Kingdom of the Absurd, and you know what…it is. Yet by faith we may not understand it, but we can believe it and bask in its wonderful absurdity.
It was an absurd promise made to Sarah, but what made it even more laughable is that this was the one dream she has always had. The name Sarai means “Barren One”, and how awful it must have been for her to live in a time when a woman’s worth was determined by how many sons she could give her husband. And to make it worse, she knew how much Abraham wanted a son, and all of God’s promises to Abraham were dependent upon her having a child, a task she had been unable to do in 90 years.
Some times the more you want something, the more you dream about it, the more unlikely you are to think it will ever come true. Maybe you have a dream, something that you want to do for God’s kingdom. Maybe it’s your dream to see a person you love brought to Christ, but now you think…it will never happen, they are to far gone. Maybe it’s your dream to sing to a crowd the glories of God and see them moved to worship, but you feel like your to shy and so you sit in the pew quietly.
I am convinced that if you have a dream, something you want to do for His kingdom, I believe that dream is from God and if God has put that there then no matter how absurd or unlikely it may sound, it is your duty to live out that dream. Take the first step to see it happen. Dreams don’t come true while your sitting in a pew, they come true when you step out on faith and begin to live them out.
Now Sarah might have thought it was possible to give somebody a child, but the problem was that she didn’t think He could do it for her. She was to old. She was past the age of child birthing. You know, often times its not that we doubt that God can do something, its that we doubt that God can do it for us or through us. You believe that God can forgive, but do you believe God can forgive you. You believe that God can meet the needs of people, but do you believe He can meet your needs? You believe that God pours His spirit out on His people and that they then do amazing things, but do you believe it can happen to you?
One of my favorite verses comes from Eph 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,” Think about that, more then you could even ask, more then you could dream…but here is the kicker, listen to the remainder of that verse, “ according to his power that is at work within us.” God can do more then you think by the power that He is working within you! Phil 4:13 (TLB) says, “for I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power.” Don’t you just love that!
Now another reason for Sarah to laugh at God’s promise for a child was the long delay in the fulfillment of the promise. It had been 24 years since Abraham first heard the promise from God that he was going to be a father.
Max Lucado describes what it must have been like when Sarah first heard the news from Abraham that they were going to have a baby 24 years earlier.
“She gets excited. She visits the maternity shop and buys a few dresses. She plans her shower and remodels her tent … but no son. She eats a few birthday cakes and blows out a lot of candles … still no son. She goes through a decade of wall calendars … still no son. Finally the wallpaper in the nursery is faded and the baby furniture is several seasons out of date … and the topic of the promised child only brings sighs and tears and long looks into a silent sky.”
You know, long delays in a promise often leads to a weakened faith. You think will it ever happen? Has God forgotten? This past week I made a promise to my girls. I didn’t mean it, it just kinda happened. We were at the hotel in Jackson, and I had just gotten back to the hotel and they were so excited about going swimming and I said that they could go swimming but after I had said it my wife quickly reminded me that it was almost 8:30 and they had already had their baths. In addition, it was about to thunderstorm outside. So the girls, who had already began to get their bathing suits on listened sorrowfully when I told them they couldn’t go swimming. They began to get that quivering lip and I quickly said out of the blue, “When we get back home Daddy will get you a pool!” “the big blue one!” “Sure”. It didn’t hit me until later that I realized what I had said, and much to my chagrin, the girls didn’t forget my promise.
When we got back home Friday afternoon, you’ll never guess what was the first thing they asked for. Saturday afternoon they asked for it and I told them that it was going to rain and so we would have to wait, and they said, “We’re never going to get a pool!” (My kids have faith in me!)
Now that was after a few days, some of you have heard a promise from God and it has been not days but years. You’ve prayed but those prayers appear to go unanswered. And that is when faith is truly tested. It’s one thing to hear no, it’s another not to hear anything at all. Yet by faith, we know that God works on His timetable, and if He has promised it then it will come to pass, but it will do so when He deems it is time.
Now how did God deal with Sarah’s laughter? First, know that God knew she was laughing. The big mistake that Sarah made was not that she doubted but that she tried to hide it. One of the biggest mistakes you can do is to hide your doubts and fears and pretend they are not there. When we are honest with God, that is when He is the most able to work in us. Notice how God didn’t scold her for her laughter, He didn’t say that the deal was off. Know He let her know the He knew and asked why did she laugh.
Now doubt is a lack of faith, you are not more spiritual because you question everything about God. In fact, God wants us to have that childlike trust in Him. But if you do doubt, at least be honest about it and investigate your doubt.
There is a story about how a Jewish man who doubted the bible and the whole Christian faith, became a Christian in the most odd way. He went to a seminar to listen to one of his favorite motivational speakers Zig Ziglar. He met Ziglar afterwards and then told his friends, "I think Zig Ziglar is gay.” They said, “no he’s not, he’s married and has several kids.” He said, “Well, he invited me up to his room.” They said, “What do you mean?” He handed them a piece of paper and said, “See, he wrote down his room number and gave it to me.” The paper said RM 1:16. His friends said, “That’s not room 116, that Romans 1:16, it’s a scripture verse. When the man looked it up, it said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” That verse motivated the man to do something he had never done before. He read the bible through not once, but twice and he came to see that the gospel is from the Jews and for the Jews, and for all people. And he gave his life to Christ and is now at work preaching to his Jewish brothers. If you have doubts, God is not going to scold you, but He does expect you to investigate them.
Finally, I want to give you a few things you can be assured of when dealing with the promises of God. First, know that God is faithful and able to fulfill every promise He has made. 2 Cor 1:20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.” Romans 4:18-21 tells this about Abraham. It says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19 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. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” God has the power to do what He has said He will do!
Second, Know that God is not limited by your limitations. You may be 90 years old, but God can still use you for His glory. David was to young, but God used him to kill a giant. Moses couldn’t speak well, but God used him to lead millions of people out of bondage. Paul was public enemy #1 of the church, but God used him to bring the Good news to the Gentiles. God can do anything, even if that anything is through you.
And finally, Know that nothing is impossible with God. You may be in an impossible situation right now with no apparent hope of it getting better. But God can do the impossible. This past week I attended my Father-in-law’s church, and I got to meet a wonderful young woman. She was very pretty and was I guess in her early thirties. I was told that just a few months ago, this woman was addicted to drugs and in prison. Her family had just about given up hope on her thinking she was to far gone, even for God to save. But one day, she walked through the church doors, clean and sober, and she gave her life to Christ. On the day I met her, she was planning her wedding with her fiancé who by the way was the one who had turned her into the police.
It may sound absurd that a 90 year old woman gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, but even more absurd is a God who gave us His only begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish, but will ever lasting life.” Let us pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the many precious promises we have in Christ. We thank you that these promises are not limited by our ability but rather, they are assured by your power and your faithfulness, and Lord there is no greater promise then the promise that you love us and care for us, that you search for us and that if we come near to You, You will come near to us. For those who are here today, those who are struggling with an issue in their life, let them hear Your promise to them. And if there is anyone here today who has never trusted in You, I ask that that person will receive You into their heart right now, by simply confessing their sin and asking You in. We thank You for our new life in Christ, and for the hope of every promise we have in Christ. In Jesus name, Amen.
