Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Laughter of the Impossible: When God Visits (Genesis 21:1–7)

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The Laughter of the Impossible: When God Visits (Genesis 21:1–7) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host and today we are
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walking into a room that no one really puts on their vision
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board, but I think everyone ends up sitting in eventually.
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Oh yeah, it's the room with the worst magazines and the slowest
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clock you've ever seen. We are talking about the waiting
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room, but we aren't just talking about, you know, waiting for a
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table at a restaurant or for some test results, though those
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feelings are definitely part of it.
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We're looking at the theological waiting room that that season
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where you believe God has made a promise.
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You know what his word says, but your reality it's just screaming
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the opposite. It's the gap, the gap between
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the Amen of the prayer and the actual tangible answer.
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And for the couple we're looking at today, that gap wasn't a week
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or a month. No, it was 25 years. 25 years.
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Just let that sink in. We are, of course, talking about
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Abraham and Sarah, and we're going to be focusing in really
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drilling down on Genesis chapter 21 verses one through 7.
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This is the moment, the climax of their entire story up to this
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point, the birth of Isaac. It really is the moment the
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credits would roll if this were a Hollywood movie.
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You know, fade to black, happy music.
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Right, the happy ending. But because this is the Bible,
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and specifically because we're looking at it through the lens
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of Reformed theology, we can't just pop the champagne and say,
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look, a baby. We have a stack of sources here,
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sermons, theological essays, commentaries that all argue this
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passage is about something much, much bigger than a geriatric
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pregnancy. It's about the very nature of
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God's memory. And that's the real question
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hanging over the 1st 20 chapters of Genesis, isn't it?
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And if we're honest over our own lives too.
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The question is, has God forgotten?
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When the calendar pages just keep turning and the silence
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from heaven gets, well, it gets loud.
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Does God still remember what he said he would do?
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So our mission today is to answer that.
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We're going to dig into the text to see how it answers that
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accusation, that fear that God has checked out.
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And the sources we're using, they set up this massive
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conflict right out of the gate. They contrast what they call the
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idol of immediacy. Which I think is the God of the
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21st century. It has to be everything now,
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everything fast. They contrast that idol with the
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appointed time of God. We love the immediate.
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We worship efficiency. But this text is going to force
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us to slow down. It's going to make us look at
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how God operates when His timeline just doesn't make any
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sense to us. Not from our perspective,
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anyway. OK, let's just get right into
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the text. Genesis 21 verse one.
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I'm going to read it and I want you to just, you know, tear it
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apart for us. The Lord visited Sarah as He had
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said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had spoken.
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Right, so that sentence, it seems so simple in English.
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Subject, verb, object. The Lord visited Sarah.
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Done. Pretty straightforward.
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But the sources all point out that in the original Hebrew, the
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syntax itself is doing some very heavy theological lifting.
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The author, Moses, he puts the covenant name of God, Yahweh or
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the Lord in what's called the emphatic position.
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OK, hold on, emphatic position. I hear that term and I
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immediately think of someone like shouting or using all caps.
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What does that actually look like in the sentence structure
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itself? That's a great question.
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In English our word order is pretty fixed right?
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You can't just say Sarah the Lord visited.
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It sounds wrong. Broken.
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But in Hebrew you have more flexibility.
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You can move words around to signal to the reader what
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matters most. And here Moses shoves the name
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Yahweh to the very front of the sentence.
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Before you see Sarah, before you see the verb visited, before you
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see any action at all, you run straight into God.
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So it's like a spotlight. It is a spotlight that leaves
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everything else in the shadows for a split second.
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Think about a movie before you even see the actors over the
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set. Sometimes the screen just goes
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black and the director's name appears in huge letters.
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Ah. OK, I see that.
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That's exactly what's happening here.
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Moses is signaling from word one that the primary actor, the main
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character in this event, is not Sarah.
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It isn't Abraham, and it is most certainly not their biological
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fitness or lack thereof. The subject of the sentence,
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then, is also the subject of history.
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That's it, it's the Lord. And that one little distinction,
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it just changes how we read the whole story.
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Because if the sentence started with Sarah, our first instinct
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might be to look at her. Her health, her diet, her
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mindset. We'd be looking for the human
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cause. But by starting with the Lord,
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the text forces us to look up. It forces us to start with God's
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character, not human circumstances.
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OK, so that brings us to the verb.
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The text says the Lord visited Sarah.
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Now I have to say, the English translation visited just feels a
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bit weak here. It's so weak it's almost
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misleading. It sounds so polite, like oh I
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visited my grandma for tea. It sounds like a social call.
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A quick pop in. Hey, just checking on you,
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seeing how things are going. But the Hebrew word is pakkad,
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and pakkad is well, one source called it volcanic.
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Volcanic in what way? It implies a divine intervention
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that completely alters the fabric of reality.
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It isn't just God looking in on the situation, it's God stepping
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in to change it. Fundamentally, it's an
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inspection with intent to act. So it's not a passive look, it's
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an active intrusion. A powerful one.
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We see the same word pakod used in Exodus 32 when God visits the
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iniquity of the people upon them.
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It's a word of judgment there. So it can be negative.
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Oh. Absolutely.
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But then you see it in the book of Ruth chapter one verse 6.
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It says the Lord had visited his people by giving them food,
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ending a famine. OK, so it's about a decisive
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act. God shows up and the status quo
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is shattered. For good or for I'll.
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Exactly. When God pecans, things change,
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history pivots. So here for Sarah, it's God
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breaking into the timeline of barrenness to make something
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happen that absolutely would not and could not happen otherwise.
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Which is the very definition of monarchistic grace.
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It is, and we need to pause on that word, Monarchistic.
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It sounds like something you'd hear in a dusty old lecture
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hall, but our sources insist it is the absolute heartbeat of
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this passage. That down for the listener who
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you know doesn't have a theology degree.
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It's a compound word. Mono means one.
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Ergon means work, one worker, one worker in the realm of
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salvation. Reformed theology teaches that
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God saves us entirely by himself, without our help.
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We are, as Ephesians says, dead in our sins, and he makes us
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alive. That is monarchism, one worker
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doing all the work. And here in Genesis 21, we're
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seeing a physical picture of that spiritual truth.
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A perfect one. The conception of Isaac was 100%
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the work of God, one worker. So Abraham and Sarah didn't like
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co-author this miracle with God? What?
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Could they have possibly contributed?
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The sources are clear on this. They contributed nothing but the
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problem. They contributed the barrenness.
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They contributed the old age. They contributed the deadness.
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God contributed all of the life. It was entirely independent of
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human merit or capability. Entirely, and the text just
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hammers this point home with a repetition that you almost trip
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over when you read it. First one says God visited Sarah
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as he had said, and then in the very same breath it says the
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Lord did to Sarah as he had spoken.
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It feels redundant, doesn't it? Why say it twice, as he said as
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he spoke? What's the point?
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The. Point is that we are thick
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headed. We are so prone to explain away
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God's work. The source material calls this
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repetition a Thunder clap of fidelity.
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It's like a lawyer in a courtroom closing every possible
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loophole in a contract. So the narrator is worried we
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might misinterpret this. He's terrified that we might
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read this story and think, Oh well, maybe Sarah just had a
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really healthy month. Or maybe the stars aligned, or
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it was a one in a million biological fluke.
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We do that, don't we? We get a blessing, a check in
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the mail we weren't expecting, a medical scan that comes back
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clear, and our first instinct is often to call it luck or
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coincidence. We attribute the specific,
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intentional works of God to the random chaos of the universe.
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But this text functions like a legal document.
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Like courtroom testimony, it is tying the event, the conception,
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directly and exclusively to the promise.
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It's saying do not dare call this luck.
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Do not call a chance. This is the performance of God's
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specific spoken word. Exactly.
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It completely shifts the focus from Abraham's feelings or
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Sarah's biology to God's character.
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And that is a huge shift for most of us.
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But we usually judge God's faithfulness by how we feel,
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right? If I feel good, if things are
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going my way, then God is faithful.
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If I feel anxious, if my prayers aren't answered on my schedule,
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then I start to wonder if God has forgotten me.
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My. Feelings become the measure of
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God's reality. Yes, but the text says God's
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faithfulness is grounded in his own nature, not in our emotional
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state. Numbers 23.19.
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God is not a man that he should lie if he speaks.
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His word is performative. It isn't just a description of
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reality, it contains the power to create that reality.
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That's a great image. His word isn't just a label for
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a thing, it's the motor that makes the thing happen.
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It is the motor. But here's the rub.
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The motor doesn't always start the second we turn the key.
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And this brings us right to Section 2, the theology of
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timing. This is where it gets really
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uncomfortable for modern people. Verse 2 says Sarah conceived and
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bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the time of which God had
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spoken. The sources all highlight this
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phrase, the appointed time. The Hebrew word is mode, right?
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Mode, yes, and that word is so significant.
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Mode means a fixed appointment, a set aside season.
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It's a date that has been circled on a calendar from the
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beginning. Which stands in such stark
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contrast to how we live. I mean, we live in the cult of
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the immediate, the idol of immediacy, as you said.
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Completely. If I ordered a package on
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Amazon, I want it tomorrow, you know I want it this afternoon.
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If I pray for healing, I want it before Sunday service.
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We view any kind of delay as a malfunction.
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That's a perfect way to put it. If the Wi-Fi is slow, we assume
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the router is broken. If God is slow by our
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estimation, we assume he is absent or uncaring.
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But the text directly challenges that assumption.
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It connects us, as the sources point out, to the Westminster
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Confession of Faith Chapter 3, which for our listeners is the
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chapter on God's eternal decree. And it states that God from all
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eternity did freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever
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comes to pass. And whatsoever comes to pass
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includes the timeline. It includes the specific 2nd
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that the sperm met the egg in Sarah's 90 year old womb.
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That was not a random event, it was a divine appointment.
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Now the sources get a little spicy here.
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They bring up a theological viewpoint called Open Theism.
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For the sake of the listener who hasn't been in a late night
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Twitter debate about this recently, can you explain what
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that is and why our sources are so keen to pick a fight with it?
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It's a very relevant fight. I think open theism is a view
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that suggests the future is to some degree and not fully
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settled even for God. It posits that God is
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brilliantly resourceful and is reacting to human choices in
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real time. He's like a master chess player,
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but he doesn't know for certain what move you'll make until you
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actually make it. I can see the appeal of that
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idea if I'm suffering or if I'm waiting 25 years like Sarah was.
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It's almost comforting to think, well, God isn't making me wait
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on purpose. He's just, you know, dealing
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with this circumstances as they come.
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It sort of gets got off the hook for the delay.
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It absolutely does. It tries to save God's
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reputation for being nice by sacrificing his sovereignty.
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It suggests he's just doing his best with a fluid, unpredictable
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situation. But.
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Genesis 21 just looks that idea right in the eye and rejects it.
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Completely. Think about Abraham's life
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during those 25 years. Did he make choices that
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complicated things? Oh my goodness yes.
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He slept with Hagar creating chaos.
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He lied to kings about Sarah being his sister twice.
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He literally laughed in God's face at the promise.
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The man was a mess. He was a total mess.
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Now if God were simply reacting to Abraham's behavior, the
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timeline for Isaac's birth would have been constantly shifting.
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God would have been up in heaven saying, well Abraham really blew
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it this week with that whole abim like thing so I've got to
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push the birthday back another two years.
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The timeline would be dependent on human performance.
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But the text says it happened at the motor at the appointed time.
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The date was set in eternity. It was never adjusted based on
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Abraham's successes or more often, his failures.
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Wow, that is That's both terrifying and incredibly
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comforting at the same time. How so?
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It's terrifying because it means the delay wasn't an accident, it
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was intentional. But it's comforting for the
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exact same reason. It means the waiting wasn't
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meaningless. It means the waiting was on
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purpose. The 25 years in that waiting
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room were not empty time. They were not wasted years of
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divine negligence. They were part of the plan.
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So what was the point? I mean really, why make a 90
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year old woman, 100 year old man wait that long?
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From a human standpoint, it feels cruel.
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It does feel cruel to the flesh, yeah, but the sources argue it
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was absolutely necessary for the soul.
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The delay served several key purposes.
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First, it had to humble human strength.
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Get rid of any self-reliance. Completely Second, it served to
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expose their unbelief, their laughter, their Hagar scheme.
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All of that had to come to the surface.
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And most importantly, it ensured that when the answer finally
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came the glory, all of it went solely to God.
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One of the essays we looked at use this phrase The Corridor of
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Waiting, and I really like that. It implies that the time between
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the promise and the fulfillment isn't a dead end, it's a hallway
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you have to walk down to get ready for the destination.
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That's exactly it. If Isaac had been born in year
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1, when Abraham was 76, he would have spent the rest of his life
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saying, look what I did. I'm still virile.
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He would have taken at least partial credit.
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By year 25, Abraham knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he
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couldn't do anything. The waiting stripped him of his
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self-reliance. It was a divine sandpaper,
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smoothing away his pride. It forced him to trade his
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confidence in his own biology for confidence in God's
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fidelity. And Speaking of biology, we need
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to get clinical for a second here.
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This moves us right into Section 3, which is all about human
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impossibility and this concept of deadness.
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Right, let's look at the numbers in verse 5.
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I said Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to
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him. Now we read the Bible and we can
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just gloss over ages like that. We think, oh, people live longer
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back then, whatever. But the narrator is dropping
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this number on us like a theological bomb.
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It's not just a fun fact for the birth announcement.
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No, it's a profound statement of total, absolute human inability.
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The source material points us directly to the New Testament
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commentary on this event in Romans chapter 4, verse 19.
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Where Paul is analyzing this exact moment.
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Yes, and Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
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says that Abraham considered his own body as good as dead, and he
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also considered the deadness of Sarah's womb.
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Deadness. That is such a brutal final
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word. It's not weakness, it's not
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struggling with fertility. It is the absence of life.
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It's biological finality. It's a closed door, bolted and
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locked. And that's precisely why Sarah
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asks that rhetorical question in verse 7.
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She's holding her baby and she says who would have said to
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Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?
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And the implied answer is nobody.
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Absolutely nobody. No doctor, no midwife, no
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betting man in Canaan would have put a single shekel on this.
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From every human perspective, the odds were zero.
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It was impossible. And this brings us right back to
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that contrast you mentioned earlier between monarchism, the
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one worker, and synergism, which is the idea of working together,
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cooperation. Right.
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We already saw the synergistic plan back in Genesis 16.
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That was the Ishmael plan. That was Abraham and Sarah
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saying OK God promised a son but clearly he needs our help to
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pull this off. We need to Co labor with God.
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Let's use our human ingenuity. Let's use Hagar.
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That was human scheming. That was the energy of the flesh
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trying to produce a spiritual promise.
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And it worked technically. I mean, a child was born.
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A child was born, yes, but it was not the child of the promise
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and it produced jealousy, conflict and pain that tore the
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family apart for generations. Isaac is different.
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Isaac is the anti synergism argument.
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He's the monarchistic miracle. He represents divine power
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acting on dead matter. It's creation ex nihilo out of
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nothing all over again. The sources mention the analogy
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of faith here. That's a fancy way of saying we
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use the rest of the Bible to help us interpret this specific
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passage. So how does this life from death
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theme connect to the bigger picture of salvation?
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It's a direct parallel. The birth of Isaac is life from
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the dead, and that is a perfect picture of what happens when a
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person becomes a Christian. So we are the dead womb.
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We are the dead womb in our natural state.
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We are as spiritually dead as Sarah's womb was physically
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dead. Just as April one couldn't will
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his 100 year old body to be young and fertile again, we
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cannot will ourselves into spiritual life.
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We can't decide to be born again any more than a corpse can
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decide to get up and walk. So salvation is extra nose.
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Yes, that's the Latin phrase the reformers loved.
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Extra nose from outside of us. It comes from God, not from our
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own potential or effort. And that is such a severe
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critique of the modern world, isn't it?
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We idolize biological autonomy. We think we can control life and
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death with our technology, our planning, our biohacking.
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We think we are the masters of our fate.
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Genesis 21 just laughs at that kind of hubris.
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It says life, real life, is a gift.
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It's a gift given to the dead by the God who visits.
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That is deeply humbling, but it also takes the pressure off in a
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weird way. I don't have to manufacture my
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own rescue. You can't.
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But once the rescue happens, once the life is given, there is
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a response required. And this moves us to Section 4,
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the covenant response. And the order here is absolutely
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critical. We have to get the sequence
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right or we lose the entire gospel.
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Verses 1 and 2 are the miracle. Verses 3 and four are the
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obedience that flows from that miracle.
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Grace first, then works. Always, every time, If you flip
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that order, you get legalism. I will obey so that God will
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give me a son. I'll earn the blessing.
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Right. And if you disconnect them, you
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get antinomianism. God gave me a son, so now I can
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do whatever I want. Obedience doesn't matter.
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Grace is a free pass. But Abraham models the third
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way, the biblical way. It's grace.
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First, obedience. And his obedience is so
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immediate and precise. Verse 3 says He called the name
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of his son, whom Sarah bore to him Isaac.
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Now, naming is typically an act of authority, but here it's
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actually an act of submission. God had already told Abraham
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back in chapter 17 to name the boy Isaac Yitzhak.
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Which means he laughs. He laughs.
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And that name is just loaded with history for them.
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Painful history, even. Yeah.
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The laughter of doubt. Exactly.
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But by using that specific name, Abraham is publicly submitting
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to God's definition of reality. He's making a public admission.
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Yes, we laughed in doubt. Yes, this whole situation is
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frankly funny. But God has the last laugh, and
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his laugh is one of joy, not cynicism.
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He's literally turning a past failure, a moment of weakness,
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into a present confession of faith.
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Every single day for the rest of his life.
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Every time he yelled for his kid to come to dinner.
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Isaac. Isaac Music.
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He was preaching A sermon to his entire household.
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Laughter. Laughter is in my house because
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of God. The home itself was speaking
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theology every single day. Then we get to verse 4.
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Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days
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old, as God had commanded him. And this is where we need to
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slow down and really look at what the source material is
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saying, because there's a nuance here that is very easy to miss,
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especially in our theological circles.
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Right, because usually in Reformed circles when we talk
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about Old Testament circumcision, we tend to draw a
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very straight, Direct Line to New Testament infant baptism.
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That's the standard covenantal argument.
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The logic is Isaac was an infant in the covenant family.
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He received the covenant sign. Our children are infants in the
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covenant family, so they should receive the new covenant sign,
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which is baptism. Simple enough.
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It is, but one of the essays we reviewed actually pushes back on
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that simple one to one equation. It argues against just swapping
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out circumcision for baptism to justify the practice without
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adding some important caveats. OK.
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Why? What's the objection?
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The objection centers on a passage in Colossians chapter 2,
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verses 11 and 12. In that passage, the Apostle
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Paul talks about a circumcision made without hands.
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He's referring to regeneration, the spiritual heart surgery, the
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cutting away of the sinful nature by the Holy Spirit.
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So Paul is spiritualizing the concept of circumcision.
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He's showing its ultimate meaning.
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He's showing the fulfilment of the concept, yes, and the source
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argues that the physical sign of circumcision in the Old
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Testament was always pointing forward to this greater
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spiritual reality in the New Testament.
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The danger, then, is thinking that the physical sign creates
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the spiritual reality. Meaning just because an infant
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is baptized doesn't automatically mean they are
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regenerated. Just because a Hebrew boy was
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circumcised didn't guarantee he had a circumcised heart.
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Precisely. The sign testifies to the
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promise. It is a seal of God's covenant
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promises, but it does not magically create saving face in
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the child. The source just wants to make
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sure we don't fall into a kind of ritualistic mechanical trap
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where we think the water, or in Abraham's case, the knife, does
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the actual saving work. So it's a necessary warning
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against an ex opera operato view of the sacraments.
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It is, but, and this is the absolute key for understanding
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Abraham's response here, the command was still binding.
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Abraham didn't sit there and say, well, since this physical
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act is just a sign pointing to a future spiritual reality of
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regeneration, I think I'll skip the painful part for my son.
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He didn't debate the theology of it, he simply obeyed the command
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he was given. Exactly.
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The recipient of grace responds. He brings his life and his
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household under God's prescribed sign and rule.
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So whether you land as a Baptist or Presbyterian on the issue of
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baptism, the underlying principle here is the same God's
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grace makes us obedient, not sloppy or disobedient.
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That's a great point. OK, let's move to Section 5,
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which is honestly my favorite part of this whole text, the
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laughter. We've talked about the name
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Isaac, but the theme of laughter, the Hebrew word sock,
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is just all over this family. Story.
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It's a complete roller coaster of laughter.
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You trace it through Genesis in chapter 17.
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Abraham hears he'll have a son at 99 and he falls on his face
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and he laughs. It was a laugh of, you know,
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shock and probably some disbelief.
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Are you serious? Then in chapter 18, Sarah is
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inside the tent. She overhears the same promise,
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and she laughs to herself. And that was a laughter of pure
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cynicism. It was that bitter, dry chuckle
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you give when someone suggests something that you know is
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impossible. Yeah, right.
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Me have a baby at 90. I've left that laugh before, the
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laugh of despair. We all have but now in chapter
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21 verse 6 Sarah holds Isaac and she says God has made laughter
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for me. The word is the same, Zahac, but
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the frequency, the whole emotional tone has changed
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completely. God has redeemed the laughter.
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He took the very area of their greatest weakness, their doubt,
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their cynicism, their mockery even, And he didn't punish them
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for it. That is the amazing card to me.
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He didn't strike Sarah mute like he did to Zechariah in the New
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Testament for a similar kind of doubt.
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No, he answered the skepticism with a reality so overwhelming
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and joyful that the skepticism was just washed away.
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He didn't rebuke their doubt with a lightning bolt, He
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rebuked it with a baby. He overwhelmed their unbelief
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with his faithfulness. And Sarah's confession is so
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personal. God has made laughter for me.
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She owns it. She acknowledges that God is the
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sole architect of this joy. And she doesn't keep it private.
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That's the next part. Right, she says.
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Everyone who hears will laugh over me or some translation say
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laugh with me. This is this is laughter as
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evangelism. It's public testimony.
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She is inviting the entire community to look at her, a 90
23:58
year old woman nursing an infant, and see it as undeniable
24:01
proof of God's power and faithfulness.
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She's saying, look at this impossible situation and laugh
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with me at the goodness of a God who does impossible things.
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The sources contrast this so well with the laughter of fools
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that's mentioned in Ecclesiastes.
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This isn't the empty crackling of thorns under a pot.
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It's not frivolous. No, this is deep, resonant joy.
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It is the laughter that comes only when the impossible comes
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true. It is the joy of salvation that
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conquers the despair of a fallen age.
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It's the kind of joy that should characterize the church.
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When the world looks at us, they should see a people who possess
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a joy that just doesn't make sense on paper.
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Just like Isaac didn't make sense on.
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Paper No. Of course we can't do a Reformed
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deep dive on an Old Testament passage without connecting it to
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Jesus. So section 6 Christological
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connections. How is Isaac a type of Christ?
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Well, if you stop the story at Isaac, you've missed the entire
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point of the Old Testament. Isaac is a shower, Jesus is the
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substance, and the parallels are stunning.
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Both are children of promise. Not of natural human effort, no.
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Both were born of what you could call a dead or impossible womb.
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Sarah's womb was dead because of old age, and Mary's womb was
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dead to conception because she was a virgin.
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In both cases the birth required a direct supernatural divine
25:20
miracle, and both arrived at the appointed time.
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We saw the made for Isaac, Galatians 4 verse 4 says.
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But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
25:30
Son, another divine appointment. The gospel logic, then, is
25:34
identical. Just as Abraham contributed
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absolutely nothing to Isaac's physical birth, the Sinner
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contributes absolutely nothing to their spiritual birth.
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We bring the sin and the death. God brings the life and the
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grace. But there is a contrast to a
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heartbreaking one really. A.
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Later in Genesis chapter 22, Isaac is carried up Mount Moriah
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by his father to be sacrificed. The ultimate test of Abraham's
25:56
faith. And at the very last second, God
25:59
intervenes. He spares Isaac.
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He provides a ram caught in the thicket to die in his place.
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But for the true son. For the greater Isaac, for Jesus
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on that same mountain range, he was not spared.
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There was no ram in the thicket for Jesus, because he was the
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ram. He was the substitute.
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The source material argues that if God kept his word regarding
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the type regarding Isaac, he will certainly keep his word
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regarding the antitype Christ and his church.
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It's an argument from the lesser to the greater.
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If God can bring biological life out of a geriatric womb, how
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much more can he bring eternal life out of a sealed tomb?
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The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate laughter of God against
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the impossible finality of death.
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OK, this brings us to the So what portion of our discussion,
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Section 7 Law and Gospel application.
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How does this ancient story land on us today?
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You know, as we're sitting in our, our cars are doing the
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dishes. Well, first we have to let it
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function as the mirror of the law.
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The text has to expose our own sins in our own waiting rooms.
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And I think I can name a few of those in my own life.
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Impatience is the obvious one. Impatience, Yes, but let's dig a
27:05
little deeper. The story exposes our tendency
27:08
to manufacture our own solutions.
27:10
That's the Hagar shortcut. Right when God is silent, we get
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busy. We try to manipulate outcomes to
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get what we think we need. We compromise our ethics to get
27:19
the promotion because we don't trust God to provide it in His
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time. We try to force doors open that
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He is clearly locked. We send the text message we know
27:27
we shouldn't send. And what about cynicism?
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That's a big one for me. We dress it up as realism.
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That's so true. We say, oh, I'm just being
27:34
realistic. God probably won't do that.
27:36
But really it's just doubt. Wearing a sophisticated tuxedo.
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We're judging God's fidelity by our own clock, by our own sense
27:43
of what's possible. And the text says that is a
27:46
fundamental error. So that's the law hitting us,
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showing us we're all bad waiters.
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So where's the comfort of the gospel in this?
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The gospel comfort is that God's speciality is visiting the dead.
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He doesn't come to the strong incapable.
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He comes to the barren and the hopeless, and the promise relies
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entirely on the promissor, not on the receiver's stamina.
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That is a massive relief. It is.
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Abraham and Sarah did not hold on perfectly for 25 years.
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They wobbled. They doubted.
28:12
They laughed in cynicism. They schemed, but the good news
28:16
is that God held on to them. So my faith doesn't have to be
28:19
ironclad and perfect for God to be faithful.
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Not at all. His faithfulness holds our
28:23
wavering faith. And this leads to the third use
28:26
of the law, the law as a guide for the believer.
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What do we do while we wait? We don't just sit there
28:31
passively. We practice active waiting.
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Active, waiting. It means doing the next right
28:36
thing in front of you. Abraham obeyed immediately when
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the time finally came. But in the meantime, what do we
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do? We use the means of grace God
28:44
has given us. We pray even when it feels like
28:47
we're talking to the ceiling. We worship with God's people.
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We serve our neighbor. We turn our own personal
28:52
experience of mercy into communal encouragement.
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We share the laughter. We don't let the waiting room
28:57
turn us into bitter old Saints. We let God's eventual
29:00
faithfulness make us into joyful witnesses.
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We have to testify that the waiting room is not a tomb, it's
29:06
a womb. It is the place where God is
29:09
forming something new. That's a beautiful way to put
29:11
it. That feels like a really good
29:13
place to land this. We've gone from Baroness to
29:16
visitation, from skeptical laughter to the laughter of pure
29:20
doxology. And the core truth holding it
29:23
all together is that God's Word is performative.
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What He speaks, He does. It will come to pass.
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So here is our final thought for you, the listener.
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You might be in that waiting room right now.
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The medical report hasn't changed.
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The job hasn't materialized. The prodigal child is still
29:40
gone. The ache in your heart is still
29:42
there. This text challenges you to stop
29:45
looking at the deadness of your situation, the statistics, the
29:48
odds, the number of years that have passed.
29:50
And start looking at the veracity, the truthfulness, the
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unshakable character of the One who made the promise.
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So the question is this, if God can bring life from a dead womb,
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what impossible situation in your life are you wrongly
30:03
assuming is too hard for Him? That's the question to sit with
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this week. Thank you for diving deep with
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us today. This has been reformed thinking.