"The God Part" (MP3 Audio)

"The God Part" (Genesis 18:14)

God is responsible for everything. There is not anything that can happen in your life that God did not have a part in. Often, in our many dealings with religious "things" and our participation in religious activities we forget exactly who God is and what God can do.

Now forgetting who God is and what God can do is quite easy if you have never experienced Him. There are many who sit in church each week, sing in the choir, serve on the door as an usher, or who perhaps sit-down front as a Deacon or Deaconess, but who nevertheless still cannot fathom the very hand of God in their lives.

In the verse under our consideration, God was standing right in front of Abraham. He was telling Abraham plainly what He was going to do. God said in Genesis 18:10 in the NLT: "I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife, Sarah, will have a son!"

Now this was no new plan. It had been some quarter of a century in the making. This was the whole plan in getting Abraham down to Canaan. This was the whole purpose in God's dealing with Abraham.

But Sarah, his wife, who was eavesdropping, responded by laughing. This should have been joyous news to a couple who had been waiting so long for God to move. Instead, it was met by Sarah with unbelief.

What she heard was so preposterous, so far from what she thought, so removed from her present reality that she could only smile to herself. It was probably more a chuckle. The kind of laugh where you hear something and say, "Right!"

The Bible puts her response this way in Genesis 18:12 in the NLT: "Sarah laughed silently to herself and said, 'How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?'" Consider the following three points.

1. The natural (selfish, unspiritual, unsaved, lost) man or woman walks by sight. a. Everything in this world is about what we can see. Unspiritual people don't believe in what they can't see. Genesis 1:1 put it simply: "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth." This is a whole other realm or reality that the man or woman who walks by sight does not have access to. b. Ephesians 6:12 reads in part that there are "rulers," "authorities," "powers," and "spirits" in heavenly (or unseen) places. The three men who were talking to Abraham were messengers from the heavenly realm. c. The natural man looks for natural ways, but the people of God respond in faith (2nd Corinthians 5:7).
2. God's plan for your life operates based on faith. a. Before any of us respond to God in any way God already has a plan for us (Ephesians 1:11; Jeremiah 29:11). b. In Genesis 12:2-3, God told Abraham what He was going to do with his life, before Abraham even took the first step to leave his kindred and family. c. "It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). d. God calls things into existence before they have any tangible existence (Romans 4:17).
3. Everything we need is found on the path of obedience. a. As Abraham and Sarah continued to follow God, there was an "appointed time" for Isaac to be born (Genesis 18:14). b. The miracle of Isaac, and everything needed for his birth, was brought to pass by the belief of Abraham (Genesis 15:6; 22:12).

"Christ First, Christ Only, Christ Always"