Andrew Meher: I want to invite you now as we turn to our text for this morning. Would you open up a Bible or your Bible app, whatever you use, to Genesis chapter 18? We're going to read verses 1 through 15 in just a few minutes. For those of you who are newer to our church, we are in a summer series going through the book of Genesis. And what we're doing, we're not covering the entire verse by verse through Genesis. What we're doing is we're tracing a theme about a ⁓ Blessing in the book of Genesis. Remember all the way back to the first week we did this at the beginning of June, Genesis chapter 1, where God blessed humanity. And blessing, remember, isn't like, you know, like we said, like I said last week, it's not like social media, like hashtag blessed. Blessing isn't like about my material comfort and that everything is just working out for me. Blessing is something that I do, that God does through. Through me, that isn't just for me, but it's for the world. And so when we are blessed by God, we are working and living in such a way where God is working in and through our lives, usually in ways that don't make sense to the world around us. And so this is this idea of blessing, but we remember that what happens quickly in Genesis is it all becomes a big mess. Sin enters the world, and this goodness of God's blessing gets twisted, it gets marred. I heard someone describe sin this week as a parasite. Sin and evil has no life of its own, it can only twist the Good things that God has created. And so what we're trying to wrestle with is as we're in the mess of life, how committed is God really to blessing us? And what we've been learning through Genesis is: even in the midst of the mess, God will continue to bless. God will continue, as we will eventually see at the end of Genesis, though we intended it for evil, God has turned it into good. And that's where we're headed on this trajectory: that God is so committed to you and I as his creation that he will make things happen and bring things to happen, whether we're ready or not. And God will turn things in our lives that we didn't expect. To be blessings for us and for others. And this morning we're gonna wrestle with the challenge of when God wants to hand us a promise and hand us a blessing, and we're having trouble receiving that reality. So let's read this text together: Genesis chapter 18, verses 1 through 15. It says this The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre, while he was still sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. And when he saw them he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them, and bowed low to the ground. He said, If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed, and then go on your way, now that you have come to your servant. Very well, they answered, do as you say. So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. Quick, he said, get three seyas of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread. Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice tender calf, and gave it to a servant who hurried to prepare it. He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. And while they ate, he stood there near them, under a tree. Where is your wife Sarah? They asked. They're in the tent, he said. Then the Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year. And Sarah, your wife, will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. And Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure? Then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Will I really have a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year. And Sarah will have a son. Sarah was afraid. And so she lied and said, I did not laugh. But he said, Yes, you did laugh. The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Jesus, we ask that your presence would be here among us, that you would speak to us, that your spirit would give us eyes to see what you are leading us to as we hear your word today. We pray, God, that you would open our eyes. To the reality of your life and the blessings that you want to bestow on us. In Jesus' name. Amen. The first Christmas that my oldest daughter was able to really engage with with Christmas and remember it and realize what was happening. It was when she was about to turn three years old. And we brought her out to the tree. And we we showed her all of the presents. And we were so excited for her to open them all. And she looked at all the presents and the bows and the ribbons and the wrappings. By the way, Christmas is less than six months away, I'm just saying. ⁓ Packages, big and small. And then as she looked at all this, she looked back at my wife and I and said, which one's mine? Now, my wife and I are thinking this is kind of cute, but we're also like a little bit shocked. We're like, what are you talking about, child? Like, pretty much all of these are for you. What do you mean, which one's for you? Almost everything under that tree belonged to her because her sister was only about six months old at that time. Yet her imagination did not have the capacity to realize what possibilities Christmas trees held for young children. So too with us, God has a blessing he wants to work out in our lives. God has promises He wants to work out in your life. The sheer enormity of what is underneath God's spiritual Christmas tree for you cannot be fathomed. The Apostle Paul says that God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Peter tells us that God's divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life. He has given us his very great and precious promises so that we may participate. Hear this language, that we may participate in the divine nature. That's not a typo. Not to mention that all throughout the New Testament are described the gifts that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have given to us as the church. Yet we often stand there before God looking at all these gifts and saying, which one's mine? Which one gift, God, do I get from all of this bounty? God has promises and gifts and blessings to deposit in our lives. Things God wants to do in and through you to be a blessing to your church community here, to your neighbors, to the world, but you and I do not have the imagination for much more than one gift from God at a time, I think if we're honest. For example, the scriptures say this about one of the things that we've received from God. It says that in the Apostle Paul tells us that we've received the ministry of reconciliation. Meaning that because that we have been reconciled, our relationship with God the Father has been made right in Jesus Christ. We now have the ability to reconcile with everyone in the world. We are given this as a practice, as a ministry, to reconcile with everyone. Yet we remain so resistant to even try or imagine that this could be possible with certain people in our lives. Certain people, yes, let's reconcile them. I would prefer not to. You all do it. Let's be honest. It's church. We can be honest here. We remain so resistant to this gift that God wants to give us. We don't have an imagination for it. Why are we so ill-equipped to receive these wonderful gifts that God wants to give us? Why are we so limited in our imaginations? Why do we often reject God's good news, good promises, gifts, blessings like Abraham and Sarah did in our texts? There is one overwhelming reason that I think this happens, and it's that we do not have an imagination that can receive what God holds for his children. And here's the one reason why we don't have the imagination to receive what God has for his children. We are too focused on ourselves. Now, I don't mean you don't have real problems, that's not what I'm talking about. But we are so focused on us for the solution for everything. We're too focused on what we can and can't do. We're too focused on trusting in ourselves and we lack trust in what God can and will do. The point, basically, of this text, if I can tell you quite simply, the point here is that nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible with God. Or as the Lord puts it himself here, probably more helpfully, is anything too hard for the Lord? Now that's a question I would prefer to ignore sometimes. I don't know about you. Because if I can ignore God asking me if anything's too hard for him, then I can try to think about all the things God wants to do in my life. Through the lens of how I can accomplish these things on my terms, in my own way, in my own power, in my own strength. But God's question to Abraham and Sarah is: is anything too hard for the Lord? God doesn't ask if anything's too hard for you. We all know that answer. That forces me to name and confess that I often try to do things without God all the time. And in doing so, I have limited my imagination to what I can make happen on my own terms. I have trained myself to think small. That there is only one gift under the tree for me at a time. Because that's all I can manage in my own strength and my own power. So when I hear God prepared to give me something that seems impossible, I laugh like Sarah. We tend to think of things like money and comfort, right, as the hallmark of God's promises and blessing, as we've been saying, but but that's obviously not what I'm referring to here. I'm talking about really hard to receive gifts. The ability to forgive and reconcile with someone, as we've already discussed. I'm talking about hard to receive gifts like the gift of patience to love a coworker who's just too much for us. And we typically try and ignore them. You're not that coworker, by the way, it's always someone else. I'm also talking about sharing life on a regular basis with those who are your brothers and sisters in Christ, but with whom you and I might not have anything in common with. No affinity whatsoever. We don't really want to spend time with them, it doesn't make sense. What if, though, God gave you the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation for that broken relationship? What if God has been promising to give you patience and love to bear with that coworker? What if God is standing before you saying that He has a deep and rich life available to you to share with others with whom you have nothing else in common but Christ? See, what if God is asking you all of these things, saying, Is anything too hard for the Lord? My pride says I don't want to entrust these things to the Lord, because each of those things demands that I de-center myself as the most important person in that scenario. And it demands that I lay my trust in the outcome of God. And to be honest, I don't really want to do that. How many of you are with me? Two of you are telling the truth. Praise God. It's hard for us to do, right? It's hard. My my ⁓ my life kind of scenario in my head, what I was raised with, and and probably what many of you are raised with, or maybe all of us, is is is things like if you want something done right, you need to You need to pull yourself up by your own. You know. We've been taught this kind of rugged individualism that causes us to believe that we are the center of our world and anything worth doing in life is going to be done by us and no one else. Even God is the part we leave out, but we mean wholeheartedly by our actions. But the question the Lord asks in this text, and I think it's the question that the Spirit is asking the church this morning, is anything too hard for the Lord? Not you. The Lord's like, I know it's too hard for you. Is anything too hard for the Lord? You see, we need a new imagination that is not focused on what is doable for us. But is fixed on the Lord and whether something is too hard for Him. Now that requires some training. We can train our imaginations to receive blessings that God wants to bring into our lives, I believe, when we watch for God, and when we make space for God, and when we receive joy from God. Now, when we watch for God, we're like Abraham sitting at the entrance of his tent. And the breeze would blow across the tent opening. And so one could get a small amount of relief from the intense heat of the midday. But Abraham was not just passively there, sitting there. Hoping for the heat to go away. Remember, he's been given promises over the last few chapters from God. He's probably chewing on those promises. God, what are you doing? When is this going to happen? When are you going to use me as a blessing to bless the nations of the world? He's not passively sitting there. He's paying attention to what's around him and he's watching. And in fact, when the the three travelers appear on the nearby road, Abraham doesn't even realize that it was the Lord walking by. He just sees three travelers, and he's got this posture of watching for God. And notice what a posture of watching for God does. Because often when you and I are watching for God, ⁓ we're watching for God to work and we're looking very intently because we expect something spectacular to happen. How many of you, when you're praying, you're like, I'm gonna be watching for God. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna fast in this season. I am ready. God, I'm like strapped in. You're gonna do something amazing. But the thing is, is God is kind of sneaky with how He usually responds when we're watching for Him. Especially when God is trying to train us to see with a new imagination. God is often not obvious in how God comes to us. God here appears as a traveler. God just shows up, three men on a journey traveling. It's not obvious it's God, and Abraham from the text clearly doesn't know that it's God. God's sneaky like this elsewhere in Scripture, too. He appears as a burning bush, and Moses decides to turn aside to see what's going on. God shows up to Elijah as a still small voice, kind of sneaky. Of course, God comes as a baby in Jesus. It's the most sneaky way to show up at all. You're expecting God to do something huge, and there's an infant there. Not really the solution for world saving we were looking for, God. God arrives into the world around us in unusual ways all the time, in sneaky ways. When we are watching for God, we must trust that God is also going to meet us. In fact, God is more interested in meeting you than you are ever with Him. Did you know that? You could be in the season of the most intense and pure and faithful waiting and wanting God to show up, and God still wants to meet with you more than you want to meet with Him. This means that when you and I begin to watch for God and we take time and space in our lives to do this, we will probably discover rather quickly that we are interrupted and inconvenienced almost immediately by someone or something in our lives or the life of someone else. Perhaps as we begin to watch for God, an annoying coworker will ask for help. Perhaps as we begin to watch for God, an issue arises in a relationship that needs to be sorted out. Perhaps as we begin a season of watching for God, someone comes to us needing food or housing or health care. What we typically do in these situations, if we're honest, is we s view these as roadblocks to encountering God, and we try and say, not now, I'm trying to meet with God. We need to move these aside, we think, because we're like, you know, get out of the way. But please, because I'm a Christian, so I'll say please. Get out of the way. But obviously, what watching for God is meant to do is begin to open our eyes to how God is already at work in seemingly mundane moments around us, like three travelers walking down the road. Like your children needing something for the umpteenth time. Like a relationship that's kind of broken down, and suddenly you're like, where did this come from? Like someone who is poor and in need who asks for help and you're not sure what you can provide. When we watch for God, how will we respond when these things come up? Abraham and Sarah respond well to this moment. And it leads them not only to watch for God, but then they make space for God. They make space for God. The second movement follows closely from this. They're watching for something to happen, usually not what they expect, but when something happens, the next thing that Abraham and Sarah do, and the next thing that we need to do, is make space. In Abraham and Sarah's case, making space look like preparing a meal and being hospitable. This was a very normal practice in their culture and still is in that part of the world today. When I once visited a Palestinian village on a trip, we were warmly greeted with tea and an incredible meal. In fact, ⁓ they even got from a ⁓ neighbor knives and forks to make us Westerners feel more comfortable. They didn't need to do any of that. Like I when I tell you the level of hospitality in their own private home that we received was off the charts. I can't think of a single person, including myself, by the way, who would be that hospitable to that degree in our own town or in our own culture. It's off the charts. This was just a ⁓ normal way they would have been hospitable. Abraham, too, would have normally done something. He would have seen travelers and maybe offered them water like he did. And maybe a little bit of food would have been the normal expected thing for travelers. But he goes above and beyond. There's a fattened calf that is killed for meat, and fresh bread is made, and yogurt is served. That's essentially what that is. And this was basically a feast. This wasn't just a little bit of an extra of whatever they had lying around. They intentionally made space for God. They still didn't know this was God, by the way. Now, when you are suddenly inconvenienced or God shows up in unexpected ways, how do you respond? What do you say? Do you have a lavish act of making space for whatever's in front of you? Or do you try and dismiss them as quickly as possible and do as little as possible so you can get back to watching for God? Do you do you say to God, hey, can we do this next week? My schedule slows down a little then. God, this is a real inconvenience. Let me let me see, God, do you have anything else you're doing in my life that we could do instead of this? Watching for God is the start, but then making space for God requires a whole different set of commitments from us. You'll be required, like Abraham and Sarah, to put your resources on the line. Your time, your money, your skills, your energy, your brain power. And it might be an inconvenient time, like the heat of the middle of the day. This wasn't the normal time for travelers to stop and rest. It may or may not happen at a convenient time for you, like this midday time. But Even though they still don't know this is the Lord, they make space as they're watching, because God they trust is at work. This is what leads the author of the book of Hebrews to say that as Christians we are to be hospitable to strangers, because it says some have entertained angels, entertained angels without knowing it. This is part of why Jesus says, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. The inconvenience and impromptu visitations might just be God coming to meet you like you've asked for. And the sneaky part is, will you trust God even when it's not clear? Will you trust God when your children are asking for your attention? When that relationship requires care and repair, when someone is financial in financial need? Will you allow yourself to be inconvenienced for the sake of someone else? These open up our imagination when we do that. And they help us then. We are finally in a posture of being able to, through that, receive joy from God. See, when we're trying to do things on our own, in our own power, when we're not watching for God, we're not making space for God, and everything's on our terms and under our own strength and in our own control, and we're focused inwardly on ourselves, and we're not doing these things, we lack the ability to receive joy from God. Because we're closed in on ourselves, we're not open to what God is doing. The Lord tells Abraham that Sarah is going to be pregnant by this time next year. And what does Sarah do when she overhears this? She laughs to herself. This guy's on something. How does he even know who I am? This is utterly ridiculous. In fact, Sarah probably had a right to feel insulted by this. Who does this person think they are? How dare you! Do you know what I've been through? Now, mind you, this laugh that Sarah emits is not a life of joy. It's not flowing from God's joy. This is a self-protective kind of laughter. Most of the time, laughter is obviously good, and there's many ⁓ medical, biological, psychological benefits of it. But there are times, how many of you know, when our laughter is not coming from a place of joy, but a place of cynicism and despair. Sometimes laughter is mocking. I it's this thing we find something funny or odd. It's cynical. It can be despairing. Now I come from a very sarcastic family, and sometimes we would say the most eviscerating things to each other, done in this like slightly funny way, so you get both get to say something nasty to the person, and everyone, including that person, laughs all at the same time. Sometimes the sarcasm can be fun, and sometimes I know I'm just out to cut them, man. It's coming from a place of pain. It's actually called paradoxical laughter. That's what the Dictionary of Psychology calls it. It's a kind of emotional response that's not actually in keeping with the situation that's in front of us. It's incompatible with expressed thoughts or wishes. Often this kind of laughter comes out when we're really nervous, or sometimes that fight or flight thing, and we're like, ha ha ha. That's kicking in in our brains. What's actually going on is we are terrified when we laugh like this. We're laughing because there's a nervousness, a fear, there's anger, there's sadness, there's cries of terror that we aren't sure how to let out, and instead we laugh. But it isn't coming from a place of God's joy, it's coming from a place of deep pain. This is the kind of pain that has been cried out for over and over many times, and it's felt like it's gone without an answer. It's the kind of nervous laughter that comes out when we hear of something being too good to be true, and we'd better not get my hopes up. Better not get too comfortable with the idea of that actually working out or being real. No way, I'm not getting hurt again. That's the kind of laughter that Sarah lets out in this moment. This is not a laughter of joy, as I said. It is rooted in her disappointment of not being able to have children. In being focused on herself in this moment, Sarah, who has, by the way, a very real biological reality that she's facing, right? But she is still so internally focused on herself and her pain in the midst of God saying something different that she has no way to receive it. There's a longing that's within her that's stuck and she's fixated on it because it can't get out. And what God says to her is both laughable and ridiculous and painful and angers her all at the same time. I think we all have longings in our lives that are actually connected to deep pain like that. We might not even be able to name them many times. We have broken relationships that never were repaired with friends, with relatives, with neighbors, with co-workers. We want to see changes in different situations in our lives. There's often good desires that we have, but our imaginations get shaped by what we think is possible to do ourselves. And this often leaves us disappointed because we do not have another way of seeing the world and we don't know how this will ever be fixed. When these longings go unanswered for so long, they become this deep pain that almost makes us numb and we don't even realize the pain is there anymore. We forget about it until God whispers a new possibility to us. And when God whispers that new possibility to us, that pain, it doesn't excite us. God suddenly said something, the first reaction we would hope would happen would be, God, ⁓ God said it, this is gonna be good now. No, we're met with pain because God's promises, God's whispers about a new possibility, they first actually make us hurt more because it awakens what's been numb for so long. Does that make sense to you? God brings a promise to us that hits at the desires and the longings we've had because we don't know, and we don't know how to receive joy from God because we've been trying to make this joy happen in our own lives, and it's just been impossible to receive. So God's promises, God's blessings, are kind of all at once exhilarating and infuriating to us. They're exhilarating because we suddenly see this amazing possibility that God's laid out for us. They're infuriating because we've been trained to imagine those possibilities as only available through my human effort. They're exhilarating because they invite us to be part of the work that God is doing in the world. But they're infuriating. Because we have fantasized about our significance in the world on our own terms. And we have been frustrated and disappointed as a result. We do not often have the imagination to see possibilities through God's abilities. Therefore it begins to feel cruel when we hear God's promises and then we end up laughing like Sarah because we're overwhelmed with our limited imaginations. The Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians puts this predicament this way. He says to us, Do not quench the Spirit, and do not treat prophecies with contempt. Do not quench the Spirit, and do not treat prophecies with contempt. Meaning, when we think we hear God speak and tell us things, Or put dreams, promises, and blessings into our heart that are to help us serve the people around us, we're commanded not to quench those words with our cynical laughter. We have to care for and steward and test those promises to see. Are these things from God? Is God really saying this? This hurts too much. God, are you really saying this? And if so, how do I receive the joy that God wants to bring into my life? through participating in his ways of living. Another way to ask this question to ourselves is this, are there God dreams that you've laughed at because they sound insane? Are there things in your heart that are like, that's too painful? If someone says I'm good at this thing, that actually hurts me because I've been so disappointed at that. What if God actually wants to bring blessing to other people through that gifting in your life? That pain isn't always something to run away from. Sometimes that pain is a sign that there's something God wants to speak in and do through you in that place. I actually, just this week, I was so convicted by this text and how God was speaking to me through it. I I had to, on a whiteboard in my office, I had to write dreams on that whiteboard that I felt like God has been putting in my heart. And I had to go write those things. And I don't know for sure, I'm still testing God. Is this from you? But I was scared of some of these. Because I'm like, ⁓ I wanna get hurt again. You know what I'm saying? If we can do this again, God, where I like, maybe God's doing something and then just falls apart. God, that hurts too much, but I I did it. I want you to know, church, I did it because I have been laughing far too much about things I think God has been saying to me personally. Has God been saying things to you and have you been laughing at it? Have you been laughing at what God's been saying to you because you're age and you're already disqualifying yourself? young or old or somewhere in between, we very, very easily disqualify ourselves. I don't have that talent or that gifting or that know how, so obviously this isn't about me. God, there's no one around me who's doing that, so I don't even know where to start with that. God, no one in my family has been a Christian before. So just learning how to pray is like the biggest ⁓ thing that I don't believe is possible for me. I've never seen anyone do this. What are the dreams that God has put in your life that you've been laughing at? You see, when we laugh at God's promises, we're quenching the work that the Spirit is trying to do to make these things happen. Because they're not just for your life, they're for the church community as a whole. If I laugh at the dreams that God has for me, I'm not only robbing my own life, but I'm robbing all of you. I'm robbing my neighbors, I'm robbing the world of what God has wanted to do through me. When you laugh at the dreams that God has put in your life, you are not just robbing yourself. You are robbing this church community. You are robbing your neighbors, and you are robbing the world of what God wants to bless the world through you with. And it's a false joy. I'm just gonna laugh at you, God, because that's ridiculous. But what we need to do, if we're gonna receive joy with God, we have to begin to trust that God actually can do something here. And we need to take him seriously. And so, in order to receive joy in and through these blessings, we have to learn to receive God's correction. Now, what do I mean by that? Notice how abruptly this story ends. Have you noticed that? Sarah lies to God and says, No, I didn't laugh. So not only does she not believe God's promises, she's now lied to God. This is a huge mess. But how many of you know we've been following how God still brings a blessing through the mess, right? This is a huge problem. It's a huge mess. Not only has Sarah shut down what God wants to do, she's now lied about it. But friends, I want you to hear the tenderness of the Lord's rebuke and correction in the final words of our scripture today. No, you did laugh. By calling out Sarah, the Lord was not trying to embarrass her. By calling out Sarah, the Lord was trying to help her name the pain that she was not willing to face. God was giving her the courage to bring out into the open how difficult it has been for her to bear up this promise that was impossible for her to carry on her own. So too, with you and I, the Lord is offering a tender word of rebuke and correction to us this morning. Somebody say amen. Are there people and things in your life that you have pushed away out of fear and pain and brokenness because you are unwilling to let God lead in your life? Do you laugh at God every time the Lord tries to go to those places and give you a word of promise? God's just trying to tenderly name the pain and lead you into victory. So will you today receive the correction of the Lord when He names that pain? And when He says to you, No, you actually did laugh. And you laughed because you think I can't do anything with that. And you think I can't do anything with that because it's been so painful for you. If we are willing to let the Lord name those places, if we open up to the voice of the Spirit and share with the church community what God is doing in our lives, we can receive healing and freedom in those places. And instead of a cynical laugh, we can receive the joyful laughter of God at work in those very places that we thought were lost. You know, the very next passage of scripture that we hear about Sarah and her story is when her son Isaac is born. A couple of chapters later. And you know, Isaac means laughter. And Sarah actually declares when she names him Isaac, she says, God has brought me laughter. It's not her own cynical laughter anymore. God has brought me laughter, she says, and everyone will laugh with me. Church, will you laugh with Sarah this morning? Not her cynical laugh. But will you laugh because you have received the joy of God doing a work in through your life? Will you laugh with Sarah because you're no longer focused on what you can or can't do, but you have given yourself over to what the Lord can do? Will you laugh like a child at Christmas who receives freely all the gifts and promises that your Father in heaven has for you? When we do this, we will be fueled by a new imagination that knows that when the Lord says he will do something, he will do it. Would you stand with me as we pray?