Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He's promised to keep us forever, that we have eternal security.
Once you were in my Father's hand, He said, no power on earth can take you out. And yet so many of us have such trepidation, I don't know if I'm going to go to heaven, I just don't know what's going to happen to me. You see, God expects us to believe His promises, no matter how difficult they seem to us.
That's what happened with Sarah, because nothing is too difficult for God. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now, as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Often when Velma and I walk out of some retail store, or almost always if it's a restaurant, someone we have never met standing by the door will say, have a great day.
Now I really wonder about their sincerity, but I guess they have been told that that's just good PR. But I've thought about it from a different perspective as well. I'm thinking, well that would be nice, but aren't great days rare? I mean, isn't that why we call them great days? The reason that great days are great days is because great days aren't like normal days. And great days are great. I mean, wedding day, birth of a child, Christmas morning, those are great days. But great days are kind of rare. I kind of call like great days to me are like up days. They're just days that you're so happy about everything. It's like the psalmist writes in Psalm 116.
He says, you make known to me the path of life in your presence. There's fullness of joy. And at your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. And there are great days. There are up days. But there are also down days.
We've all had those, haven't we? Days that are downers. Job wrote in Job 14, man who is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble. Job may have been the all time greatest expert on down days.
The intensity of his down days. Unbelievable. But thankfully, just as the up days are rare, so are the down days. Relatively rare. But the rarest days of all. Are the upper downer days.
OK. The upper downer day is a day that starts out. It's great. And you're really excited about the whole thing. And then something happens and then it turns into a downer day. All of us. Have faced upper downer days. None of us are excluded from upper downer days.
The question is, how do we react? When we have an upper downer day. Because even the friend of God.
Had an upper downer day. Turning your Bibles to Genesis Chapter 18. Genesis Chapter 18. This will be no surprise to you, but the context for Genesis 18 comes from Genesis 17. And in Genesis 17, we find some things out. 18 is only a few weeks after Chapter 17. In Chapter 17, God reiterates again.
Over and over, he has done this. The Abrahamic Covenant. Telling Abraham that all the people of the earth, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you and your seed. But a couple other things happen in Genesis 17. He changed Abraham's name. Abraham an exalted father to Abraham, which meant father of the multitudes. Now, still, Abraham only has one child, and that's Ishmael. But he also changed Sarah's name. In Genesis 17 to Sarah, and he said something in 17 that was extremely important for them to hear. Sarah will bear the child. So now they know that it's not only Abraham's seed or Abraham's seed. They don't have to come up with another Hagar and another deal like Ishmael.
His wife Sarah is going to bear the child. And so they're going for a few weeks and we run into a typical setting in the beginning of 18. Abraham finds himself in the hot of the day, probably around noon at the sort of entrance of his tent. There he can get a little bit of breeze and he can also get shade.
And then all of a sudden, a typical day becomes an upper day. In verse 18, now the Lord appeared to him. The Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. And when he lifted up his eyes and he looked behold, three men were standing opposite him. And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and he bowed himself to the earth. Now, that's not a typical day. All of a sudden, sitting there and I'm guessing from the lifting of his eyes, he's doing what I do often on a good hot day.
If I happen to be caught out there, he's probably bobbing his head and dozing off. And all of a sudden, he lifted up his eyes and there are three men standing there. They didn't walk there.
Not likely, they probably just appeared. We know something about this because Moses tells us that one of them is the Lord. And so we know that there is the Lord and we'll find out as the chapter goes on and two angels. And they're standing right in front of him. You see, sometimes the Lord takes the initiative to commune with his people. Abraham didn't do anything. The Lord just showed up here.
He took the initiative. And Abraham gets his visitors. And what you see now is Abraham offers incredible hospitality and even more.
In verse three, he says, My Lord, if I now have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant. Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a piece of bread. Now, that particular word, by the way, it's translated bread is the word layman.
And lamb can be translated bread or food. And he's going to bring a lot more than a piece of bread. This isn't like I'm going to give you some toast and water and you can go on.
This is going to be a feast. He goes way beyond what hospitality should be. He said, I will bring a piece of bread and you may refresh yourselves and then you may go on since you have visited your servant. And they said, so do as you've said. They accept his hospitality.
Go ahead and do what you said. So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. Now, in this story, by the way, Sarah never leaves the tent.
And that's a custom. If men come to visit, the woman of the house is never seen. And so Sarah stays in the tent.
She doesn't come out of the tent. And it says, Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah and he said, quickly prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it and make bread cakes. Now, OK, that doesn't mean much to us. She's going to make some bread cakes, three measures of fine flour, five gallons. That's a lot of bread cakes. Well, those are big bread cakes.
I don't know which way you want to put it, but that's a lot. And this is lunch. You see, this is in the middle of the day. Go ahead. I want you to do this.
It doesn't stop. Abraham also ran to the herd and he took, he says, a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant and he hurried to prepare it. The most expensive, rarest meat you can have in their world is veal.
And the reason for it is simple. If you're raising a calf, you want to raise it to its full-grown because you want as much meat from it as you can possibly get. But he says, kill the calf. They understand that meat's more tender.
Kill the best calf we have. So now they're getting five gallons of flour made into bread cakes. They're getting the best choice of veal. And then he said in verse 8, and he took curds.
That's more like cheese, almost more like a cottage cheese. He took curds and milk and the calf, which he had prepared, and he placed it before them. And then it says, and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate. He doesn't eat with them. He doesn't eat.
Remember, they're going to recline on the ground, usually on their side on one elbow. He doesn't eat with them. He stands where the servant stands, who's to meet every one of their needs. This is kind of interesting on his part. Abraham shows something here that's uniquely Abraham.
He recognizes immediately who it is. You know, someone has said in verse 3, I read some commentators that said, when he said, my Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, that that just means sir. Yes, it does if it's the word Adoni. But this is the word Adonai.
And Adonai means Lord. In fact, in verse 1, Moses says, and the Lord appeared to him. And you're going to see as this goes on, it's clearly the Lord.
My view is that Abraham knew exactly who he was as soon as he saw him. And notice what he does. He runs to him, bows down and worships and then honors him with the best that he has. You see, sometimes the Lord takes the initiative to commune with his people.
And the question is, how do we respond to that? You see, of all the kind of days you could have, this is an upper day. Just imagine you're in your own lethargic Sunday afternoon situation. You always are in the middle of the afternoon trying to keep your eyes awake, semi watching a game or whatever. And all of a sudden your doorbell rings and it's the Lord. I mean, you'd have to say that's an upper day, I think. Maybe, maybe for you it'd be a downer day. Like, clean the house, get things away, look out.
I shouldn't be wearing this, that type of thing. But the point is, this is a unique experience. He is having a great day and it drives him to praise. It drives him to thanks. It drives him to worship.
It drives him to honor the Lord. That's what should happen when we have an upper day. When you're having an upper day, it should always drive you to praise and thanks. You see, that's what should happen. And I should say, Lord, I want to honor you.
Can I honor you? Thank you for this blessing. You see, the Lord takes the initiative often to commune with his people. Jesus told the disciples, I desire to eat the Passover with you. In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus is speaking.
He says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. And if you would open up, I would come and I would dine with you or commune with you. I don't think the Lord does it that way necessarily with me, but he does it so often with me when all of a sudden I start thinking about things.
And I'll be as honest and candid as I can. Sometimes, and maybe you're a little like this, when I start thinking of spiritual things, I start to pray selfish prayers. And that is, Lord, if you would only align your will with mine perfectly today, and everything would happen the way I'd like it to happen. And I start with that and immediately I feel the conviction. And so then I confess that as sin. And then I start praying for others. And then I start, in a sense, thanking God. And then I start praising God. And then I start realizing, wow, he came and visited me. You see, I wasn't even thinking on these terms, but he came and he visited me. And whenever the Lord visits you, obviously that's an upper day in your life or an upper moment in your life, and it should drive us to praise. It should drive us to worship each and every time that it does. That's a great lesson from this particular text. There's also something else I had in mind when I looked at that text.
The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament, Hebrews 13, 2, says this. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Now he's speaking in the church age to people like us. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Isn't that an interesting thing? Next time you encounter a stranger. Hmm.
There's something else here, too. God only stays where he's welcome. He stays. Abraham walks, hey, you don't want to welcome God. You don't want anything to do with him. He won't stay.
He'll just move on. And so you see this great truth here, this upper day. And it must be the day of all days to him. Then it only gets better, because the second point is that the Lord expects his people to believe his promises because nothing is too difficult for him.
That's what we see here. It says in verse 9, And then they said to him, the group, Where is Sarah your wife? Now you know something supernatural is going on. She just got her name changed the last chapter. How would a stranger know her name anyway, but her name for all these years of her life, and up till now, you know, you're talking about an awful lot of years, near 89 years. She was always been Sarah and now she's Sarah. But notice they asked particularly for her. The question is, where is Sarah your wife? And he said there in the tent. Now, I would have said, How do you know her name? But he knows who they are.
You see, from his point of view, sounds normal. And then he said, And now the Lord takes over. I will surely return to you at this time next year. And behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.
This is the first time. And remember, since they left Earth, the Chaldees. This has gone on and on and on, 25 years going on and on and on and on.
And they keep saying an error is coming, but none ever comes. Now this promise of God has an expiration date on it. By next year, she'll have the child. By the way, who could say that but God? A 99-year-old man and an 89-year-old woman, who could say that?
To a 99-year-old man and an 89-year-old woman and say by next year, you'll have the child. Well, it then says, And Sarah was listening at the tent door. That's what wives do.
I mean, you can't blame her. These are very special people. Now, Moses adds something that's obvious to all of us. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age, and Sarah was past childbearing. Wow, that's an understatement. Sarah can't see menopause in her rearview mirror.
I mean, she is way beyond this. You see, but Moses wants to let us know just how old they were and what's going on. And then look at the response. Sarah laughed to herself.
Why wouldn't you? Sarah laughed to herself. And it was just to herself.
And that's the way it's written. So it wasn't a loud laugh or anything like that. It was maybe something that just was, you wouldn't even hear it unless you're the Lord. And she said to herself, After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? Come on. I've wanted the pleasure of a child, a son since Abraham and I got married.
I've wanted this decade after decade after decade. And then he said he was going to make a promise to us, and then we waited 25 more years. And now it's going to happen?
But as I said, the Lord expects his people to believe his promises. Notice what happens. And then the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh? Wow, I don't know, ask her.
I mean, you know, it feels on the spot. I don't think there's any humor in this with the Lord at all. Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Indeed, shall I indeed bear a child when I am so old? And then he interjects this, not just for them, but for us. Is anything too difficult for the Lord?
You see, from her point of view, that seemed like absurd. And by the way, and that's why he made the promise that absurd. You see, Abraham could have been called out of Ur of the Chaldees when he was 20 years old.
He and Sarah could have had Isaac when he was 25. God isn't going to do that. God is going to do it in a way that there's no mistake that it's God's hand. That's why they're waiting. So consequently, he expects them to believe the promise.
And his reason for it is anything too difficult for the Lord at the appointed time. He said, I will return to you at this time next year. And Sarah shall have a son. Sarah denied it, however, and saying, I did not laugh, for she was afraid. He said, no, you did laugh. That wasn't funny to God. You doubt me.
We'd never do that, would we? Think of the promises to us. Romans 8, 28. As a believer in Jesus Christ, all things work together in your life for good. That comes right from God. I can tell you how many of you told me there's no way this is good. There's just no way. God's wrong about this. Really.
You see, really. He makes promises like that. He not only makes promises like that, but he makes promises no matter how lonely and how separated we feel to never leave us or forsake us. He'll always be there. He won't budge.
Even when me move, he won't. He promises in the Sermon on the Mount to meet our daily needs. He said, I'll meet your needs. Oh, no, he won't. He's not meeting my needs.
This isn't any good either. He also promises us that we will never be tempted beyond what we are able to withstand. You realize that's a promise from God? When you're facing a temptation, you're facing a very familiar pattern of sin in your life. Don't for a moment say, this is too great a temptation for me.
Because it's not. God has promised that he would not tempt you beyond what you were able to withstand. He's promised to keep us forever, that we have eternal security.
Once you were in my Father's hand, he said, no power on earth can take you out. And yet so many of us have such trepidation. I don't know if I'm going to go to heaven. I just don't know what's going to happen to me. You see, God expects us to believe his promises, no matter how difficult they seem to us.
That's what happened with Sarah. Because nothing is too difficult for God. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift.
Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find a message you are looking for, you can listen online. Or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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