Sarah's Life Lessons

I spoke at a church last Sunday called, The Journey. We had a great time. I decided to post the sermon again. You can check out their church at ijourneyonline.com The audio from the sermon will eventually post on their site. Check it out. Here is the written sermon. Leave me your thoughts.


Sarah’s Life Lessons
7/6/08
The Journey
As I thought and prayed about it I believe there are some life lessons that we can parallel from Sarah’s life
As I began to study this out a bit more, I found that a lot of my life has consisted with similar attitudes that Sarah faced.
Gen 23:1-3,19-20, 24:67
Obj
Sarah’s Life Lessons
She had learned enough in life that her family missed her when she was gone
Its good to be missed isn’t it?
How many love to wait? Everywhere we go we have to wait-blockbuster, restaurants, stoplights, the grocery store, and even the express checkout cause there is always that person that has more than 12 items! Most of our life is spent waiting for something. Our lives our spent not on the mountain tops, but in the journey through the valley of the shadow of death, or climbing higher. The top of a mountain is very small, not room to camp, but lots of room at the base of the hill.
Sarah died @ 127 and her son Isaac doesn’t marry till he is 40. 3 years after his mothers death Isaac is still missing her and her husband Abraham is 137 years old when his wife dies and about 3 years later Abraham remarried and had six more children!
When God performs a miracle it doesn’t die out!
And Abraham lives to the ripe old age of 175
The story starts in Gen 15:4. God tells Abraham that he will have a son who will be his heir… He is about 85 years old. His wife Sarah believed God but did not know how it was going to happen, then the drama starts. Have you ever been in a place where you believe God, but you just don’t know how it is all going to happen?
The problem here is Sarah is barren-how will she give her husband any child?
How many of us have ever taken matters into our own hand?
She tells her husband to sleep with her servant Hagar-Abraham is almost 86 years old here, no spring chicken
Like an obedient husband he concedes! I’m sure it didn’t take him long to think that one through. After Hagar is pregnant and starts treating Sarah horribly. Talk about drama? Sarah now is jealous because Hagar is pregnant, instead of waiting for the blessing of God to show up. Sarah had trouble believing God’s promise-so she gave everyone else trouble! When we try to make God’s promise come thru in our own human efforts, we find we are more frustrated then if we just would of waited for God’s timing. In waiting for God He is able to build the character and faith that it takes to sustain the promise when it does arrive! Don’t interfere with the plans of God-it will work out! Look at your neighbor tell them it will be ok! Just chill.
The main story of Sarah’s life is not Isaac, but what led her to Isaac, inspite of herself Meaning “Process” We are all in process.
Sarah arranged Hagar to have a child by Abe, later blames him for the results, strikes out in frustration 14 years later and tells Hagar and her son to leave the house-
Sometimes we just want to get rid of our problems by throwing them out.
Hagar wasn’t her problem-Sarah was Sarah’s problem-lack of faith, impatience, frustration with her own inability to have children-Anger can be very dangerous when we realize our own inabilities!
Running away from our problem doesn’t help us solve them
God spoke to Hagar to return and submit and work on her attitude toward Sarah, no matter how justified it would have been-return to your problems so you might face them and solve them.

3 people make serious Mistakes
1. Sarah took matters into her own hand, and gave her servant to her husband
2. Abraham went along with it. He knew better according to Gen 15:4, he also didn’t help the issue, he just told Sarah to deal with it.
3. Hagar ran away from the problem
Is this not the biggest drama in the Bible?
God still demonstrated His ability to work all things together for good inspite of this soap opera
God is still bigger than our problems if we will yield to him and let him work.
Don’t tell me that 75 year olds can’t get mixed up in drama-
Ex: ever see the lethal weapon movies, Danny glover always saying, Im getting to old for this stuff.
Finally God appears to Abraham @ 99, 15 years later, after some of the drama cools down and everyone dreams have died, about this time next year you will have a son.
God’s ways are not our ways. Character had to be developed in this family before the blessing could come!
By the time you die to yourself-God resurrects the promise on the inside of you.
Sarah laughs in the tent behind Abraham, God asks Sarah if she laughed, she said no, then God said, no you did laugh, how can a worn out women like me have a child?
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
What parts of your life seem to be on hold right now?
It may be part of God’s plan for you.
It took patience to receive the promise of God
Isaac got his name from what his mother did when she found out she would get pregnant at 90
How you respond when God speaks to you can determine the outcome.
Follow after those who through faith and patience have inherited the blessing
Unless corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies it abides alone, but if it dies it will produce much fruit
Our will needs to die in order for Jesus to live out of us
Interesting thing about Sarah’s death, she died and had inherited the promise Heb 11:13
Strengths
God gave her 37 years with her son Isaac
She was loyal to him and became an ancestor of Jesus
She was a woman of faith, the first woman listed in the Hall of faith in Heb 11
Weaknesses
She had great challenges to her faith by taking matters into her own hand
Attempted to work problems out on her own without consulting God
Tried to cover her faults by blaming others
Lesson Learned
God responds to faith in the midst of failure
God is not bound by what usually happens-He can stretch the limits, and cause unheard of events to occur
Heb 11:11 it was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old. She believed that God would keep His promise.
When your patience gets frustrated with time, give into God
Is anything too hard for the Lord?