نظرة عامة
Sarah conceived Isaac at ninety because she judged God faithful who had promised, and Hebrews 11:11 says that is exactly how she received strength to conceive seed when she was past age. In this Faith 2020 conference teaching, a neonatologist walks through Genesis 11 to Genesis 21 and shows a woman who had been barren for decades, who was told at eighty-nine that the promise was finally coming, and who laughed within herself before God brought it to pass. The practical pattern she draws out is simple: remind yourself of God’s promise of healing, and then get busy fulfilling God’s calling while you wait on your deliverance.
النص الكامل
Judging God Faithful During Health Challenges
Good morning. You can take your Bibles and go to Genesis chapter 11. This morning, we’re going to consider how to judge God faithful during health challenges, drawing on the example of Sarah.
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart because of my line of work. I’m a neonatologist at a busy newborn critical care center. The newborns on our unit face life-threatening illness from their moment of birth.
Many of them are born premature, as early as 22 weeks, about half of a pregnancy, weighing as little as a 16-ounce canned good in your pantry, about this small. Some are born at term but struggle due to organs that are malformed, bacterial infections, or brain damage. Amidst all of this illness, I see newborns’ health improve every day I work on that unit.
These everyday healing examples are peppered with extraordinary moments of seemingly impossible recovery. But whether small or large, expected or miraculous, God is the source and author of all of this healing. We all experience health challenges of varying degrees in this life.
After all, our bodies were made of the dust of the ground, and unto dust we shall return. Experiences of healing inspire us to trust God to overcome these health challenges. Let’s take a look at one such account in the word of Sarah, a believing woman who trusted God for the impossible in a health challenge she faced.
Genesis 11:29 — Sarai Was Barren and She Had No Child
And we first meet Sarah, initially called Sarai, in Genesis chapter 11, and in verse 29. And it reads, and Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah.
But Sarai was barren. She had no child. Abram, later called Abraham, took Sarah to wife.
And in Sarah’s time, it was customary for a woman to marry and start a family shortly after menarche, typically in her teens. By the time a woman was in her 30s, she could easily have been a grandmother. A woman’s role in society was to marry and produce children.
An inability to do so was met with stigma. Being barren would have been considered a disgrace. You can easily imagine how this health challenge could have become part of Sarah’s identity and even worn on Abraham and Sarah’s marriage.
Still Childless at Sixty-Five: The Long Wait Before Genesis 12
They would have longed for children. The next God tells us of Sarah in Genesis 12 is when she was 65 and Abraham was 75. They may have been married for 50 years by this point, and still they remained childless.
Abraham’s father dies and Abraham receives a mission from God to move out. And in Genesis 12, verse 1, now the Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.
Tagged to this promise of a land that God would show Abraham was the guarantee that God would make a great nation of him. I can imagine that Abraham and Sarah would have had to wrap their heads around this promise of a child. A woman’s ovary stopped producing eggs on average at age 51, at which point she can no longer become naturally pregnant.
I’m not sure what this timeline looked like in Sarah’s day when people lived longer, but to the best of my knowledge, this promise was given to Abraham at a time when Sarah was beyond the age of conceiving. They could have easily thought, God, are you sure you know what you’re doing? You are promising a great nation, but Sarah is beyond her childbearing years. We have been waiting for decades to have a child, and it’s no longer possible.
They Did Not Let the Health Challenge Stop Them in Their Tracks
You make us a great nation, and then we’ll move out and claim that land that you have on reserve for us. But you know what they did amidst this health challenge? They didn’t sit around waiting on God to make good on his promise. They didn’t allow this health challenge to stop them in their tracks.
Instead, they got busy fulfilling God’s calling. They packed their bags and journeyed to the land that God would show them. Look at Genesis chapter 16.
God reiterated his promise of multiplying them in Genesis 13 and in Genesis 15, where he said Abraham’s seed would be as the dust of the earth and as the stars of heaven. Many years went by, and their health challenge persisted. Ten years from that initial promise in Genesis 12, when Abraham is 85 years old and Sarah is 75 years old, we see things are unchanged.
In Genesis chapter 16 and verse 1, it reads, now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bare him no children. It’s interesting that it doesn’t say she was barren here. It says she had born no children.
Genesis 17 — God Appears When Abraham Is Ninety-Nine
It’s possible that she had miscarriages along the way. And it’s not until Abraham is 99 and Sarah is 89 that they receive explicit information on the timing of God’s healing. Look at Genesis chapter 17 and in verse 1. And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the almighty God.
Walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly. And in verse 16, and I will bless her.
Her here is referring to Sarah. And give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.
Kings of people shall be of her. You know, this is the first time in God’s promises to Abraham that he specifically states that he will make of Abraham a great nation through Sarah. I’m sure this was assumed with prior promises.
After all, Sarah was Abraham’s only wife. But here God makes it very explicit that you’re going to have a child and it’s going to be through Sarah. I wonder if they thought, seriously God, after 75 years of marriage and nearly 25 years since you gave us the original promise, it’s finally going to come to pass.
Why Did You Wait So Long? Questioning God’s Timing
Why did you wait so long? Why now, God? I don’t know why God’s plan was for Sarah to become a mother when she was 90 years old, but I bet the journey to fulfilling their calling to become pioneers and move to a new land would have looked very different with a family. For starters, Abraham could not have passed Sarah off as his sister along the way if they had had children, and he did that. And they would not have been as nimble with a family on the journey.
It is human instinct sometimes to question God’s timing. Perhaps we will understand it all by and by. In Genesis chapter 18, we see Sarah’s reaction to this explicit promise in verse 11.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age. So in case you didn’t catch it, Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 89 when they received this promise that now was the time that they would have a child. And as we continue in verse 11, it says, And it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.
Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord, being old also? And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child which am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. I love that Sarah laughed within herself. I love that God included that in this record for us.
Genesis 21 — The Lord Visited Sarah as He Had Said
Sometimes we face circumstances that are so bleak that the possibility of healing from a sense’s perspective is so unreal it seems laughable. But we see here in Genesis chapter 21 that God brings his promise to pass. And in verse 1, And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said.
And the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
Sarah became miraculously pregnant at the age of 90. Let’s take a moment and consider how extraordinary this is. I remember my pregnancy with our first child fondly.
Other than occasional fatigue, it was really no big deal. My second pregnancy five years later was noticeably different. For starters, the obstetrician gave me the designation of advanced maternal age because I was going to deliver our child at the ripe old age of 35.
What Pregnancy Does to a Body, From a Doctor Who Lived It
Quite an offending designation, I thought. But this second pregnancy was really more of a physical challenge for my body. I weathered nausea, followed by lower back pain, followed by swelling.
And it didn’t stop after I delivered. My feet swelled up so much that I could barely cram them into my extra-large flip-flops. And my toes looked like sausages.
I remember propping my feet up on the dashboard of our car while my husband was driving and looking at my feet with tears streaming down my face, saying, This cannot be my body. I can imagine that Sarah’s pregnancy at 90 was a huge deal for her body. Beyond conception, she may have been challenged on a daily basis to carry that baby.
But God strengthened her, and she carried the pregnancy to viability and delivered a healthy son. And in chapter 21, verse 5, And Abraham was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh so that all that hear will laugh with me.
Sarah’s Job as Mother of Nations Was Not Done When She Bore Isaac
And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck? For I have borne him a son in his old age. Let me point out that Sarah’s job of becoming a mother of nations was not done when she bore Isaac. When I was a first-time mom, I could not wait to be done with pregnancy and to meet our baby.
When we had our second child, I knew that meeting our baby meant entering the so-called fourth trimester. It was an end to pregnancy, but that was only the first challenge. Now I had the second challenge of caring for a newborn.
Remember those sleepless nights of constant feeding? And then you get past baby stage and you start running after them while they crawl and walk. And then there are the toddler years of potty training and so on and so forth. Imagine starting that journey of motherhood at the age of 90.
Sarah had to trust God for the strength to raise Isaac. And the word says she was 127 years old when she died. So she lived almost 40 years accomplishing this.
Hebrews 11:11 — She Judged Him Faithful Who Had Promised
Let’s look at Hebrews chapter 11. God gives us some insight in the book of Hebrews into how Sarah accomplished her mission from God of having a child at the age of 90. And we can learn a lot from how she surmounted this health challenge.
In Hebrews chapter 11 and in verse 11, we see Sarah in this hall of fame of believers. And it says through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Sarah counted God worthy of her trust.
She relied upon him. Sarah chose not to focus on her history of being barren or her age. She discounted her past and current circumstances.
3 John 2 — God’s Desire for Health in Our Day and Time
And she trusted God. Sarah’s example of judging God faithful during an impossible health challenge inspires us today. Look at 3 John 2. When it comes to our day and time, when it comes to the health challenges that we will inevitably face, God’s desire for our lives is very clear in his word.
And in 3 John 2, a familiar verse, it says, We see God’s desire for health for our lives in his intricate design of our bodies. He made our bodies to fight off infection, to grow new skin after a scrape, to lay down new bone after a break. When our older daughter faces a small and even very small health challenge, she’s 5, a scraped up knee or even a little paper cut, we have learned how best to care for her.
Her pain tolerance is not very high. Acknowledge the challenge. Remind her that God designed her body to heal.
And then distract, distract, distract. Get busy playing. And do not go near her with a Band-Aid.
That is only a reminder of the prior injury. These principles work well for adults who are facing a small health challenge too. Sometimes we need a quick hug or encouragement from a fellow believer.
Getting the Focus Off the Challenge and Onto Our God
We need to remind ourselves of God’s healing. But then quickly get back to fulfilling God’s calling. The deliverance often comes when we get the focus off of the challenge and onto our God.
Look at 1 Peter 2. And let’s remind ourselves of God’s promise of healing for our day and time. In 1 Peter 2 and in verse 24, we learn of Jesus Christ’s accomplishment and God’s promise for healing. You might be thinking, yeah, that’s easy enough to claim with a small health challenge.
But those bigger challenges, they have a way of stopping you in your tracks. When I was towards the end of my pregnancy with our second child, I would get up at the end of a long day on my feet and sit down at the dining room table and not get up again.
I mean, I would not get up again some nights until I went to bed. And in all honesty, I didn’t really want my husband to remind me about how God heals and my body would get through this. I just wanted to be loved.
Adjusting Your Life and Getting the Rest Your Body Needs
To be my best, we needed to rearrange our evening routine so that I could rest. Sometimes that meant laundry piled up or dishes were left in the sink, but those things were less important. If I was going to trust God to get through the work he had called me to do with newborns the next day, I needed physical rest.
What is needed to trust God when we face large health challenges may be different from what we need with small ones. Be grateful with yourself and with others. Adjust your life to make it as easy as possible to trust God for his healing.
Remind yourself of God’s promise for healing. But then, just as you practice doing with small health challenges, just as Sarah and Abraham did, get busy fulfilling God’s calling while you wait on your deliverance. Let’s look at Revelation chapter 21.
Just as I have seen miraculous healing with my patients, in my adventures with God as a neonatologist, I have also seen Christian families put their trust in God to heal their little ones, with the end result being death. Many of you may have lived through a similar situation where a loved one or a friend or an acquaintance trusted God through a large health challenge but ultimately died. How can this be when Jesus Christ bared our sickness so that we could be healed? The answer is in Revelation chapter 21 and in verse 4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.
Death Is an Enemy: Why a Lack of Healing Is Not Unfaithfulness
Death is an enemy, and one that we will all succumb to at some point in our lives unless Christ comes back first. Lack of healing in this life is certainly not because God is unfaithful to his word. And it’s not because someone didn’t try hard enough to get well, or didn’t trust God big enough.
God’s promise of healing, while often realized in this life, is guaranteed to be realized in the life to come. When you or a loved one face a seemingly impossible health challenge, ask yourself, what else has God called me to do in this life? Laugh at the challenge, and then get busy fulfilling your calling. And when it feels like you simply can’t go another step, find comfort in the promise of the new body you will receive one day.
In our family, we like to remind each other of the hope, even for the small health challenges in life. We’ve made this a practice with our five-year-old, so much so that we caught her following suit with her little sister one day. As babies are wont to do, our youngest had had a day of spitting up that required multiple wardrobe changes.
Encouraging Her Little Sister With the Hope of a New Body
Her big sister was concerned. We were getting ready to leave the house, and there she was, encouraging her little sister with the hope of a new body. I don’t like to go back to a baby.
You’re not going to go back, you’re going to keep growing. You won’t spit up. When you get your new body, you won’t spit up.
I won’t throw up. When we get our new bodies, it’s not going to be the same thing that was down here, Callie. You’re going to get a brand new body.
Not the one you have now. I know you like your body. I like your body, too.
In the Words of a Four-Year-Old: You Are Going to Get a Brand New Body
You have chubby cheeks. More chubby. In case you didn’t quite catch it, that was a candid video.
But she told Callie, when you get your new body, you’re not going to spit up anymore. I won’t throw up. It’s not going to be the same as it was down here, Callie.
We’re going to have brand new bodies. And then she thought that Callie was a little disappointed because Callie liked her chunky cheeks, so she made reference to her chunky cheeks with her current body. In the words of a four-year-old, she was four at the time, you are going to get a brand new body one day.
Laugh at the Promise, Then Trust God, Because Nothing Is Too Hard
Our ultimate healing in this promise of eternal life is seemingly impossible. It’s so impossible to the senses, man, you might even laugh at the thought. But it is guaranteed.
So go ahead and laugh at the extraordinary promise that God can get you through the health challenges that you face. And then trust him because nothing is too hard for God. God will always heal us.
Many times in this life, but ultimately guaranteed in the life to come. I love you.
الوجبات السريعة الرئيسية
- Hebrews 11:11 says Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Sarah counted God worthy of her trust.
- Sarah chose not to focus on her history of being barren or her age. She discounted her past and current circumstances, and she trusted God.
- Abraham and Sarah did not sit around waiting on God to make good on his promise. They got busy fulfilling God’s calling and journeyed to the land that God would show them.
- Sometimes healing looks so impossible to the senses that it seems laughable, and God recorded that Sarah laughed within herself. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
- What is needed to trust God during a large health challenge may be different from what is needed with a small one. Adjust your life to make it as easy as possible to trust God for his healing.
- God’s promise of healing, while often realized in this life, is guaranteed to be realized in the life to come, where Revelation 21:4 says there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying.
الأسئلة الشائعة
How did Sarah have a child at ninety years old?
Hebrews 11:11 says that through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Sarah counted God worthy of her trust. She relied upon him. She chose not to focus on her history of being barren or her age, she discounted her past and current circumstances, and she trusted God.
What does it mean to judge God faithful during a health challenge?
It means counting God worthy of your trust and relying upon him rather than on your circumstances. Sarah discounted her past and current circumstances. Practically, it means you acknowledge the challenge, remind yourself of God’s promise for healing, and then get busy fulfilling God’s calling while you wait on your deliverance. The deliverance often comes when we get the focus off of the challenge and onto our God.
Why do some believers trust God for healing and still die?
Death is an enemy, and one that we will all succumb to at some point in our lives unless Christ comes back first. Lack of healing in this life is certainly not because God is unfaithful to his word, and it’s not because someone didn’t try hard enough to get well, or didn’t trust God big enough. God’s promise of healing, while often realized in this life, is guaranteed to be realized in the life to come.
المراجع الكتابية
Genesis 11:29; Genesis 12:1; Genesis 13; Genesis 15; Genesis 16:1; Genesis 17:1; Genesis 17:16; Genesis 18:11-14; Genesis 21:1-3; Genesis 21:5-7; Hebrews 11:11; 3 John 2; 1 Peter 2:24; Revelation 21:4
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