020514: Is Anything Too Hard For the Lord

Message: Is Anything Too Hard For the Lord

I.                    Introduction

a.       Our goal this year is to see you get more rooted in Christ as we grow together

b.      One way we are doing this rooting is through sermons about questions found in the Bible.

II.                 Body

a.       Background

                                                             a.      3 men show up, Abraham jumped up and gave them food and drink, as a good host should do.  But he recognizes they aren’t ordinary men, but rather angels…

b.      Read Genesis 18:10-14 – “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.  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, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

c.       Why it was funny

                                                             a.      Sarah was 90 or 91 and Abraham was 100 years old…this was not something that should have been possible to even happen…plus…ewwww!

                                                            b.      It was funny because it was thought to be impossible.  And the thought of it being impossible showed her belief in who God was.  In her view there was a God, the God of her and her husband.  He talked with them, he called them, he promised them wealth and delivered, he protected them in a foreign land, but he couldn’t do the impossible. 

                                                             c.      He is God…but with a limit to his power

                                                            d.      Illus: I had a friend whose parents installed a speed limiter on his car so that he couldn’t go faster than 70.  It made it so that the engine wouldn’t allow him to go any faster and he hated it.  And he eventually disengaged it.

                                                             e.      Sarah’s God was thought to only be able to go up to 70, pretty fast, but that was it, he couldn’t go further or do more…but then that view changed as she got a bigger view of who God was.

d.      Read Genesis 21:1-7 – “Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.  When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him,  as God commanded him.  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter,  and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”  And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

a.       The question of the night is, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

III.               Conclusion

a.       Some of you might think that God is able to do anything, but would laugh if I said he could change your life to be better than what it is now.  You would laugh if I said he could remove the obstacle that has been placed in your life. You would laugh if I said he could heal you of an addiction.  You would laugh if I said he could use you to change this world.

b.      My God doesn’t have that limiter though, nothing is too hard for him, he is God.

c.       He created the universe, He is above all things he has created, He is strong enough to destroy the most powerful in the world, He is wise enough to know exactly what to do at all times, He is smart enough to know all the answers, He is outside time, allowing him to see both my past and my future

d.      He is the same God who gave Abraham and his wife a child in their old age, he is the same God who flooded the earth but saved Noah and his family, He is the same God who delivered Israel from slavery, parting the Red Sea so they could walk through it, He is the same God who knocked down the walls of Jericho, He is the same God who enabled David to defeat the giant Goliath, He is the same God who sent fire down on the sacrifice of Elijah, He is the same God who fed that same Elijah with ravens, He is the same God who saved Daniel in the Lion’s den, He is the same God who enabled Esther to rescue her people, He is the same God who sent his son to this earth to save us, he is the same God who healed many of leprosy, blindness, deafness, and even rose them from the dead, He is the same God.

e.       He is the same God healed me of addiction to porn, He is the same God kept me safe when I should have died, He is the same God took away my bitterness.

f.       And he can do anything, nothing is too hard for him, he has no limits.

g.       Maybe you have something going on in your life and you need that God to show up and change it, raise hand and let us pray for you!