God’s Promise, Through God’s Power

When Abraham and Sarah believed the promise that God would give them a son, they didn’t get pregnant immediately. In fact, there was a 25-year gap between when God made the promise they’d have a son and when Sarah got pregnant. Now, 25 years is a long time to wait for a son when you are newlywed; when you’re in your 90s, it probably feels like an eternity.

Around year 15, Sarah decides it’s time to help God out. So, she brings her household servant, Hagar, to Abraham and says, ‘Look, it’s clearly not happening with me, so maybe you should have a baby with her.’

What is Sarah doing? She hasn’t stopped believing the promise that God would give them a son. She just thinks it is on her to make it happen. She is attempting to fulfill the promise of God through a scheme of the flesh.

Abraham apparently had more issues than a lack of faith, because he just goes along with it. And shortly thereafter, Sarah’s “plan” works: Hagar gets pregnant by Abraham and calls their son “Ishmael.” Ishmael will himself grow up to father a great nation—but not the nation of promise.

This, the Apostle Paul says in Galatians chapters 4 and 5, is exactly what Christians do when they turn to the law to bring them closer to God. They are attempting to fulfill the promise of God through a scheme of the flesh. Like Sarah, they haven’t totally stopped believing God’s promise of salvation; they just think it is on them to accomplish it.

Like Sarah, and like the Galatians of Paul’s day, we too often want to fast-track God’s promise. But salvation belongs to God alone, and it is a gift you can only receive by faith. God doesn’t need any potential from you to work miracles in you.

This reminds me of one of my favorite promises about the Holy Spirit. In Luke 7:28, Jesus points out to the disciples that the greatest preacher who ever lived was John the Baptist. And then He says, “The one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

“Least in the kingdom” means you have the least potential, you are the least impressive, and you have the fewest spiritual gifts. Statistically speaking, someone has to be the least. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘That sounds right. I think he may be talking about me.’ But you need to understand this: Even if you are literally the least in the kingdom, you have more potential in ministry than John the Baptist ever had, because you have something he never had: the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is no longer about the ability you bring to ministry but your availability to Christ.

You may come from the most jacked-up background, or your resume may be a litany of failures, but God can still bring about His promise through you. It doesn’t matter if you are barren, because Christ supplies everything.

With Christ, we can wait with confident hope, knowing that the same God who worked miracles for Abraham and Sarah is eager to work miracles in and through us. If God can make something of Abraham, who the Bible says was “as good as dead,” then He can make something of you. God isn’t done with any of us.

—J. D. Greaar, condensed