This Is God

Here, in a nutshell, is God: He keeps his word and fulfills his promise. He does the impossible, because nothing is too hard for the Lord. He fulfills his promise and does the impossible according to his timing, for he is sovereign. This is God.

The Journey // Focus: Genesis 21:1-2

The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would.

Here, in a nutshell, is God.

The very first thing we see in this Genesis 21 as the story unfolds of ninety-year old Sarah getting pregnant and having a son, Issac, is that God keeps his word and fulfills his promises.

God is a faithful God. It all starts here. If it were not for the unfailing trustworthiness of God, human faith would not be possible. But God has proven himself to be true. He is a promise making and a promise keeping God.

There is nothing truer and more dependable than God’s word. By the way, that is why the great statements of faith in Christendom start with the authority of Scripture, what we refer to as God’s Word. If it weren’t for that fact, we could not pass go, we could not collect $200. It would be game over for the Christian faith. God’s Word is true; God is true to his Word!

Furthermore, believing that God keeps his word, believing that what he said is true and trustworthy enough to obey is the essence of faith. We are told in Genesis 15:6 that “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

The second thing we see in this Genesis 21 is that God does the impossible. Don’t forget, Sarah is ninety, and Abraham is one hundred—they are well past the years of child bearing. But what might seem an impossibility to man is no big deal to the Creator. After all, he spoke the worlds into existence out of nothing.

Faith begins with the invisible we are told in Hebrews 11:1-3. To bring forth from the invisible into reality is an impossibility for man, but as we learn in Sarah’s doubting from Genesis 18:14, there is “nothing that is too hard for the Lord.”

Faith will by its very nature lead the God-follower into human impossibilities. That is why essential to human faith is the commitment to this driving value: nothing is impossible for God. That belief will be required, early and often, to keep the journey of faith moving toward God in daunting circumstances, in the face of doubting people, and through the dips and depressions of unreliable emotions.

Faith must see the invisible and believe the impossible—because that is the realm from which God operates in the world and in the believer’s life.

The third thing we see as this chapter begins is that not only does God keep his word and not only does God do the impossible, but God does everything according to his timing.

God is sovereign, after all. He does things the way he wants when he wants, and although his timing is not always, not usually, our timing, he has perfect timing. To enjoy a vibrant faith in the sovereign God, therefore, the believer must trust when they can’t see that God is at work.

Faith accepts, and even celebrates, that God, along with his timing, is sovereign. Hebrews 11:6 puts it this way: “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

This, in a nutshell, is God:

God keeps his word and fulfills his promises—always.

God does the impossible, because nothing is too hard for the Lord—absolutely nothing,

God’s timing, because he is sovereign is impeccable—without fail.

This is God. Therefore, put all your hope in him, and you will not be disappointed.