Nothing is Impossible With God

Just this week, a new firestorm is swirling in the media over a decision that President Trump made to assassinate General Solemaini of Iran in a coordinated drone strike. At least at first blush, the decision seems to have once again brought the USA to the brink of war in the Middle East. And, this is after years of promise and action by the President to remove our troops from the region. Now, it seems that we will have to send thousands of soldiers back to the Middle East to defend our embassies and stave off any threats that Iran might carry out.

I mention this because it had been on my mind even before the airstrike or the upheaval that followed. Have you ever noticed just how inescapably mired we are in conflict? At any given time on any given day, there is a battle being fought somewhere in the world. It could be between rival gangs on the streets of Chicago. It could be within the walls of a church in Texas. It could be at the gates of an embassy in Iraq. Or it might be between protesters and police on the streets of Delhi or Hong Kong. These conflicts happen irrespective of the promises that our leaders make. They may promise all they want to bring peace through gun control, and yet, gun violence still happens in Chicago and Texas. They may promise to bring all the troops home and get out of the business of policing the world, and yet, embassies still burn, and wars still roil. They may promise a pure Hindu or Communist nation, and yet, protests rage and the people revolt. It seems that our leaders are ultimately powerless to carry out the promises they make, no matter how grand and bombastic they are in making them.

This is nothing new for humanity. It seems that the inescapable nature of humanity is one of conflict and injustice. No matter how much we long for peace, for justice, for reconciliation, we continue this vicious cycle generation after generation. Solomon rightly says in Eccl. 8:8 – “No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death. There is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it.” We cannot escape death, war, and wickedness, no matter how far we advance in medicine, politics, or education. We’ve seen this pattern emerge as we’ve marched through Genesis, as well. We’ve seen the initial hope of the first son, Cain, turn into despair as he killed his brother and fled his family. We’ve seen the ingenuity of the post-flood peoples used to build an idol to themselves and the ultimate confusion that came as a result. We’ve even seen Noah’s family, who found favor with God, ultimately shattered as the result of drunkenness and shame. We want to escape this cycle of sin and death. We want to find a way out from under the curse of sin. Yet, everywhere we turn we find the same story repeated time and again.

But, then in Chapter 12, we saw a glimmer of hope, as God starts to do something different with an old man named Abram and a barren woman named Sarai. Now, God promises to bless, even when the man and woman are unable to obtain it. But, oh do they try! First, Abram suggests that God should accept his slave, Eleazer, as the promised heir, but God tells him the promised son will be of his own blood. So, Sarai gets the bright idea to fulfill the promise by having Abram sleep with her maidservant, Hagar. But, God rejects Ishmael and promises Abram that his son will come through Sarai. Now, God has made them wait an additional 14 years since the last time he reiterated the promise. In fact, one of the only things that Abraham has done faithfully, besides carrying out God’s command about circumcision, is to wait by the oaks of Mamre in the land of Canaan for God to fulfill his promise.

It is by these oaks that we find him at the beginning of Genesis 18. Abraham is sitting by the flap of his tent, waiting on the Lord when he sees three men walking towards him. We aren’t told how, but it is apparent that Abraham recognizes one of these men to be what is called a “theophany” (a physical embodiment) of the Lord. Abraham immediately begins serving these men with the best hospitality he can provide. He washes their feet, offers them a prime spot in the shade of the oaks, provides them with water, milk, bread, and a freshly cooked calf. In doing so, Abraham is following the example that was set by the King of Salem, Melchizedek, who served him bread and wine after his great victory. He is also exemplifying what true service to the Lord looks like. Paul would later say, in Romans 12:1-2, that Christians are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable act of worship.

While eating with Abraham, the Lord reveals to him that his wife, Sarah, will conceive and have a son around the same time the following year. Sarah is listening at the door of the tent and she laughs about this, asking how this could be possible, and there are three reasons given as to why this is humanly impossible that we should note. First, Sarah has always been barren. We’ve known that about her since chapter 11. Second, now that they have waited some 24 years since the initial promise in chapter 12, she has hit menopause, so she would not be able to have children even if she were not barren. Finally, she notes that both she and her husband are old, and they haven’t been together in a long time.

For these three impossibilities, God answers with his own power over the impossible. First, he reveals that he knows that she has laughed by asking Abraham why she laughs. Second, he reveals something even more impossible by showing that he knows what she had thought to herself. Finally, he promises that even with all of the impossibilities of her physical situation, he will still bring about the birth of a son by her. This story reveals something that the Bible will later flesh out more fully: nothing is impossible for God. For one, God’s plans and purposes will be accomplished. Job 42:2 says, “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted”. Not only will his plans be accomplished, but he is also all-powerful. Jeremiah 32:17 says, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”

But still, even though nothing is impossible for God, yet the world still continued in sin and death from Abraham to Moses to David to Ezra. Sure, God was faithful to give barren Sarah a son, but what good did that do when all is said and done? Abraham, Sarah, and even Isaac are long dead, buried under the oaks of Mamre where this promise was made. It seems that conflict, sin, and death are just too impossible for God.

But, then there is this interesting story in Luke 1 about a priest named Zachariah. Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth have always hoped for a child, but she is barren and now they are very old. Then, out of the blue, an angel appears to Zachariah and tells him that his wife will conceive and have a son named John who will announce the coming of the Messiah. Then, in Luke 2, a young peasant girl named Mary is told that she will have a child. When she marvels by asking how these things can be, God tells her that his very Spirit will accomplish it, and that she will call the child’s name Jesus. Not only was Jesus’ birth impossible (born of a virgin), but his life was also impossible. He calmed storms, healed lepers, raised the dead, and cast out demons. He also knew the very thoughts of those who followed him. He told the Pharisees just what they thought to themselves. He knew the doubts and sins of his own disciples. He knew the cross to which he would eventually go, even at the beginning of his ministry. But, even more impossible than all of that is the fact that after that cross, he rose again from the dead. That was so unbelievable, even his own disciples didn’t believe that it had happened until they saw it with their own eyes.

Jesus came to do that which was impossible. In Matt. 19, the rich young ruler comes to Jesus to find out how he could obtain eternal life, and he goes away sad because he could not reach the standard that Jesus gave for him. Jesus tells his disciples that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples are disturbed by this because they, like so many today, attribute wealth with God’s favor. Jesus reassures his disciples by telling them in verse 26, “With man it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.”

Brothers and sisters, your salvation would be an impossibility if it were not for Jesus Christ. Like all of the characters of the Bible, you too have failed miserably to keep God’s commands and bring him glory. There is nothing you can do, no price you can pay, no way to fulfill the promises of God through your own means. Yet, nothing is impossible with God! Paul says in Romans 5 that some might be willing to die for a righteous man, but no one would be willing to die for a sinner. Yet, he says in verse 8 that God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And, even though this world will continue in conflict and strife and sin, we still have a final hope in a resurrection to come. Now, we might look at our bodies, look at our aches, look at turmoil in our own lives and wonder how this promise of resurrection can be. Yet we know, nothing is impossible with God. God is faithful to his promises, and in his season, he will make all things new and bring about the completion of the promises he has made to us in Christ.