Sarah's Inner Beauty

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And if you would, take out your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11.
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We've been looking at Hebrews 11 now all year, and we're at verse 11.
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So we've gotten through a few verses here.
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We're at Hebrews chapter 11, verse 11.
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As we all know, the 11th chapter of Hebrews is what we call the great faith chapter, where it lists for us names of men and women of faith, and it gives us them as an example, not of perfection or sinlessness, but of what a life of faith looks like.
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We have looked at different individuals so far.
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We've looked at Abel, Enoch, Noah, and we've spent the last month or so looking at the person of Abraham.
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Now, when we get to verse 11, there is an interjection.
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There is a statement about a different person.
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And in chapter verse 12, it goes back to talking about Abraham.
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So today we are going to begin a study of a different individual.
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We're going to look at the wife of Abraham, whose name is Sarah.
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Let us stand together and read the word.
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Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 11 only.
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Reading from the English Standard Version, it says this, By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
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May God add his blessing to the reading of his word as we pray together.
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Father God, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you that we can study it together, learn from it, use the examples taught within it and apply them to our lives that we might grow in faith.
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I pray, O Lord, as I preach your word this morning, that you would give me clarity of mind to preach the truth.
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And God, that you would fill me with your spirit.
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And God, that you would keep me from error as I am capable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would keep me in line with the truth.
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I pray, God, for the congregation, that you would open up their hearts to a right understanding of your truth.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for his sake.
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Amen.
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In my Sunday school class for the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at the Greek language.
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And the reason why we would take the time to study Greek is because, as we all, most of us know, the New Testament was written in what is called Koine or the Common Greek.
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The Old Testament, of course, written in Hebrew and some portions in Aramaic.
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And the reason why I wanted to make this point this morning is because Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 11 is one of those places that we come to in the text where there is division among scholars as to how the Greek is supposed to be interpreted.
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And how it is rather not interpreted, but translated.
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As we all know, it is sometimes very difficult to translate one language into another language.
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And sometimes there are not equivalencies from one language to another.
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And the base language, the one that you're translating from, the native language, would have to be translated to the native language.
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Would have to have some nuances included, some changes, some things that would help make sense of what the original was trying to say.
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Well, in this case, when we come to this passage, we come to a passage where there is, as I said, disagreement over how it is to be translated.
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And I want to just share with you a few ways in which it is translated.
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I want to see if you can pick up in your mind the differences.
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You have the English Standard Version or some of you use the New American Standard Bible.
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I want to read again the ESV.
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By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised.
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Most of you have that one.
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Now, some of you have a New American Standard Bible, which says this.
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By faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
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Basically says the same thing, just a little bit different English, but pretty much the same thing.
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However, if you just happen to be looking at a new English translation, it's going to read like this.
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And I want to see if you can pick up on the difference.
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By faith, even though Sarah herself was barren and he was too old, he received the ability to procreate because he regarded the one who had given the promise to be trustworthy.
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Do you notice the difference? The English Standard and the New American Standard and also the King James Version, I didn't mention that one, but it as well, references the faith of Sarah.
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However, in the new English translation, you'll notice that they are referencing the faith of whom? Abraham.
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The NIV also does this, and they're actually, as most of you know, there's an updated NIV.
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The updated NIV doesn't, but the older NIV reads like this.
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By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
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Do you see the major translational difficulty? One is saying it's Sarah's faith that needs to be commended.
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The other is saying it's Abraham's faith which needs to be commended.
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And, beloved, that is a major difference.
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It's important that I bring this out.
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And some people, you know what, I want to be honest with you.
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A lot of churches, a lot of places wouldn't dare bring this up because it's going to, in some people's minds, create confusion.
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However, I know this.
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I know some of you walked in this morning with an NIV.
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I know some of you may have a new English translation.
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I doubt it, even though it's one of my favorite translations.
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The new English translation is a textual critical edition of the Bible, and if you have that, thumbs up.
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That's a pretty, very interesting translation because it has about 60,000 textual critical notes, which makes it, to me, one of my favorites to study.
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But you'll notice that the NASV and the ESV both say it is Sarah's faith.
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The NET and the NIV both say it is Abraham's faith.
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And thus, we are left with two different views of what this text is saying.
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And both of these translations, all four of these translations, are all translated by committees which have multiple scholars on these committees.
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And how are they to translate this language? How are they to translate it? Well, the problem is, and I'll go ahead and say it, the problem is it's hard to tell for certain from the Greek exactly what it is supposed to be saying.
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This is one of those times where the pronouns can be speaking of male or female.
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This is one of those times where it is difficult and we have to look at it contextually.
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We have to look at it in line with what it's saying before and what it's saying after to come to a right understanding.
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And one of the arguments that I've heard from those who say that it's talking about Abraham's faith is that Abraham's faith is what the subject is before.
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Abraham's faith is what the subject is after.
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Why then do we have an interjection about Sarah's faith? That's one of the arguments against the ESV and the NAS.
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They would say why, why would we have an interjection about Sarah? Abraham's the subject before and Abraham's the subject after.
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Why this interjection? Another what I would say is a difficult argument to overcome is that in the Old Testament, we do not see examples broadly pronounced of Sarah's faith.
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What do we see when we see Sarah in the Old Testament? We see her circumvent the promise of God by the choosing of Hagar.
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We see her laughing at God when God says you're going to have a child.
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We don't see examples of overt, fateful actions.
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So it becomes difficult, again, to deny that this is a plausible translational issue.
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Yet at the same time, we have the two of the most respected English translations.
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New American Standard Bible, by far one of the best English translations on the market, one of the best translations ever to be produced.
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New American Standard Bible has no doubt it is by faith Sarah did.
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The English Standard Bible says by faith Sarah.
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English Standard Bible, I think, is one of the best.
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More within the last 10 years, I think it's the best one.
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The NAS has been around for, I guess, around 40, 50 years.
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It's been around longer.
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So we have two of the best English translations, both of them, neither one of which have any contention here.
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They don't even add a footnote and say it could be the other way.
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They both say it is absolutely Sarah's faith, which is in view.
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So as I'm studying this and basically what I'm sharing with you now, I'm sharing with you how I had to deal with this.
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Because I'm sitting in my study all by myself having to look at this text.
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I'm calling Byron, going to Byron's house, talking to him about it, you know, because Byron is my study buddy.
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You know, we're having conversations about this because this is an important thing.
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I don't dare stand before you and presume upon the word of God.
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I don't have that right.
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And it wouldn't be fair of me to say, well, simply because the New American Standard Bible says it is correct.
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If I know there's a question, that's not fair.
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So I have to bring this issue out to point this out to you, because as I said, some of you walked in this morning with an NIV, as much as I've asked you not to.
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Just kidding.
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The NIV is the nearly inspired version.
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Just teasing.
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The New American Standard, the ESV are what we call literal translations, though.
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And the NIV is what is called dynamic equivalent.
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It does not attempt to be a literal translation.
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That needs to be understood.
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So when we look at the ESV, the NAS, both of them are giving a literal translation.
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Both of them are trying to be as literal as possible and both say, by faith, Sarah.
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They both reference Sarah's faith.
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So what I did was I went back before the translations.
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I went back to the writings of men like John Calvin, the great Geneva reformer who wrote and preached from the Greek.
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He didn't preach from a New American Standard Bible.
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They didn't have Americans and they didn't have American Standard Bibles at that time.
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He had the Greek Bible and the Latin Bible.
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That's what he preached from.
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And I said, well, how did he translate this? This is what he says.
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This is his commentary on this verse.
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He says that women may know that this truth belongs to them as well as to men.
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The writer reduces the example of Sarah, which he mentions in preference to that of others, because she was the mother of all faithful.
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So how does Calvin interpret the Greek at this section in line with the NAS and ESV, that it is Sarah's faith that is in view? Calvin's not the end all be all.
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He's not the Holy Spirit.
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We look further.
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John Owen, another of the great leaders of the church.
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John Owen writes this as Abraham was the father of the faithful.
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So Sarah was the mother of them.
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She was the free woman from which the church sprang and all believing women are her daughters.
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So how does John Owen interpret this verse that it is Sarah's faith which is in view? So we have, again, Calvin and Owen, these are two these are two pretty strong voices, Calvin himself being a strong language expert who's saying that it's Sarah's faith.
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Matthew Henry, everybody has Matthew Henry's commentary.
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They give it away for free when you go buy a new Bible.
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Just kidding.
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But you can get it anywhere.
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Matthew Henry, one of the one volume commentary.
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If you don't have any way to protect yourself at home, buy a Matthew Henry commentary, because if you get an attacker with it, it'll take them down.
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It's this big one volume commentary.
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Matthew Henry's commentary.
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He says this.
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He says, in the midst of the story of Abraham, the apostle, referring to the person who wrote Hebrews, inserts an account of the faith of Sarah.
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So we have the two strong English translations, NAS and ESV.
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Both are referencing Sarah's faith.
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We have John Calvin, John Owen and Matthew Henry all prior to any of these translational arguments all saying it's Sarah's faith.
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So at this point, I think we can confidently assume based upon all of this reasoning and deduction that the text is referencing at this point Sarah's faith.
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But yet we still have to step back and ask that difficult question that I mentioned earlier.
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Why is it referencing Sarah's faith? If we know when we go back to the Old Testament, there are not overt examples of it.
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You see, we still have to deal with that question.
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That's why I just spent the last however long I did giving that lengthy introduction.
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If we're going to say that this text is for certain saying that this is Sarah's faith that is being lauded and commended to us as exemplary, then we need to be able to show that that is what the scripture is actually teaching.
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So we ask the question, why would Sarah's faith be something to be praised? Now, I do not in any way think I'm going to finish today.
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Because I have a lot to say about Sarah.
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I have a lot to say about her as a woman of faith.
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I have a lot to say about her as a person who failed in many areas.
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Because that's part of the example that we need to realize.
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It's that even in her failure, she's still commended for her faith.
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And I think that's one of the great things that we can learn from her is that even though we are called to be people of faith and we are called to look at the examples of people of faith, that in no way indicates that we are going to achieve a level of sinless perfection and by which we attain heaven.
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We are going to fail and that is what grace is for.
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Grace is there because we fail.
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So again, why would the writer of Hebrews insert a commendation for Sarah's faith when it seems apparent that her faith was weak? I believe the answer is in the question.
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The very reality we see in all of the Old Testament faithful people and in the New Testament saints is that they all have the capacity and the propensity for failure.
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Yet even in the midst of their human frailty, God worked miracles in and through their lives.
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You see, like Abraham and all others on this list, Sarah had failures, but these failures did not keep her from being used by God because Sarah's sufficiency is not what is in view.
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God's sufficiency is what is in view.
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And they did not keep her from being added to this list of faithful believers.
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So what we're going to do is we're going to look at Sarah's faith.
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We're going to look at her as an individual.
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We're going to see both her successes and her failures and see why in the end the writer of Hebrews included her name in this list.
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If you're a note taker, I want to give you an outline.
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I want to let you know we're not going to finish this outline today, but if you want to put this as an outline, you can keep your notes for next week.
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Here's the outline.
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Number one, we're going to look at Sarah's early life.
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Number two, we're going to look at Sarah's responses to the promise of God.
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Sarah's responses to the promise of God.
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And finally, we're going to look at Sarah's receiving of the promise of God.
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So three parts, Sarah's early life, which is probably what we'll do today.
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Next week, we'll get to her responses to the promise of God and then to her reception of the promise of God.
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So let's look now at her early life.
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Now, it's really not it's sort of I'm saying early life, but I'm saying that tongue in cheek because to say we're talking about Sarah's early life is really not fair because we really don't know anything about Sarah or Abraham's early life.
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We do not meet the couple until they are both well along in age.
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If you want to turn back with me to Genesis 12, we'll see this.
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Genesis chapter 12 and 4.
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Genesis 12 and 4 says, So Abram.
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And remember, before God changed their names, you have Abram, who becomes Abraham, great father to father of the nations.
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And then Sarah and Sarah, you have the and it means her name means princess.
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Now, it says in verse four, So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him.
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And here's the key verse.
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Abram was seventy five years old when he departed from Herod.
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Abraham was not a young man, even by the standards of the day.
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There was a time in which people lived great lengths of time, but the great lengths of time of life were prior to the flood.
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This was the time of Methuselah and people like that who lived hundreds of years up to nine hundred and some years after the flood.
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There was a great decrease in the amount of time that people lived.
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As such, when we talk about seventy five years old for Abraham, that's not a drop in the bucket.
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That is a that's an older man for his time.
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He does live on later than that, quite a few years later.
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But still, at seventy five years old, we don't know much about his early life.
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I know people have asked that question about Jesus.
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Often they'll say things about Jesus.
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Why is it that God only tells us about Jesus when he was born, when he was twelve and when he's thirty to thirty three? Why don't we have anything about Jesus' teenage years? Why don't we have anything about Jesus' twenties? And the question can also be asked here of Abraham.
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Abraham goes seventy five years before we get any information about him at all.
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All we know is that he lived in an idolatrous family and he participated in that idolatry.
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That's all we know.
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Now, the answer to the question is this.
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God's word is not concerned with being a history book.
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God's word is concerned with being a history of revelation of God's will for the world.
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For whatever reason, the years between Jesus' birth and Jesus' twelfth year are inconsequential in regard to God's revelation of himself.
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Age twelve to age twenty nine, inconsequential.
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You may say, how can it be inconsequential? This is God on earth.
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This is Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
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How can it be inconsequential? For the purpose of understanding redemption, it is redemptive history.
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For the purpose of understanding redemption, it's inconsequential.
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The same thing can be said of Abraham.
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The first seventy five years of his life, for the purpose of redemptive history, it's inconsequential.
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But on that seventy fifth year, when God speaks to Abraham and he says that he's calling him out to a land that he will show him.
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And he will bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.
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And through him, all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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That is when redemptive history, God breaks into history at that moment.
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And something that is worthy for every person for the rest of history to hear is said.
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And thus, we get a picture of something very important in history.
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The point at which the covenant between God and Abraham is made.
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Abraham went seventy four years without a covenant between he and God.
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God breaks into his life.
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God chooses him.
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And he ordains him to service.
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And he calls him seventy five years of age.
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Now, how old is Sarah at this moment? Sixty five.
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She's ten years younger than him.
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So she herself is still older in her years and not as old as he, but still she is sixty five years old.
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But yet at the same time, one of the things that we learn about Sarah very quickly in the text of Scripture.
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Is that even at sixty five years old, even as being older, she is still an immensely physically attractive individual.
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Why am I making it to do about that? Who cares? The Bible cares because the Bible makes a big deal about this.
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The Bible says that Sarah was so beautiful that Abraham feared for his life to even tell people that he was her husband, because he was afraid that they would seek his death to be able to take his wife as their own.
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Us modern folks, we don't understand that kind of thinking.
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We don't understand kings and princes and things like that.
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We understand democracies and republics and presidents.
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We don't understand kings and sovereigns who can do as they will and have a man killed so that he can have his wife.
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We don't understand that type of a culture.
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So for us to engage that type of culture by reading about that in Scripture, it sounds so foreign to us that it hardly even makes sense.
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But yet you have to remember to read the Bible existentially, not as an existentialist.
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That's wrong.
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But existential meaning, remember, these people actually existed at a specific time, a specific period.
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And the time in which they existed had a culture in which they lived that determines some of the decisions that they made.
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The Bible never declares that it's righteous to have multiple wives.
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Yet we see in Scripture some of the men of faith had multiple wives.
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It doesn't make it right that men of faith did it, because the Bible never declares that it's correct.
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In fact, the Bible says God made one man for one woman.
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It didn't say he made Adam, Eve and a bunch of spares.
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No, it made Adam and Eve one for one.
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And in the New Testament, we have this command that you are to have to be the husband of one wife.
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There's no ambiguity in the statement.
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Yet at the same time, we see these cultural things that do find their way into the lives of these patriarchs.
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They find their way into the life.
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And this is one of those cultural things.
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The fear of losing my wife because my wife is a woman who the king may desire.
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Her beauty is such to the extent that the king may take my life just to have her.
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This is what it says in verse 10.
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It says now there was a famine in the land.
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We're still in Genesis 12.
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So there was a famine in the land.
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So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there for the famine was severe in the land.
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When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance.
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And when the Egyptians see you, they will say this is his wife.
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Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.
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Say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake.
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That's got to be some kind of beauty.
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He's recognizing a tremendous.
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In fact, it was so recognized that Sarah was beautiful that even the Talmud later Hebrew writings referenced her beauty.
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People that never seen her physically with their eyes knew of the tradition of her beauty.
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And it was written in the Talmud this.
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It says that Sarah's beauty was so great that compared with other people, they were apes.
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All other women were apes at the site.
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But again, the beauty is a blessing and a curse.
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According to Abraham, he's got this beautiful wife.
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Who certainly is is wonderful to look at, but yet at the same time, she brings an opportunity for him to demonstrate a lack of faith himself.
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Because what is Abraham saying when he says to her, you're going to be my sister, not my wife? Well, number one, he's saying be deceitful.
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But number two, he's saying we cannot trust God to protect us.
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We've got to circumvent this and create our own way of self-protection.
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You know, later on in the story, we'll talk about this in time, but later on the story, we know Sarah is going to circumvent the plan of God by bringing in another woman, Hagar, to have a child.
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She's learning it from her husband.
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He's teaching her from early on that it's OK to circumvent things and to make it work if you have to.
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She's just doing what he's teaching her to do.
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Hey, we're going into this town.
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You're real beautiful.
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Say you're my sister.
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And I know, by the way, I want to make a caveat here.
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I know she's his half-sister.
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Genesis chapter 20, verse 12 does say that Abraham, he says, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, though not the daughter of my mother.
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And she became my wife.
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So we do know they had the same father, Tara.
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They had the same father, different mothers.
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They're half-brother and sister.
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And they were married as half-brother and sister.
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So some people have argued with me and I've had people argue with me.
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They'll say, he wasn't really lying.
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She was his sister.
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It becomes a lie when he says you are only.
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It becomes a lie when he says to her, say you are not my wife.
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It's deceitful.
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And it is a lie.
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So here we have the demonstration of Abraham's lack of faith.
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Later, we'll see his wife emulates that.
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Men, you will never understand the profound significance that your faith has on the faith of your wife.
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I don't think.
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But I can see it and others can see it.
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When a man of faith stands up in faith and proclaims his faith, his wife has her faith bolstered and the confidence grows.
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But yet, when the husband, who is supposed to be the spiritual leader, the pastor in the home, when he is not a faithful man, it often takes the faith of the wife and it suppresses it.
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Because she needs that support.
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And without it, she grows after him.
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And it's a terrible thing to see.
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And that's what we see here.
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Abraham had his faults and Sarah falls right in line with his problems.
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Now, Abraham on two occasions put his wife into peril because of his deception.
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If you want to just make note of this, it happened in Genesis 12 with Pharaoh.
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It happened again in Genesis 20 with Abimelech.
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So twice he told her, tell him you're my sister.
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He didn't learn the first time.
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He said it again.
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Tell him you're my sister, not my wife.
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Both times she almost was brought into physical peril as a result of his lack of faith.
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He had a promise from God.
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You're going to be the father of a great nation.
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Yet he thought man could circumvent the plan of God.
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He thought man could destroy God's plan.
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So Abraham had a lack of faith as well.
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Now, to summarize something today or to begin to bring to a close this early part of her life, there's something else about Sarah's life that I think is very important.
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As we talk about her early life, the fact that it isn't her early life.
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She's older.
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She's 65 at this point.
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She's very beautiful.
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But there's something else that marks Sarah's life that isn't told us explicitly in the Old Testament, but is said explicitly in the New Testament.
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And that is that not only was Sarah externally beautiful, Sarah was also submissive to her husband.
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Where do we see that? It was in our opening text this morning.
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If you want to go back there at 1 Peter chapter 3.
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In 1 Peter chapter 3.
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I was thinking about this verse all week.
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Because if there's nothing else that I think the modern culture has demonstrated a hatred for, it is the concept of male headship in the home.
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I think that the modern culture has just destroyed that idea.
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I mentioned this before.
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Television shows have become sort of the cultural norm is displayed.
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Whatever is on television is what is normally in the home.
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What do we see? Mother is the sage, wisdom, counsel of the home.
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Father is another one of the kids who has to ask his permission for everything.
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He's too dumb to tie his own shoes.
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He can't get out of his own way.
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He's a fool.
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And he's just another one of the kids.
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And worse, he's worse than the kids.
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Because anytime the kids get in trouble, they don't go to dad for help.
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They don't go to mom for help.
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They outsmart mom and dad.
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And dad is just seen as sort of a bumbling idiot.
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So when you mentioned and when I mentioned submission in the home, submissive wives, the very first thing that I received is immediate emails about how that just doesn't work in today's culture.
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Beloved, I think today's culture doesn't work because of that.
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I don't think it's an effect.
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I think it's a cause.
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I think the problem with today's culture is that we have a problem understanding roles in the home and roles in the church and roles in the world.
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There was this group of kids playing.
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A friend of ours has a daughter playing with a group of kids.
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Group of girls and they're playing.
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What do they want to be when they grow up? And the little girls, you know, I want to be a doctor.
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I'll be a lawyer.
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I want to be this.
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I want to be that.
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And the friend of my daughter was there and she said, I want to be the mom.
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I want to be the wife.
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You can't do that.
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That's not a job.
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I'm not quoting the children.
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I'm quoting the mother who was watching the children play.
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That is how our society has been so twisted.
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And that's why I wanted to spend time this morning as I closed the sermon, looking back at First Peter, Chapter three, and simply going back to verse six, verse five and verse six, where it says, for this is how holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves.
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What's the what's the reference? The reference is this adorning with externals.
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Seeking to build ourselves up to the adorning of externals, gold and braided hair and all these things.
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And these are cultural examples.
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Braiding the hair with gold was an example of something that was done in excess.
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It was gaudiness.
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Modern example, PBN, purple hair, big.
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You know, we know what we know the example.
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You know, this is gaudiness.
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You know what it looks like.
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It looks like they're coming at you.
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But.
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And he's saying he's saying that is not the way for a Christian woman to adorn herself, that is not the way for a Christian woman to give the example of her godliness.
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And in verse five, it says, but for this is how holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their husbands.
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What by being a godly wife and mother was how beauty was displayed? And we spent a lot of time talking about Sarah's outward beauty.
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But I I want to I want to force a little caveat here and say she was more beautiful on the inside because she submitted to her husband.
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We never read in Genesis a complaint.
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When Abraham says, look, we're going to take everything we have, we're going to leave everything, everyone we know, we're going to take everything and we're going to go to somewhere we've never been.
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And we're going to trust God, beloved.
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Consider for a moment, your husband comes home today and he says that we've got to pack up everything, leave everyone we know and we're going somewhere we've never been.
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Because God has commanded it.
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I do believe there would be some contention, some conversation, some argument.
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But yet in this text, it never says that.
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It says whenever Abraham was, Sarah was.
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Whatever Abraham was doing, Sarah was there.
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Did Abraham give some bad examples? Yeah.
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Did Sarah make some mistakes of her own? Yeah.
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And by the way, I've heard some people make the argument, well, Sarah lived in a time where women were not thought of as having any value and Sarah couldn't have said anything.
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If Sarah had enough power in her home to get Abraham to go and take Hagar as his concubine to produce a child, if she had enough influence in her husband to do that, then don't tell me that she didn't have the right to speak to her husband.
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Don't tell me that this culture so submitted her that there was no way that she could have had a confrontational conversation with her husband.
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Don't tell me that there is a point that we have to realize that part of what she did.
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She did because she trusted in her husband's leadership and she trusted in the God that her husband trusted.
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The whole issue of submission in the home is this.
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The husband is to submit to God.
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And the family is to submit to the husband.
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Why? Because he will give an account for how he led that home.
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He will stand before God.
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And I'm talking to the men now.
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You will stand before God for how you husband your wives.
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You will stand before God for how you raise your children.
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You will stand before God for how you manage your home.
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Well, my husband doesn't do a good job.
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Pray for him.
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And know.
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That vengeance is the Lord's.
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And not yours.
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You don't think he's doing a great job.
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Pray for him and pray that God would change.
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But that does not alleviate our responsibilities.
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I don't like what the government's doing right now.
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I should have got an amen, but I didn't.
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But I have a command in scripture.
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Submit to the governing authorities.
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Up until and not past the point at which they would command me to disobey my God.
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So too is their submission in the home.
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And Sarah exemplified it because it goes on to say, As Sarah obeyed Abraham, she was the example.
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Is she a bad example at some point? Absolutely.
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But too is she a good example.
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And we should look at the good with the bad.
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And realize we have a woman of faith here that can be an example for us all.
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Father, we have looked at a text of scripture this morning.
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And a series of scriptures that are difficult for many to hear.
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And making application therein, Lord, is sometimes even more difficult.
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But we pray, Lord, your mercy and influence upon our heart.
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We pray that you convert us and conform us to scripture.
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Rather than having us stand as the judges of scripture.
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And trying to conform and convert it to our way of thinking.
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We thank you for reminding us of the positive nature of Sarah's life.
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And how even though we read negative things about her life.
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We still see a life of a woman who submitted to her husband.
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Whose call from God was so apparent to her.
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That she followed him from their homeland to a place that she had never seen.
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And she was committed to following him as he led their family into the will of God.
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I pray for the men of our church.
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I pray that we would lead our families into your will.
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I pray for the women, the wives.
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That you would help us to love them as Christ loved the church.
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For that is our command, oh Lord.
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And help them to respect their husbands.
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That our families would be that picture of the family of God.
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Where Christ is the husband of the church.
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And the church is his submissive bride.
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Thank you for this opportunity Lord to have heard your word.
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We pray that as we continue to study the life of Sarah.
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That we would not forget her internal beauty.
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The beauty of having a submissive heart.
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Which far outweighed any external beauty that she possessed.
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In Jesus name.
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Beloved we come now to our time for introspection.
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Looking within.
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And if we, as we are singing this song.
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If you have a need for prayer.
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If you want to ask a question about Christ.
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And you want to come forward and pray with me.
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Please do as we stand and sing together.
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Amen.