God’s Surprising Future — June 14, 2026

God’s Surprising Future

Click here for a version of this sermon formatted for printing. Click here for the sermon video.

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three people standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?”

The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

---

There have been so many times that I thought I knew what my future held. 

I thought I would be an engineer. 

I thought a relationship would last. 

I thought I was on the right career path. 

I thought we wouldn’t have children. 

I thought we were settled here to stay. 

I thought I knew what my future held. It wasn’t always comfortable, but it was familiar. It was a future I could imagine and I could make happen. Yet time and again, God had different plans. In fact, every time I make a plan, God seems intent on disrupting it.

Sarah knew something about disrupted plans.

God had promised that she and Abraham would become the ancestors of a great nation. Yet they could not even become the parents of one child. After decades of barrenness, they were no longer waiting hopefully for a miracle. They had adapted to disappointment. They had already found what seemed like a practical solution when Sarah gave her slave Hagar to Abraham, and Ishmael was born. Abraham had the heir he needed.

Then, the Lord comes for a visit and reiterates this promise, declaring that Sarah will give birth in due season. Surely God knows that ship has sailed. Sarah has entered menopause. The physical demands of pregnancy and childbirth belong to a much earlier season of life. (I should know!)

The promise sounds absurd because it contradicts everything Sarah has learned from experience. It goes against everything she can see and understand. So she laughs, not a laugh of joy, but a laugh of disbelief.

She has accepted hopelessness as normal.

When Jesus went out among the towns and villages, he encountered people who had accepted hopeless as normal too. Matthew tells us, “They were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd.” [See Note 1]Jesus met the sick, the oppressed, the marginalized, the impoverished, and the exhausted. Living under Roman occupation, people could hardly imagine a different future. Most were simply trying to survive. Some scholars estimate that over a quarter of people in the Roman Empire lived below subsistence level, not knowing whether they would be able to meet their daily needs. [See Note 2] If you cannot be sure about today, how can you hope for tomorrow?

The world felt fixed and settled in its brokenness. It was hard to imagine things could change. It’s not so different today. 

Day after day, we hear stories about the brokenness in our world, stories of suffering and injustice. We hear about people denied medical care, families separated, people detained. We see resources poured into systems of violence and domination that could be better spent to house, feed, educate, and care for those in need.

The world feels fixed and settled in its brokenness. It is hard to imagine things could change.

The problems seem so large that we begin to accept them as inevitable. The systems are too big to move, so we learn to be “reasonable.” We stop expecting transformation. We adjust to scarcity. We assume the future will simply be more of the present. 

Like Sarah, we accept hopelessness as normal.

And yet when Sarah laughs in disbelief, the Lord asks, “Is anything impossible for the Lord?” [See Note 3]

This question changes everything. 

Biblical scholar Walter Bruggemann points out, “Not everything depends on their answer. The resolve of God to open a future by a new heir does not depend on the readiness of Abraham and Sarah to accept it…It will happen, if not in a context of ready faith, then in a context of fearful, resistant laughter.” [See Note 4] Their laughter does not cancel God’s promise. Their doubts do not prevent God’s future from arriving. God’s determination to create a new future does not depend on them.

When Sarah finally gives birth to Isaac, it’s not because Abraham and Sarah believe enough, or are ready enough, but because God is faithful. 

Their faith does not produce a miracle, but God does. 

In Romans, Paul reminds us that “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” God acts before we are ready. God acts before we deserve it. God acts because that is who God is.

This is the good news Jesus proclaims: The kindom of God has come near.

The kindom of God is not like any earthly kingdom. 

The kindom of God is one of healing and wholeness.

The kindom of God is expansive and inclusive, surprising us in who becomes our table companions.

The kindom of God makes a way where there is no way, tumbling down walls and driving through dead ends.

The kindom of God brings a child out of barrenness, brings life out of death.

The kindom of God brings a future that we could never create for ourselves. 

That is why the gospel is scandalous. Faith is not about being comfortable. It is not about what seems reasonable or possible according to the evidence before us. The Gospel shatters our assumptions and disrupts our settled expectations.

In Sacred Signposts, Benjamin Dueholm wrote, “Many Christians, in a pious gesture, stand up when the stories of Jesus are read in church…But it might be more appropriate to take shelter.” [See Note 5]

The good news is dangerous because it refuses to leave the world as it is.

And it refuses to leave us as we are.

That is why Jesus sends the disciples out. They are not sent because they are fully prepared or because success is guaranteed. They are sent because the kindom of God has come near, and they are called to bear witness to it – and so are we.

We are not called to manufacture God’s future. We are called to notice it, proclaim it, and participate in it. We are called to bear witness to the ways God’s new creation is already breaking into the world.

For God is not limited by our imagination, resources, or readiness.

God is not limited by our faithfulness. In light of all these limitations, the kindom comes near anyway.

So when we find ourselves standing at the tent flap with Sarah, laughing at promises that seem impossible, staring at barren places and calling them reality, may we be interrupted with that same question: 

“Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

The answer has always been – and always will be – the same.

God keeps bringing hope where we see only dead ends.
God keeps opening futures we have already closed.
God keeps turning laughter of disbelief into laughter of joy.

For nothing is too wonderful for the God who brings life out of death. Amen.

Notes:

Note 1: Matthew 9:36

Note 2: Introducing the New Testament by Mark Allan Powell

Note 3: Genesis 18:14

Note 4: Interpretation: Genesis by Walter Brueggemann, p 160

Note 5: Sacred Signposts by Benjamin J Dueholm p 27