Transcript and outline generated by AI—please comment if you notice any errors.
Sermon Title: Welcoming the Lord’s Work
Main Texts:
* Luke 1:26–33
* Genesis 18
Outline
I. Introduction: Welcoming the Lord
* Theme introduced: How we respond when God enters our lives
* Opening text: Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (Luke 1)
II. Mary's Story: Faith and Submission (Luke 1)
* Cultural and historical background of Mary
* Young Jewish girl, likely 13–15 years old
* Deeply rooted in Scripture
* Gabriel’s message
* She will bear a son, Jesus—Son of the Most High
* Mary’s knowledge of biblical patterns
* Miraculous births throughout Scripture: Elizabeth, the Shunammite woman, Hannah, Manoah’s wife, Rachel, Sarah
* Mary's faithful response
* Trusts the impossible: “Let it be to me according to your word”
* Offers her body and life as a vessel for God’s plan
* Isaiah 7:14 fulfilled: “The virgin shall conceive…”
III. Abraham's Story: Lavish Hospitality (Genesis 18)
* Context
* Immediate continuation of Genesis 17 (covenant of circumcision)
* The Lord appears at the Oaks of Mamre
* Abraham sees three men, recognizes the Lord among them
* Abraham's extravagant response
* Rushes to welcome them
* Prepares a lavish meal (20–25 lbs. of flour, tender calf, curds, milk)
* Symbolizes total surrender of his resources to God
* Parallel to Mary
* Abraham, like Mary, welcomes God with all he has
IV. Sarah's Response: Doubt and Denial
* Sarah overhears the promise
* She laughs in disbelief
* Her skepticism is rebuked
* God confronts her: “Why did you laugh?”
* Contrast with Mary
* Sarah doubts due to long delay (25 years of waiting)
* Mary believes despite physical impossibility
V. Application: Recognizing and Responding to God's Presence
* God initiates; we respond
* Through creation, Scripture, and personal calling
* Abraham and Mary welcome God lavishly
* Offer the best they have
* Sarah illustrates delayed hope and fatigue
* But God is still faithful
* Doubt is not sin—denying doubt can be dangerous
* Example of the Psalms: honesty before God
* “How long, O Lord?” prayers reflect faithful lament
* Mark 9: “I believe, help my unbelief”
VI. Encouragement and Practical Homework
* If you’re doubting God’s goodness:
* Write down how you’ve seen God work in your life
* Pray through a psalm each day until Christmas—learn how to talk to God honestly
VII. Conclusion: Trust God, He is For You
* God fulfills His promises
* Isaac is born to Sarah
* Jesus is born to Mary
* Romans 8:28 referenced—God works all things for good
* Mary’s Song (Luke 1:46–55) read in closing
* Expresses deep joy, faith, and biblical richness
Summary
This sermon explores how we respond when God enters our lives, focusing on two biblical examples: Mary and Abraham. Mary responds to an impossible promise with humble faith, while Abraham demonstrates lavish hospitality upon encountering God. In contrast, Sarah laughs in disbelief at God's long-awaited promise, reflecting exhaustion and doubt. The preacher calls us to recognize God’s pursuit of us and respond with trust and surrender. Even in seasons of doubt, we are encouraged to be honest with God and remain rooted in Scripture—especially the Psalms. Ultimately, we are reminded that God is good, faithful, and worthy of being welcomed into every part of our lives.
Transcript
We're going to be back in Genesis chapter 18 as we have been, but before we get there, I'm going to turn to Luke chapter 1. This is a sermon about welcoming the Lord. Luke chapter 1, I'm going to read verses 26 to 33 to begin with.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
I want you to imagine this scenario. Mary is a young girl. She's betrothed to a man named Joseph. In that society, betrothal to be married would have happened probably in her early to mid teenage years. So this is a girl of maybe 13 to 15 years old. She's from, as we're going to see, a deeply religious household. They're devout Jews. She knows the scriptures very well. But regardless of how religious your upbringing, to have the angel Gabriel show up and say, "Hi, Mary, how are you?" would be terrifying. And she's greatly troubled, it says, at this message. But he comes to her, and this is the message that he has: you are going to conceive and bear a son.
As I said, we can see from Mary's song later on in this chapter that she is a young woman who knows the scriptures very, very well. As a teenager, she knows—I would say she knows the Bible better than probably most pastors in 21st-century America do. And she would know that when an unexpected person gets pregnant, it means God is on the move, that something is happening. We see this over and over again.
Earlier in Luke chapter 1, we read of God coming to Zachariah, the priest, as he's serving in the house of the Lord. And Zachariah is an old man. His wife, Elizabeth, is an old woman. They're childless. And the angel comes to Zachariah and says, your wife who has been called barren is going to bear a son. And it's so difficult for Zachariah to believe that he's like, this can't be. And the angel strikes him mute. He can't even speak until his son is born. And this is six months into her pregnancy that the angel is coming to Mary, and they are related, as we'll see.
So there's that, but then you start backing up in salvation history. The last of the great miracle-working prophets in the Old Testament is Elisha. So there's prophets all through the Old Testament, but really the concentrations of miracles only happen around the ministry of Moses and Joshua, and then Elijah and Elisha. One of the miracles that happens in the ministry of Elisha is he comes to this woman—she's not even referred to by name, she's just known as the Shunammite woman—and she's offered hospitality to the prophet. He promises her that a year later from his meeting with her, she is going to bear a son. She says, that's too good to be true. Don't tell me things that can't happen. And then it happens. Interestingly enough, that son also dies and then is raised from the dead by Elisha later in his ministry.
If you back up further into the start of 1 Samuel, that whole narrative, 1 and 2 Samuel, which mainly focuses on the rise of King David, opens with a barren woman, Hannah, who is longing for a son. When the Lord opens her womb and gives her a son, he is Samuel, the last of the great Old Testament judges who prepares the way for the monarchy, for King Saul, and then ultimately King David to come to power. He anoints King David king.
Backing up further into the book of Judges, the judge who gets the most airtime in the book of Judges is Samson, who is born to Manoah and his wife, who are also childless and longing for a son. It seems like they aren't going to have any. Then an angel comes to Manoah and promises, your wife will bear a son.
In the book of Genesis, Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, is childless and struggles mightily over her childlessness. When the Lord gives her a son, he is Joseph, who becomes a central character in chapters 37 to 50 of Genesis. Then you come all the way back to Sarah, who we're going to talk about here in Genesis 18 this morning, who is 90 years old and had been promised a son 25 years earlier, and nothing had happened. Until ultimately the Lord gives her a son.
Mary is going to hear this promise and have all of that background in play. And so she knows this is hard to believe. She's going to ask, how can this be since I am a virgin? You know, those other people, they were barren. They were old ladies. And it would seem unlikely for them to have children. But she says, for me, it's a physical impossibility. And yet she knows that if the unexpected woman is going to bear a son, it means—aslan is on the move, right? There's something strange happening when the unexpected woman gives birth to a child.
Again, she's not simply barren. She's never known a man, the text tells us. She's a virgin. Verses 34 and following: Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.
And that language of the Most High will overshadow you echoes back to Genesis and the language of the Spirit hovering over the face of the waters. God actively working in creation. This isn't pagan mythology where there's intercourse between the gods and human beings. Rather, what we see here is that God is actively doing a special work of creation within the womb of Mary.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son and is in the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.
I don't know if it popped into her head immediately, but surely she would have thought of Isaiah 7:14, which says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us. And here she's being told by the angel, your son is going to be called Son of the Most High God. God with us is specifically what Joseph is told over in Matthew's account.
What is Mary's response to this news? Her response is to welcome what God is doing. This would have cost her mightily—cost her in social standing. For the rest of her life, people would have whispered about her getting pregnant before she was married. Nobody else is going to believe that she was a virgin when she got married. And we could think maybe 50 or 60 years ago that would have had a whole lot of stigma in our society. Still nothing compared to what it would have been for a first-century Jew.
This is a costly thing for her to receive, for her to bear, and yet she says, let it be done to me as the Lord wills. Let it be to me as you have said. She welcomes the presence of the Lord in her life, the work of the Lord in her life—even in her own body.
And that takes us to Genesis chapter 18. Last week we looked at chapter 17, where God comes to Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and gives him this covenant of circumcision that signifies Abraham's identification with God. All of the males in his household are supposed to take on this sign.
Usually, between the scenes in Genesis, there's quite some period of time. We can skip over a lot of time. That doesn't happen here. Chapter 18 follows quickly on the heels of chapter 17. It says, the Lord appeared to him, appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, which if you will remember is where Abraham had settled. He never builds a permanent home in the land of Canaan, but the oaks of Mamre are where he settled.
He lifted up his eyes, Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, Oh Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree while I bring a morsel of 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.
Abraham went quickly to the tent of Sarah and said, quick, three seahs of fine flour, knead it and make cakes. Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man who prepared it quickly. 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.
The first thing we see here is that God initiates with Abraham again. God is always the one coming to Abraham, and this parallels with what we read in Luke 1, where God sends the angel Gabriel. Gabriel comes to her, and here the Lord appears to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre.
It says Abraham lifts up his eyes, and we're probably supposed to picture this old man sitting at the front of his tent. It's his equivalent of sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. Guy's 100 years old, and he's out there probably dozing off, taking a nap, and he lifts up his eyes, and there's three guys standing here. Where did you come from? But he immediately recognizes who they are. He recognizes their significance. He runs to them.
Now, this is not how a dignified, powerful, older man would normally act—to sprint towards his visitors and bow on the ground before them. Abraham's probably not doing this for anybody else who shows up. They would be coming to him and bowing and saying, “Oh great Abraham, owner of all these possessions, commander of all these men.” But here Abraham sees these fellows come up to him and he runs toward them and prostrates himself on the ground before them and requests that they not pass him by. He says, you've come here. Please let me just go get a little bit of water to wash your feet. Let me go get a morsel of bread to provide something for you. Do not pass me by.
Abraham recognizes the Lord and he welcomes him. That's interesting. Who is he recognizing here? There's three men. Who are these three men?
We're told in verse 1 that the Lord is who appeared to him. Some people will see these three men with the identification of the Lord in verse 1 and say, well, this is an Old Testament instance of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don't think that's what's happening here. That doesn't really make sense of the text because if you continue on into chapter 19, two of the men go on down into the city of Sodom where Lot is, and they're referred to as angels.
So the two most likely understandings of this are: number one, that one of these men—the primary speaker—is a theophany, an appearance of God in human form. God doesn't have a body—John 4:24 tells us God is spirit, he's immaterial. But in the Old Testament, there are times when it seems that perhaps God is revealing himself in human form so that he can communicate with human beings.
Probably, I think the most likely understanding is that one of these individuals—the one who does most of the speaking—is God revealing himself in human form to Abraham, and the other two are angels who are accompanying him that he's going to send down into Sodom to rescue Lot later on.
It's also possible that all three of them are angels, but because they are from the Lord and are speaking with God's authority, it makes sense for the text to refer to them with the divine title. Like when Abraham speaks to them, he is speaking to the Lord because they are all authorized representatives of God. So that's possible as well. They could all three be angels, or two are angels and one is a theophany—an appearance of God in the Old Testament in human form.
Either way, God has come to Abraham. God is initiating, and Abraham recognizes that. And Abraham welcomes God's intrusion into his life.
You see this in the way that Abraham responds. He begs them to stay, and then the speaker—God—says, do as you have said. After Abraham has said, let me get you a morsel of bread, he runs into the tent and says to Sarah, “Quick, three seahs of fine flour.” Now, I don't know if you know how much a seah is. I didn't know how much a seah was. The equivalent of three seahs is about 20 to 25 pounds of flour. This is not a morsel of bread.
I don't know what your bread recipe calls for, but I'm thinking a pretty good-sized bread recipe would be like 8 to 10 cups, and this would be 10 times that. So this is a lot of bread. Now we know Sarah's not doing this by herself. She has servants, and so they get the bread-making crew together. Then he goes out to the herd and grabs a calf—tender and good—and then he gets milk and curds, which would have been luxury foods. So he is spreading a feast before God. He welcomes God's presence by giving God the very best that he has.
Again, this draws my mind to a parallel with Luke 1, where Mary welcomes the Lord, allowing the Lord to use her body as the home for the Lord Jesus—God the Son—for nine months. She offers the best that she has, all of herself, to the Lord. And here, Abraham, by offering the very best that he has, is symbolically saying, “God, everything that I have is at your disposal. It belongs to you.” Abraham welcomes the Lord's work and the Lord's presence in his life.
How do you respond to the Lord’s pursuit of you? The Lord initiates with each of us. If you've trusted in Christ as your Savior, it's because he's been at work in your heart, drawing you. I think even whether we choose to respond or not, there is a sense in which God initiates with each of us by revealing himself in creation. As we come to places where we hear the Word of God, he's initiating, he's speaking to us.
And then we are called to respond. In each of these times where God reveals himself to Abraham, God is the one initiating, and yet Abraham is responsible to respond to him. Abraham could respond by saying, “No, I don't believe.” But he has chosen—15:6—to believe, and it's counted to him as righteousness. And then that belief always works itself out in his actions.
Well, how do I respond? How do I welcome the Lord in my life? What kind of things do I give to him? Not that he doesn't have everything at his disposal—we don't give things to God because he needs them. God and these angels, they don't need Abraham to feed them. God's not needy here in this text. But Abraham is displaying, “I want God in my life,” by offering him everything that he has.
I think that's an important question for us to consider. Do you recognize and welcome God when he is at work? Do you recognize and welcome his work in your life, even when it might be hard—even when he calls you to do things like Mary, where it could be very costly for you socially?
Abraham lavishly responds to the Lord. He offers him everything he has. He holds nothing back from him. And that stands in parallel with Mary and in contrast with his own wife, Sarah.
Verse 9: they said to him—after they've eaten—they say to Abraham, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” And he says, “She is in the tent.” And the Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself saying, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 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 hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied it, saying, “No, I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”
These men have come to reiterate the promise to Abraham that he is going to have a son and that that son will be born about this time the following year. He also comes to reiterate that promise because, if you know the rest of the story here in Genesis 18 and 19, God is about to announce his destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—Sodom being the city where Abraham's nephew Lot lives.
So I think it's important for Abraham's sake that God is coming to remind him of his promise to bless him and to give him a son and to give him descendants. As God is about to exercise judgment on this place where Lot lives, Abraham could read that as, “Ooh, has God given up on my family if this place where Lot has chosen to live is about to be destroyed?” But here God comes and reminds him of the promise: “Hey, remember that I am for you, Abraham. I am for you and for your family.” And he also does it in a way so that Sarah herself directly hears the promise.
We don't know for sure, but it seems like if you go back through the earlier promises that Abraham has received, that he's hearing from God directly and that Sarah's getting it all secondhand. But here Sarah herself, listening at the tent door, is able to hear God speaking to Abraham and giving this promise.
But Sarah, unlike Mary, doesn't hear this and receive it with faithful joy. Instead, she hears it and scoffingly laughs. “Is this even—how is this possible? I am old. My husband is very old.” Remember, she had given up and said, “Maybe take my maidservant. Maybe that's how God's going to give us a child”—thirteen years prior to this. She has given up on God, it would seem.
We shouldn't downplay—she's been very generous with her efforts and with her hospitality in this situation. Abraham storms in the door and says, “Grab 20 pounds of flour and start working.” She's been active in extending hospitality to these men. But you can tell she is just tired of this promise. Twenty-five years they've been waiting for God to come through, and it hasn't happened yet.
In the end, she doesn't even want to admit her own doubts. When the Lord asks Abraham, “Why did she laugh?” verse 15 says Sarah denied having laughed. “I didn't laugh.” Yeah. Yeah, you did. You did. And she's got every earthly reason to, right? Again, she's 90 years old. This promise is 25 years old. Physically, her cycle is not happening anymore. There's no reason to think that she is capable of bearing a child. And yet God keeps promising it.
And it's understandable on a human level that she would just laugh in disbelief. “Whatever, God.”
I think the difference between Mary’s response to God’s impossible promise—for a virgin to conceive, impossible—and Sarah’s response to a highly unlikely promise—for an older woman to conceive—is trust. The difference between “May it be to me as you have said,” and “Really?” is that Mary trusted the goodness of God. And it seems that Sarah has given up on the goodness of God.
Again, twenty-five years after hearing the promise initially, thirteen years after the prior failed attempt to “help God out,” and now with a husband who’s acting crazy—he’s circumcised himself and all of the males in the household, again not very long before this—and he’s asking her to make this lavish feast for three random guys who just showed up. And now I’m supposed to believe the promise is about to come true? “Shall I have pleasure? Will I really hold a son?” It’s a reasonable question to ask.
I wonder this morning, do you doubt the goodness of God? Do you wonder if he is really for you? Do you have things going on in your family, or in your finances, or at work, that make you scratch your head and go, “If God is real…” She doesn’t doubt that God is real. She just doubts that he’s for her.
I honestly don’t remember a time in my life where I’ve wondered if God is real. It just seems so manifestly obvious to me that this can’t all just happen by happenstance. But there have been a lot of times where I’ve wondered, “Are you good? Are you for me? Do you care about me?” And that seems to be where Sarah is at.
I think one of the things we can learn from this text here in Genesis 18 is that if we do doubt him, we should tell him. That doesn’t arise specifically out of the text, but Sarah’s denying the doubts, right? She’s denying that she laughed when God said she would bear a son. And that stands in stark contrast to the Psalms.
The Psalms, which are the songbook—the prayer book—of the Bible. You’ve got 150 of them, where the psalmists, of every emotional and mental state, pour out where they are to God. “How long, O Lord,” is one of the most repeated phrases in the Psalms. Psalm 13: “How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?” Psalm 79:5: “How long, O Lord, will you be angry forever?” Psalm 89:46: “How long, O Lord, will you hide yourself forever?”
How long, O Lord?
So tell God where you are. Tell God if you doubt his goodness. I often think of the father in Mark 9 who is told to believe, and he says, “I believe—help my unbelief.”
One of the things that I think brings Mary to a state where she can hear this inconceivable news from God and receive it with joy is the fact that she is deeply, deeply rooted in the Scriptures. If you read through her song—the Magnificat—in Luke chapter 1, what you see is that, first of all, her song, even in its structure, is based on Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2. Then it is riddled, all the way through, with quotations and allusions—not just to that song, but also to phrases that come all throughout the Psalter. They’re showing up in Mary’s song.
She is a young woman who deeply knows the Lord because she deeply knows his Word.
So if you are doubting the goodness of God this morning, I have a homework assignment for you. And there’s two things.
Number one is to just go home this afternoon and write down the ways that you have seen him work positively in your life. Even if it’s in a hard circumstance—like “You brought me through this, and I learned this lesson,” or “I’ve seen you at work in this way.” Sarah’s forgetting. Yes, it has been a long time on this particular promise. But all the rest of the promises God made to Abraham—they’re already starting to see them fulfilled. God has made Abraham great, made him prosperous, has started to bless everyone around through him. The only thing that hasn’t started to happen is her pregnancy and giving birth to a son. Now, that’s a pretty big thing, right? Sometimes God leaves us waiting on really big things. But he has visibly been at work in her life, and she’s not recognizing that.
So write a list so you can see it in front of you—how God has worked in your life.
And second of all, take the Psalms and, just today, one a day from now until Christmas—I’m not saying you have to do this forever—but just like, from now until Christmas, take one psalm a day and look at how the psalmist talks to God. Try to talk to God like that. Use it as a model for prayer.
If you do that—especially if you do it over an extended period of time—today’s the 15th? Ten days till Christmas. That’s ten. That’s going to give you some variety. If you do it over a long period of time and cover the Psalter, what you’re going to see is that the psalmists come to God in their joys—they come to God when they are high and loving the fact that they know God—and they come to God when they are absolutely in the basement.
Psalm 42 and 43 both have this repeated phrase: “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” The implication being: he doesn’t even feel like he can praise God. He feels so distant from God at that moment.
God is big enough to handle all of your doubts and all of your worries and all of your misgivings and mistrust. The danger in the Scriptures is not to have those feelings and thoughts. The dangerous thing is to have them and then not go to God with them. If you try to bottle those up and handle them on your own, you are putting yourself in a dangerous situation spiritually. But if you will go to God and be honest with him, he is big enough to handle it.
Friends, we need to welcome the work of the Lord in our life like Mary did, like Abraham is happy to do here. But we will not do so regularly or in the way that we ought to if we do not trust that he really is for us.
It may seem like a promise—like Romans 8:28, that God is working all things together for good—you might look at your circumstances and say, “That’s not possible.” And humanly speaking, it may not be possible for this thing that you’re going through, or that you’re experiencing, or that you’re feeling, to be turned for good. But it is not impossible for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Not to bury the lead here, but they get their son, right? They get the child. God does bring laughter—not of disbelief—but he brings laughter of joy. Nothing is too hard for him.
I want to close by reading Mary’s song in Luke 1, beginning in verse 46:
And Mary said,“My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;for he who is mighty has done great things for me,and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear himfrom generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel,in remembrance of his mercy,as he spoke to our fathers,to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Friends, the same God that Mary spoke to, the same God who came to Abraham and Sarah, is the same God who is at work in this world today and wants to be at work in your life today. So you should trust him. You can trust him, because he is for you. And so, welcome him.
Let’s pray.
Father, we ask that you would teach us to welcome your work in our life, whether it’s easy and pleasant in the moment or hard and painful. The psalmist writes in Psalm 119 that you are good and do good. And so we ask now that you would teach us your statutes, help us to trust you, to trust in your goodness, and to welcome whatever you would have in our lives. We pray in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.
