Let’s see…a guy preaching on putting women in their place. What could possibly go wrong? Wait! Don’t answer that question. I already know the answer. We talk about putting women in their place, and our minds, unfortunately, return to a less pleasant time in history. Culture even framed the debate with the philosophy that “a woman’s place is in the home.” That sentiment is neither healthy, helpful or correct, unless a woman chooses to make the home her place. Actually, as we look at biblical history, we discover that women are integral to the story…integral to the plan and purposes of God. The purpose of this message series is to explore some of the key female characters of the bible, and in so doing, remind ourselves of the holy and sacred place God has for women in the Kingdom. We’ll do so by spending four weeks looking at some women in the bible who had a life-changing impact on those around them. We’ll only look at four because it fit well with sermon planning. Actually, we could do an entire year or more because the bible is filled with influential women who made an impact in their culture, family or community. We begin with a look at the matriarch of the nation of Israel, Sarah.
Before I delve deeply into Sarah’s story, let me take a few moments to remind us of the creation story of Genesis. That takes us back to the first woman—Eve. Here’s how the story is told in Genesis 2: 18 – 22:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.
21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
This single passage of scripture does all that needs doing in debunking any theory that women are somehow inferior to men. In the interest of time, look at one primary point this passage makes—that of complementation. Here’s the key phrase, “a helper fit for him.” There’s even a key word in the phrase—helper. The word helper is a difficult word in the Hebrew because it's highly contextualized. The only way it makes sense is how it’s used in the sentence.
Let me illustrate it this way. The English word fast is a hard word. It can mean speed. It can mean abstaining from food. It can mean stubbornness in position. We can run fast, or we can go on a fast, or we can hold fast to the doctrines of the faith. The only way to know what fast means is to put it in a sentence. Suppose I say, “Yesterday I ran a fast 5K,” you know exactly what I'm talking about, because the context dictates the word. If I said, “We’re going to fast 40 days for Lent,” you don't think we’ll be doing wind sprints on the parking lot.
This Hebrew word for helper is similar. It's used throughout the Old Testament, and the context always matters. The word help is most often used in regard to God helping man. Let me give you a couple of these texts. Exodus 18:4: “…and the name of the other, Eliezer…” Here's the meaning of his name. “…(for he said,’'The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh’).” God is my helper. Deuteronomy 33:7: “And this he said of Judah: ‘Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him in to his people. With your hands contend for him, and be a help against his adversaries’.” So God is our helper. One more, for good measure—Psalm 33:20: “Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.”
Here's my point: God being called helper throughout the Bible brings honor to the position of helper. Since God has been called the helper, a helper cannot be inherently inferior. So if woman has been made a “helper fit for him,” a woman as helper to the man cannot mean the woman is inferior in any way. To say that a woman who is helping is somehow inferior to the one with primary responsibility is to make the accusation that God is inferior for the help he gives his children. That’s absurd. So, she is a helper fit for him. Not a helper like him, but a helper fit for him. The phrase, “fit for him,” leads us to the idea of complementarian relationship. The man and the woman were created unique by God, both in the image of God, equal in dignity, value, and worth, but they have been meant to complement one another, not compete against one another. The weaknesses of one are strengthened by the strengths of the other, and the strengths of the other one are made even stronger by the strengths of the other. I’m sorry to spend so much time on this, but I want for us to understand that even from the beginning, women were never subordinate or inferior to men. Somewhere in time, that understanding was lost. I do mention it, however, because we see that type of relationship lived out in the life of Sarah and Abraham.
I really must give you the Reader’s Digest version of Sarah’s story. Sarah, whose name means princess, is introduced in the Bible as Sarai, the infertile wife of Abraham. As the story unfolds, Abraham identifies Sarah as his “half-sister,” his father’s daughter, but not his mother’s. Don’t get bogged down there. This was before any Mosaic law restrictions prohibiting such relationships. When Abraham’s father decided to move to Canaan, Abraham and Sarah went along, but instead of completing the journey, they stopped several hundred miles north in a place called Haran, because God had called Abraham to leave his father and the rest of his family, and God would make of Abraham a “great nation.” They lived there for many years, and when Abraham’s father died, they finally made their way to Canaan. By this time, Abraham was seventy-five, Sarah was sixty-six and they were still childless.
The couple and their entourage encountered a famine and had to seek refuge in Egypt. While there Abraham, fearing for his life, passed Sarah off as his sister to the King of Egypt. Even at 66, Sarah was a beautiful woman. The King of Egypt soon discovered the truth and ran Abraham and Sarah out of the country. The same scenario repeated itself in a place called Gerar. Again, God revealed to King Abimelech of Gerar the truth of Abraham and Sarah’s relationship, and they were sent away yet again.
By the time Sarah was seventy-five, she concluded that she would never have a child, even though God had been promising one since the time they left Abraham’s father’s house. Sarah took matters into her own hands and gave her servant to Abraham to have a child. Well, that turned into a fiasco. I won’t go into the entire story, let’s just say that Abraham and Sarah’s family would qualify as an early example of a dysfunctional family.
Fifteen more years pass, and the couple is still childless. One day, God appears to Abraham announcing again that he will have a child with Sarah, and what does Abraham do? He laughs. A few days pass and guests show up on Abraham and Sarah’s doorstep, and announce to Abraham that within one year, Sarah will bear him a son. Sarah overhears their conversation, and what does she do? She laughs. I don’t blame them—he’s ninety-nine and she’s ninety. That really is something to laugh about. Seriously, I’m fifty-two, and I can’t imagine for one minute having an infant at home. Oh, I love my grandchildren, don’t get me wrong, but the thing with grandchildren is you can send them home. No more sleepless nights for this guy, at least not because a baby needs feeding or changing. Seriously, I took two of my grandchildren to Great Wolf Lodge two weeks ago…for one day…one day, I tell you. And, they wore me out! Yet, at nearly twice my age, Abraham and Sarah are facing having an infant. In that case, I’d have to laugh to keep from crying!
Sarah’s laugh of disbelief was turned to a laugh of joy as God fulfilled His promise in her life. There are three lessons I learn from Sarah’s story. First of all, the best laughter comes when God does something “God sized” in our life. A “God-sized” event is something that only God can do. Another word for it is “miracle.” When God promised to give Abraham and Sarah a son at the ripe old age of 75 and 65, it was a pretty God-sized event. But to make sure that no one could ever doubt the “God-sized” nature of this birth, God waited nearly 30 years to fulfill the promise. After years and tears of frustration and disappointment, the promised son finally came. And Sarah laughed as she had never laughed before. She experienced joy, gratitude, and God’s grace at such a deep level that her natural reaction was laughter, and it was a holy laughter.
It’s too bad that Sarah wasted nearly 30 years of her life in doubting, scheming, and laughing with cynicism at God’s promise. We can’t really blame her, though, can we? After all, she’d lived all those years in barrenness, deception and family dysfunction. She had to be skeptical, right? Until it actually happened, Sarah did not believe in miracles or God-sized events like this one.
I fear that many of us miss out on years of joy and holy laughter because we don’t believe in miracles. We think only special people get that kind of special treatment from God. We think we’re too unworthy to be granted any God-sized gifts. Or, we doubt God really has the power to “pull it off.”
I’m not a “Pentecostal” preacher, but I do believe in miracles. I don’t write off the miracles in the Bible as “special events” for a particular time and people. When I hear of someone dying of cancer, I know that God can heal them, and I pray for their healing. When I hear testimonies of miraculous healings, or come across healing crusades while channel surfing, I don’t assume it’s a hoax. It may be, but that’s not for me to judge. The miracle working God of Bible times is the miracle working God of today. God is immutable, and does not change. God’s miracle working power never stopped flowing after 100 AD. What stopped flowing was faith. Never limit what God can do in our life. Don’t question God’s promises. Don’t doubt God’s unconditional love. Don’t doubt God’s immeasurable power to give us above and beyond what we hope and dream for in his Kingdom. Trust in God and we can experience holy laughter even before the miracle comes.
Another lesson I learn from Sarah is that we have to learn to wait patiently on God’s promises. If God answered all our prayers within 5 minutes and fulfilled all his promises within days, we might not laugh quite as well as Sarah laughed. We might just take his gifts for granted and never learn the joy of patient waiting and complete trust. Holy laughter can come even in times of anticipation. We don’t know why, but God doesn’t answer all our prayers or miraculously solve all our dilemmas in an instant. We have to learn the joy of a blindfolded trust walk with God in this life, but never waver in our assurance that He is guiding us and hasn’t forgotten all his promises, promises not to harm us, but to bless us, and give us a hope and a future.
A future…that’s the final lesson I learn from Sarah’s faith. Chapter 21 begins with the birth of Isaac and these first 7 verses are really about Isaac, not Abraham or Sarah. In the same way the Bible is really about Jesus Christ—not about us or anybody else. It is the presence of Jesus in our lives, that Paul calls "the Hope of Glory" in Colossians 1:27. Our current lives are intended to be lived in the constant reminder of our future glory. As we move through our days, let the blessings and trials of life focus our heart towards our eternal home; such that the pain we feel is a reminder that one day there will be no pain in glory, and the joy’s we experience are only the slimmest taste of the inexpressible joy we will have in the glory of God’s presence.
Sarah’s lifelong hope was the birth of a son. Up until this point, the struggles of Sarah’s faith and the trials she had faced (together with Abraham) had all centered on the promise from God of a son. Just as the birth of Isaac was the single hope that they had long awaited, so also will come the day when our long awaited return of Christ will come to its full revelation. Jesus will come in splendor and he will take with him all those who believe in Him and accept his salvation! We live our lives in eager expectancy of the final arrival of the object of our hope.
In today’s passage, Sarah’s hope comes to fruition. And, just as it should be, there is great rejoicing in connection with that realization.
We want to know a woman’s place? As we look to Sarah’s life, a woman’s place is wherever she can be used of God for God’s purpose. May it be so for all our lives!
