“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.” Genesis 18:14
In 1854, a young pastor named Charles Spurgeon arrived in London to take the pulpit at New Park Street Chapel. He was nineteen years old. The congregation had dwindled to a few dozen people in a building that seated over a thousand. The deacons who invited him were taking a risk on a teenager from the countryside with no formal theological education and no credentials beyond a gift for preaching. Within months, the building was full. Within a year, the congregation had outgrown the space and was meeting in rented halls while a new building was constructed. By the time Spurgeon died in 1892, the Metropolitan Tabernacle had become the largest congregation in the world, and Spurgeon had trained hundreds of pastors, founded orphanages and almshouses, and published sermons that were read across the English-speaking world.
The deacons at New Park Street did something very simple: they looked at a situation beyond their capacity and trusted that God could do what they could not produce. They had an empty building and a teenager. God had a plan that is still reaching millions.
This week’s passages trace the same pattern across the biblical story. God comes to people at the end of their capacity, and he gives what they cannot generate on their own. He gives a son to a barren couple. He delivers the helpless and receives their thanksgiving. He looks at lost sheep and sends shepherds. He demonstrates his love by dying for people who were still in their sins. The God of the Bible moves toward weakness. He gives life where human ability has run out.
Genesis 18:1–15; (21:1–7)
Life Where Biology Has Failed
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (18:14)
The Lord appears to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre. Abraham runs to meet his visitors, prepares a feast, and stands by while they eat under the tree. Then comes the question: “Where is Sarah your wife?” And the promise: “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10).
Abraham is nearly a hundred. Sarah is past childbearing. The biological window for this promise closed years ago. Sarah hears the promise from inside the tent and laughs, because the gap between the word and her stage of life is absurd. God responds with a reframing question: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” The Hebrew word translated “hard” is the same word translated “wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6, which describes the coming Messiah. The question carries a theological claim: the God who speaks this promise operates in a realm beyond human possibility.
And in chapter 21, the promise arrives. Isaac is born. Sarah laughs again, but the laughter has been transformed. “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me” (21:6). The laughter of disbelief has become the laughter of joy, because God kept his word at the appointed time to a couple who had nothing left to contribute to the outcome. The name Isaac means “he laughs.” Every time Abraham called his son’s name, he was remembering the moment God gave life, when human capacity could not.
Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19
The Response of the Delivered
“What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” (v. 12)
The psalmist has been delivered. The specifics are left open, but the emotional shape is clear: “I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy” (v. 1). God inclined his ear. God listened. And now the psalmist, who has received the compassion of God, asks: What do I give back?
The answer is thanksgiving offered publicly, in community, before witnesses. “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (v. 13). “I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving” (v. 17). “I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people” (v. 18). The psalmist’s response to being delivered is to tell the story where others can hear it. Psalm 100 reinforces this posture: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!” (100:4). The proper response to God’s compassion is gratitude that spills over into the congregation and into the world.
The psalm also says something important about identity: “O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds” (v. 16). The delivered person belongs to the deliverer. God’s compassion creates a relationship that the psalmist describes as service born from freedom. The bonds are loosed, and the freed person stays, because the one who freed them is worth serving.
Matthew 9:35–10:8
Compassion That Sends
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (9:36)
Jesus travels through cities and villages, teaching, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing every disease and affliction. Then Matthew records what Jesus sees as he looks at the people before him: they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. The Greek word for “compassion” (splanchnizomai) describes something that grips the gut. This is the same God who came to the tent at Mamre and gave life to the barren. He sees the same kind of helplessness, and his response is the same: compassion.
Jesus tells his disciples that the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few, and he instructs them to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send workers (9:37–38). Then he immediately answers the prayer by sending the twelve. He gives them authority over unclean spirits and disease, and commissions them to proclaim the kingdom, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. And his instructions include a phrase that echoes the narrative’s logic: “You received without paying; give without pay” (10:8).
The compassion of God has always been a gift to the helpless. Abraham and Sarah received a son they could not produce. The psalmist received deliverance and responded with thanksgiving. Now, Jesus takes his compassion and extends it through human agents. The twelve go out carrying the same authority Jesus carries, bringing the same kingdom Jesus proclaims, because the crowds are too many and the need is too great for one shepherd alone. God’s compassion for the helpless creates laborers who carry that compassion forward.
Romans 5:1–8
Love Demonstrated at the Right Time
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (v. 8)
Paul names the theological reality underneath these scriptures. We have been justified by faith. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ. We stand in grace. And the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (vv. 1–5). But the heart of the passage is verse 6: “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”
The word “weak” describes the same condition that runs through all the texts this week. Abraham and Sarah were weak: old, barren, and past the point of producing what God had promised. The psalmist was weak: in bonds, in need of deliverance, crying out for mercy. The crowds in Matthew 9 were weak: harassed, helpless, and shepherd-less. Paul takes this pattern and drives it to its conclusion. God’s love moves toward weakness. It moves toward the ungodly. It moves toward sinners. And the demonstration of that love is the cross, where Christ died at “the right time,” the appointed time, the same kind of appointed time God named at Mamre when he said, “About this time next year, Sarah shall have a son.”
Paul contrasts human love with God’s love. A person might die for a righteous person, or perhaps for a good one. God demonstrated his love by dying for people who were still in their sin (vv. 7–8). The compassion Jesus felt in his gut when he saw the crowds is the same love that sent Christ to the cross. And this love has been poured into our hearts through the Spirit (v. 5), meaning the compassion of God is now at work in every believer who has received it.
Carried on Eagles’ Wings
When God spoke to Israel at Sinai, he reminded them of what he had already done: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4). Israel arrived at Sinai carried. They reached the mountain because God brought them there. The pattern holds across the whole Bible: God carries the people who cannot carry themselves, and then he invites them into relationship while sending them into service.
Meditate on whether you recognize your own helplessness and the compassion God has already shown you. Sarah laughed because the promise exceeded her capacity. The psalmist asked what he could give back to the God who delivered him. The crowds were unknowingly harassed and helpless, and Jesus sent laborers. Paul said that Christ died for us while we were still weak.
If you are in a season where your capacity has run out, the Word of God speaks directly to your circumstances. The God who gave Isaac to a barren couple, who delivers the helpless, and who sent his Son to die at the right time, is the same God who meets you in your weakness. And if you have already received the compassion of God, the Word presses you toward the response the psalmist modeled: thanksgiving offered publicly, and a life of service to the one who loosed your bonds. You received without paying. Give without pay. The harvest is plentiful, and the Lord of the harvest is still sending workers. You may be one of them.
Points to Ponder
1. Sarah laughed at God’s promise because her circumstances contradicted it. Where in your life right now are you tempted to laugh at what God has said he will do, because the visible evidence seems to run the other direction?
2. The psalmist asks, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” How would you answer that question this week? What specific act of thanksgiving or service could you offer in response to what God has done for you?
3. Jesus saw the crowds as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Who in your community fits that description right now? What would it look like for you to move toward them with the compassion of Christ?
4. Jesus told his disciples, “You received without paying; give without pay.” How does this instruction shape the way you think about using your gifts, your time, and your resources for the sake of others?
5. Paul says God’s love was demonstrated “while we were still sinners.” How does the timing of God’s love, given before you had anything to offer in return, affect the way you extend grace to people who have yet to respond to the gospel?
A Prayer
Father, we thank you that you are the God for whom nothing is too hard. You gave a son to Abraham and Sarah when their bodies had nothing left to contribute. You bore Israel on eagles’ wings and brought them to yourself. You looked at harassed and helpless crowds and sent your Son to shepherd them. You demonstrated your love by sending Christ to die for us while we were still weak and still in our sin. We confess that we are often more like Sarah laughing in the tent than like Abraham running to meet you. Forgive our disbelief. Increase our faith. Pour your love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and send us into the harvest as workers who carry your compassion to the helpless. Teach us to give without pay what we have received without paying. We lift the cup of salvation and call on your name, in the presence of your people, with thanksgiving. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
Josh Cehulik 