Even though she made a mistake, God had a judgment of charity for Sarah. We too can say, “Lord, please bless this mess I made.” Sarah had her bad moments—don’t we all? Perhaps you have been hurt by the church or individual Christians in some way. It is good to have a judgment of charity in the church as much as possible, just as God had for Sarah. The Lord has a city that he has prepared for every believer, and one day all of God’s saints shall arrive there safely in glory.

Sarah had to wait until she was in her nineties to give birth to her son, Isaac. We can learn much from Sarah (formerly called Sarai) in the book of Genesis regarding what walking in faith in the promises of God looks like in real life.

1. In Genesis 11 we learn that Sarai is barren.

Because Sarai is barren, she is unable to participate in the promise of Genesis 3:15 that God would provide the seed that would crush the head of the serpent. In the culture in which Sarai lived, her husband Abram possibly could have divorced her on grounds of barrenness.

And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. (Gen. 11:29-30)

2. Sarah is not mentioned in Genesis 12-15 as the mother of the promised child of Abraham.

In God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12 and 15, there is no mention of Sarai:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3)

And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own sonshall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:3-6)

3. In Genesis 16 Sarai tries to participate in the promise of Genesis 3:15 through her servant Hagar.

Because she is advanced in years (in her 90s) and hasn’t provided Abram with an heir yet, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram as a wife in Genesis 16. Since nothing was mentioned in God’s promise about the heir coming through Sarai in Genesis 12 and 15, Abraham maybe thought taking Hagar as a wife was a reasonable “plan B.”

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain childrenby her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. (Gen. 16:1-3)

4. Sarai is acting out of faith, but she does the wrong thing.

In Galatians 4, Paul makes the point that Abraham and Sarai were trying to assist God in bringing his promise to fulfillment, adding a human ingredient in redemption, but God doesn’t need our help.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. (Gal. 4:21-23)

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