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The Sermon for Sunday, July 20th, 2025, the Fifth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Genesis 18:1-14; Psalm 15; Colossians 1:21-29; Luke 10:38-42
The Text: Genesis 18:1-14
INTRODUCTION
At the 1997 Brickyard 400 auto race, NASCAR driver Lake Speed learned firsthand the amazing effect of prayer. His car had been having mechanical problems. Sitting on the track in preparation for a qualifying run, he waited in frustration because his car wouldn’t start. Meanwhile he prayed. Finally, his crew chief Jeff Buice took out a wrench and hand-cranked the engine Model-A style. The car started, and Lake roared onto the track to post the second fastest qualifying time of the day.
Victor Lee writes in Sports Spectrum:
Later, when Speed returned to the pits to get ready for a final practice session, he found his crew tearing out the engine. Shocked, he asked what was going on.
“Lake, that engine was blown before you qualified,” Buice said, noting that it had blown during the NASCAR pre-race inspection. Lake looked more closely. Oil was everywhere.
Buice continued, “I wasn’t going to tell you anything, because time had run out. But I was already trying to figure out how I was going to spend Saturday. Even if it started, I surely didn’t expect it to make a lap, and surely not to run good enough to make the race.”
Lake’s assessment: “God did a major mechanical miracle. I always pray right before the race. Sitting on that track, when it didn’t start, I prayed, ‘Lord, I don’t know what’s going on here, but if there’s any way, I’d like this thing to start.’”
Driver Lake Speed went on to finish twelfth in the race, his second best finish in 1997.
You may say this has a perfectly natural explanation; or you may call it a miracle; but without question according to the automobile experts on the scene this was a remarkable event that followed prayer….Remarkable events and coincidences often follow prayer.[1]
GENESIS 18:1-14: THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
Previously in the Book of Genesis (Chapters 15-17), God repeatedly promised Abraham that he would father a son and be the ancestor of many peoples. Abraham had even laughed and asked how this was possible since he was a hundred years old and his wife ninety (Genesis 17:17), and God had assured him that his wife Sarah would bear him a son whom he would name Isaac, and that God would establish his covenant with him forever and with his descendants (Genesis 17:19).
Here, in Genesis 18, the Lord confirms his word to Abraham and Sarah, saying that in the same season the following year, Sarah would bear a son (Genesis 18:10). Sarah laughs to herself when she hears this. As a woman in those times, she would not have been permitted to be in the company of the male guests, but she overhears this word at the tent door. The Lord, though, knows that she has laughed, and asks Abraham why she laughed at the message that she would give birth to a son in the next year (Genesis 18:13). The Lord repeats his prophetic message after asking the rhetorical question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14a, KJV).
The three visitors were probably angels of the Lord, although some church fathers regarded them as God the Blessed Trinity appearing in human form. Abraham eagerly offers them hospitality, not knowing at first that they are on the way to investigate the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and one of the blessings that came to Abraham and Sarah during or after the meal that they provided for the three visitors, was the confirmation of God’s promise that Sarah would give birth to a son in a year’s time. It is to this incident, I believe, that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers when he writes: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2, KJV). God kept his word to Abraham and Sarah, and she gave birth to Isaac (Genesis 21:1-8).
GOD’S PREDICTIONS COME TO PASS – NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM!
What we learn from this passage is that God fulfills every good promise that He gives to his people. No matter how many years we have waited or must still wait for the fulfillment of his good promises to us, we must continue to believe steadfastly that God will do for us what He has promised He will do! We must even pray and do spiritual warfare with the promises that He has given us, and not doubt them, or give up on them ever. Rather we must continue believing them, and doing all we can to please God by believing and obeying His words to us!
[1] p.351, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers, and Writers, from Craig Larson and Leadership Journal. Baker Books, 2002, 2nd Printing, 2008.