[Darris McNeely] To have living faith requires that sometimes we actually believe that things can happen that seem impossible. We've been covering the faith chapter in the Bible, Hebrews chapter 11, and many examples beginning with Abraham and Abel and Enoch, of those men and women who lived by faith who as it says in verse 1 where "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

There's one example in this story that is a head scratcher perhaps for some when it talks about Sarah in verse 11. "By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. She bore a child when she was past the age because she judged Him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11) speaking of God. You remember the account from Genesis. Sarah and Abraham were visited, and they were told they were going to have a child in their old age, the child of promise, which would be Isaac. But Sarah laughed at the news when Abraham brought it to her that she in her advanced age, it says that she was passed the age of child bearing and Abraham was about 100 years old when that happened. So she was pretty close to that as well. And she said, how can that happen - just impossible for me to bear a child. And circumstances kind of got distorted. Eventually she did conceive. She bore a son named Isaac who was the child of promise.

"By faith," it goes on here in verse 12 of Hebrews 11, "Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars in the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore" (Hebrews 11:12). Isaac and then Jacob and Jacob's sons ultimately gave rise to a genealogy that continues to impact the world, history, and especially prophecy. The promises that were made about Isaac did indeed come true. And we are living with the result to this day.

And so the story of Sarah out of Hebrews 11, who laughed when she was told that she would conceive a child in her old age. Sometimes that belief that translates ultimately into a living, dynamic, and active faith requires us to believe that God can do the impossible, or at least what is to us at our level of physical life and existence impossible.

That's an element of faith that we learn when we look at the story of Sarah.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.