Hebrews 11:11
Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Through faith Sarah, though past age, received strength to conceive and bear the promised child because she judged God faithful to fulfill what He had promised. The child was given in Abraham's old age because he believed God was faithful to fulfill His promise, illustrating that faith trusts God's ability to do what He promised despite human weakness. That example was known to Zacharias, yet he briefly forgot that God could perform what He had promised.
The verse belongs to the chapter on faith and the record of the faithful, the heroes of faith from age to age and great cloud of witnesses. It is connected with Abraham and his family and presents Sarah as one marked by fidelity to God. With the other heroes her fidelity and obedience are an example brought conspicuously before the world so that their light shines to those in darkness and leads people to glorify God. Sarah stands as such a witness who breasted evils and difficulties in the way and braced successfully in the name of the Lord against opposing forces of evil, sustained and strengthened with the Lord holding her by the hand.
Its faith does not make this world home because the heritage God promised is not in this world. It teaches believers to turn from visible, common and discouraging things and loosen affections for earthly things toward unseen realities, heavenly things, the heavenly country sought and the hope of an immortal inheritance whose city is built by God. Abraham had no possession in the earth, not so much as to set foot on, though called to leave his idolatrous countrymen with the promise of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and neither he nor his son nor his son's son received it. He possessed great substance used to the glory of God and the good of others but did not look on this world as home, and his sole possession in the land of promise was the rock-hewn tomb in the cave of Machpelah bought from the Canaanites for a burial place.
The birth of the child of promise teaches that people cannot produce spiritual good by their own power; God works in every submissive, believing person, and through faith spiritual life begins and believers are enabled to do works of righteousness. The same faith that worked in God's servants of old can work in believers now, sustaining them and helping them trust God through trials, making them channels of His power, and God can work with no less power wherever hearts of faith are found. For workers for God the experience recorded teaches them to go forward in faith, do their best, and watch, work and pray; God hears and answers their petitions, and this faithful service gives them invaluable experience for later work.