The Promised Son- Genesis 21

Sermon Nuggets Mon July 16  The Promised Son                                        

Verses- Gen 21

Life has it’s ups and downs. In everyone’s life there is good news and bad news. I am reminded of the surgeon who after his patient awoke from the operation told him he had good news and bad news. Which would he want to hear first?

“The bad news.”

“ Well we made a mistake. We were supposed to cut off your left leg and instead we cut off your right leg.”

“What is the good news?”

  We investigated the left leg and realized it didn’t need to be cut off after all.”

We have many choices along the way that can make life smoother or more difficult, but there are many circumstances that are beyond our choices that we have to deal with in courage or defeat. How is life treating you today? There is no question that I am thoroughly convinced that the best life lived is lived with faith in God. The rewarding  road is the road of  obedience. But when I say rewarding I am looking at the long picture, not the short one. It is not easy to work hard, but it usually pays off with greater rewards down the line. It is not immediately rewarding to go through the hassles of advanced education, but if that is Gods’ will for you, there is greater freedom and more opportunity later. It is not easy to resist opposition by kids or employers or family members when you take stands because of your faith that are unpopular. It is hard to be rejected, or as we have been reminded lately to even be persecuted.

This chapter speaks of the final arrival of the promised child. But is also speaks of the reality of the world in which we live. The problems, personalities, and the provisions come with changes. God often brings tribulation into the life of a faithful Christian in order to bring about growth and maturity. So also, God brings blessing into the life of the Christian in spite of what he has done more than because of anything good he has done. Sometimes we do not see the hand of God until we look back over our lives. So as we face our days we do so with a commitment to faith and obedience. When things don’t go the way to think it should, we trust God. When we witness the blessings we celebrate and thank Him. But if the path is not clear we keep doing what we know God would have us do in our everyday life with prayer and commitment to Him.  I think Genesis 21 illustrates of this kind of rocky road pointing to the consequences and blessing in life.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Tues July 17- The Promise

Gen 21:1-5 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. ² Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. ³ Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. ⁴ When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. ⁵ Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

The Promise- Isaac

Genesis 21 opens with the fulfillment of a promise - Isaac is born. It is God’s blessing according to the promise. Now the Lord was gracious, as He had said and Lord did for Sarah what He had promised. At the time he said he would do it. All they hoped and prayed and waited for finally arrived. That even makes the joy greater. When you have been through trials and hard times you experience all the more the excitement of the provision of God.

The hard part is waiting. God’s timing is not man’s timing. Abraham and Sarah sinned when they tried to do hurry up God’s promise. Yet Isaac  was the result of divine intervention in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, both of whom were too old to bear children. It was the fulfillment of a promise made long before the birth of the child and promised at least four times earlier in this book. It was God who promised the child; it was God who accomplished His word. And this was done right on schedule. God’s purposes are never delayed, nor are they ever defeated by man’s sin. God’s purposes are certain. What God has promised, He will accomplish. It made no difference to God that Abraham was now 100 years old, or Sarah 90. There are no obstacles with God.

           

Immediately the sign of God's covenant was put upon Isaac - his flesh was cut as a sign that he was a special child, heir to the privileges of God's grace. This was the sign of circumcision.

The name Isaac meant “laughter.” You remember when Abraham and Sarah were told of the son who was to be born to them in their old age they laughed over the absurdity of the thought. But now the name Isaac meaning laughter took on a new significance, for he was a delight to his mother, who experienced the joyful pleasures of motherhood. Was it worth the wait?

I had a friend in my church in Detroit. She was in her 40s while I was a teen. She hired me for my first job working in an office. I was a janitor. In time I assisted her in the office. She often shared her sadness of never marrying, but believed that the right man would be a Christian man who respected her and was godly.

The dean of the Detroit Bible College, Howard Shoof, lost his wife to cancer. In his loneliness the Lord put Betty on his mind and he asked her for a date. The families were excited that here was a godly man, spiritual leader, and one who showed loved and tenderness to a woman who vowed, “I will obey and if God does not bring me a husband, then it is not meant to be.” Waiting is hard, but Betty told me time and time again, Dale, it’s worth the wait.

There is a promise that sometimes we do not see, but must trust because it’s of God. Count on the promises of God. They don’t come according to our time table, but they come. They are our hope. God is an awesome God and has lessons for us during these waiting times that we don’t learn any other way. Trust in His promises. Trust Him.

            Perhaps you are going through a waiting period in your life. You know God is at work but waiting and abiding is so hard. It is easy to question God and want to do what you cannot do. In our instant expectations of our society it is easy to think God works too slowly. But according to His plan and power He is never ahead of Himself; He is never behind. Trust His promises.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Weds July 18 Problems

Gen 21:8-13 ⁸ The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. ⁹ But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, ¹⁰ and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

¹¹ The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. ¹² But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.¹³ I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

The Problem - Ishmael. 

Many times our joy of seeing God work is met with problems. In this case the problem is jealousy. The child of the promise and the child of man’s works become a picture of the conflict through the ages. Hagar and Ishmael are still in the house. Ishmael is 14 years old. Hagar is the slave and with the coming of Isaac now breeds greater jealousy and tension among the women. It is at the time of a party for little Isaac, perhaps about 2 or 3 when he is weaned from Sarah and here Ishmael is full of jealousy and mocks the baby. In the past it was Hagar who was mocking Sarah for not having a child. Both boys are sons of Abraham. But only one is the son of the promise. Sarah wished to throw Hagar out. This is not her finest hour. She confronts Abraham on this. She is the wife, Hagar is the slave.

Now that is pretty hard for Abraham to take. He loved Ishmael as much as he loved Isaac. He was grieved to do this. I know this type of grief as I have seen it in mixed marriages. I have seen this type of grief when a new wife says to her husband divorced from his first wife that she doesn’t want his children around the house anymore, there are too many problems. I have seen the pain on mothers who children by another marriage become a major factor in her relationship with a new spouse. In Abraham’s day he had both families under one roof and now we have them one at a time. God reassured Abraham that as painful and unpleasant as the situation might be, putting Ishmael away was the right thing to do. In this instance he should listen to his wife.

Now like is the case in many of the Old Testament stories there is a lesson that has more significant meaning. The story of Isaac and Ishmael can be looked upon as a parable of salvation. This is recorded for us in the New Testament book of Galatians.

Paul makes an allegory of this in Galatians 3, taking Ishmael as an illustration of a works based, legalistic religion, and Isaac as an illustration of God's religion by grace alone. Paul argues that we must throw out a salvation based on our deeds and our works, just like Abraham has to put away Hagar and Ishmael and then lean on the freedom that God has provided in Christ. There was a promise of God and man tried to get that promise his own way instead of God’s way. The result was disastrous. That is the case with salvation. We cannot be saved by doing things man’s way. We cannot do it by our good works, or our imaginations, or our abilities. Salvation from God is a gift that is purchased and completed by Jesus Christ, Gods son. It is offered freely that we can take not pride in our accomplishments, but only His.

We also understand another bigger picture with the analogy of Paul. Romans tells us that after the nation had rejected Christ, blindness came upon a part of Israel which would last until all the Gentiles who would believe had come. Like Ishmael, the nation of Israel has wandered in the wilderness of the world with the rejection of Jesus as the true Messiah. Shortly afterwards the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and the temple ransacked and demolished, and Israel was driven out into the nations. They wandered like Ishmael in the desert for centuries, without any central place of gathering, without any of the real worship of God they once knew back in the Old Testament days.

The allegorical use of this passage in the New Testament, however, ought not to detract from the human element of the story. It just doesn’t seem fair to the young teenage boy and the slave woman who didn’t have any say in the plan to begin with. God speaks to him, promising that great things will happen in and through Ishmael also.

According to the Code of Hammurabi, which was practiced at that time the children of slaves who were not made heirs must be set free as compensation for this. Since Hagar and Ishmael would not receive Abraham’s inheritance, then they must be set free from slavery. That is what Abraham did.

Life is sometimes hard. Life is often accompanied with painful situations, strained relationships and difficult choices. Sometimes the difficulty is a consequence of our own behavior. Having a son by Hagar was originally Sarah's idea remember! This was a situation of her own making. Abraham and Hagar became willing participants in this attempt to "help God" fulfill His promise. It was a sinful thing to do and now they are facing the consequences.

We know that Hagar did not help things. From the moment she knew she was pregnant we read that she "despised" Sarah. She took every opportunity to rub Sarah's nose in the fact that she had given Abraham what Sarah could not. So, there is a sense in which Hagar is reaping what she sowed too.

We are confronted here with the painful truth that there are consequences to our sin. We know that Abraham's household faced turmoil from the very moment Hagar became pregnant. I suspect problems began from the very first night Abraham stayed in Hagar's tent. Sin brings consequences.

I believe God had forgiven Abraham. He had even promised to bless Ishmael when Sarah wanted them to leave once before. But, the negative consequences remain. This is a fact that we have to face. When we sin and confess that sin, we are forgiven, but some consequences of those choices often carry on.

The person who engages in illicit sex may face consequences of disease, pregnancy, a broken relationship or the guilt of having given away something precious. The person who lies has to try to rebuild the trust that was destroyed. The one, who habitually abuses alcohol, gambling, drugs, has to face the consequences of the effect that substance has on their bodies and their relationships. The person who has (or had) abusive patterns with their family will find it difficult to establish any kind of relationship with those they have abused. The person who constantly feeds their mind with pornography will have a difficult time getting away from those images as they seek to live a life of purity. The person who has been ensnared in the insatiable desire for material things may have enormous debt to pay off.  Sin has consequences.

But sometimes difficult times are not a result of our own actions. Hagar originally was only being an obedient servant. She was told to try to have a child with Abraham and she did what she was told. And what about Ishmael? He certainly didn't ask to be born into this situation. Was it his fault that he was born? Sure he was mocking Isaac, but isn't that normal to some degree. Sometimes we are innocent players in a tough circumstance.

Consider some examples of those who are in situations they had little if anything to do with, children of divorce or children raised in homes where there is substance abuse Those who are in physically abusive situations; Those are raised in economic hardship; Those who suffer from a devastating illness or injury that they had nothing to do with Those who have genetic disorders. There are a host of things that happen in life that we have not asked for or deserved. Sometimes the difficulties of life come upon us and we don't know why. Difficult times happen.

What does one do? Hagar did the only thing she could. She cried. And God heard her cry. Life was terrible, there was little hope, but don’t forget the promise of God. He heard and allowed her to see something that was there all along. There was a well of refreshment and provision for her need.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Thurs  July 19 Provisions

Verses Gen 21:14-21 ¹⁴ Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

¹⁵ When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. ¹⁶ Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.

¹⁷ God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. ¹⁸ Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. ”

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰ God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. ²¹ While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

The Provisions- by God

Abraham gave her meager physical provisions. God gave longer lasting provision. He was there for some immediate need, but also we notice the promise given about him before. Hagar’s child will also be a great nation. God was with the boy as he grew. He lived in the desert and became an archer. The desert was the place of his strength and his training to be what God wanted him to be.

Though Isaac was the son of the promise, it is still true that God had a plan and made provisions for Ishmael. He saw to it that Hagar had what she needed to exist. He saw to it that he started his family. He was not the son of inheritance, but still loved by Abraham and by God.

Once again, what seemed like a simple story turns into a picture as the New Testament tells us. Just like Hagar whose eyes were opened to God, so the Gentiles had their eyes opened to the grace of God. We were not the elect people. We learn from the Old Testament that the Jews were. We were not the race of the promise, yet God gave to us the message of redemption. There is no place for anti-Semitism. For none of us were included as  part of the promise. We were not part of the original blessed people. It is only because of the grace of God that the message was given to the gentiles. We are part of the grace provision.

 Not all Jews refuse to believe, but many of them, even with the testimony of their own Scriptures, do not believe Jesus is the Messiah. But God says that a day will come at last when their eyes will be opened and they will see in the word the very one they had once rejected and Israel will turn to the Lord. They will be refreshed with blessing and they will inhabit the earth; God will be with them, and, like Ishmael here, he will make them a great nation again. That is all portrayed in this little scene here.

Now God heard the sobs of Hagar. She was the rejected divorcee, the woman who was raped without recourse. She was the rejected one. What word is there for folks like her? It certainly doesn’t help to gripe about Abraham any more than it helps for the divorced or rejected person to gripe about their ex. She cried out and God heard her again.

Perhaps you were born out of wedlock, or are products of a broken home. Perhaps you have been helpless players in a bad situation. The message here is simple but important God sees you and cares about you. God is the only answer. His presence is our greatest hope, and his word our comfort. If we give God to our children, and give our children to God, then we will secure for them the greatest blessing they will ever know.

But God "opened her eyes and she saw a well of water." God did not make a well appear. He took the blindness from Hagar. Apparently the well had been there all along. Hagar in her distraught state didn't see it! God watched over even this one who had been born contrary to God's will. And we read that God continued to be with the boy.

This text shows there is hope for all of you who have a scarred past. You may sympathize with Hagar more than you sympathize with Sarah. You may feel more like Ishmael than you do Isaac in terms of your situation. But God has not forgotten you. You may need to make a clean break with your past and it will be hard. But you won't be alone. Turn to Him. He has resources to help you. He will see you through.

Pastor Dale

Sermon Nuggets Fri July 20 The Pact

Verses Gen 21:22-31 ²² At that time Abimelech went with Phicol, the commander of his army, and said to Abraham,
         God is with you in everything you do.²³ So make a vow here in the presence of God that you will not deceive me, my children, or my descendants. I have been loyal to you, so promise that you will also be loyal to me and to this country in which you are living.

    ²⁴ Abraham said, “ I promise.”

 ²⁵ Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well which the servants of Abimelech had seized.²⁶Abimelech said,
         I don't know who did this. You didn't tell me about it, and this is the first I have heard of it.²⁷Then Abraham gave some sheep and cattle to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement.²⁸Abraham separated seven lambs from his flock,²⁹ and Abimelech asked him, “Why did you do that?”

 ³⁰ Abraham answered,  “Accept these seven lambs. By doing this, you admit that I am the one who dug this well”.³¹ And so the place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them made a vow.

           ³² After they had made this agreement at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol went back to Philistia.³³Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped the Lord, the Everlasting God.³⁴Abraham lived in Philistia for a long time.

The Pact. -Abimelech

The King of Philistia, Abimelech, respected Abraham’s God, but he was not so sure about Abraham’s credibility. By putting Abraham on oath Abimelech sought to remedy the problem of deception. Once before he had nearly lost his life because of Abraham’s deception he did not ever want that to happen again. Once the treaty was made, Abraham brought up a specific grievance. He complained to Abimelech about a well that his servants had dug, only to have it confiscated by Abimelech’s servants. Abimelech once again claimed ignorance, didn’t know anything about it, and wondered why Abraham didn’t say anything before to him. 

            There is a contrast of how Abimilek handled his situations. We saw that in the last chapter when he ignorantly took Sarah from Abraham, thinking she was his sister.  He was faced with warning from God he could lose his life. She was married. He would fear the God of Abraham for sinning against him by committing adultery.

            This period was before the law of Moses. Who said it was wrong to commit adultery? Who said that fornication having sex outside of marriage was wrong? Who said that stealing wasn’t right? There is a sense of right and wrong that is put into our hearts from above. Our consciences might be manipulated as children over customs and traditions, but there is among all cultures morality on murder, and marriage, and stealing and lying, and justice.

            God’s laws, are not God’s law just because they are written on a sheet of paper.

If someone doesn’t have a God awareness sin doesn’t seem to be a problem. According to Romans 1 people are without excuse for in our consciences there is an awareness of sin and of God.  

          Abimelech when he was made aware of his situation and pending judgment with God, feared God and wanted to do something about it. Rightly so, he admits that He didn’t know. By taking Abraham’s wife to be his own was out of ignorance. Now there once again is a certain ethic that the king followed. It was okay to take women to be his instead of monogamy, but it wasn’t okay to take someone else’s wife. We will see that a lot in the Old Testament. But when  he was found to be before God he wants to face his part straight on. What I am about to do is acceptable in our society, but not acceptable to God. When he realize that he offends God and with sin comes consequences, he repents of his actions.

            He also justifies himself rightly so of ignorance and says two things. 1) I haven’t sinned yet, and 2) It was not my intention to do so, I was lied to.  God justifies him knowing all things. Now what Abimelech does is proof of the pudding. When the spirit convicts you of sin or temptation what do you do?

            He confesses, desires to do right and fears God more than fears man. Obedience is the key. Desires to do right is most important. Changing your path is what is needed.

Abimelech, unlike Abraham, was guiltless in this matter. His actions were based upon purity of motive and upon the untrue statements of Abraham and Sarah. God acknowledged the innocence of the king but made it clear that apart from divine intervention he would have committed a grave offense. The way Abimelech handled this matter now would determine his destiny. To delay or disobey meant certain death.

     Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die."

The passage today shows another encounter between Abraham and Abimelech. His servants took the well that Abraham used. Now we have a matter of pure miscommunication. Check things out folks. Abraham made false assumptions. Maybe the person you think offended you didn’t have the clue what was going on. Check it out and work out the problems in a fair and responsible manner.

Then to make matters better Abraham gives more than what is needed to make things right and to make a point. Sometimes as Christians we need to do that too. Not to be taken advantage of, but he gave a gift to show an honest and humbled heart.

Remember Abimelech had given Abraham a gift when he was going to take Sarah has his wife, Now Abraham gives 7 sheep and cattle and a treaty was met. And also 7 ewe lambs. This is my well, my place of refreshment, my meeting place with God.

The agreement was met and a tree was planted, and there he called upon the name of the Lord the Eternal God and stayed there a long time. 

Pastor Dale