Isaac Arrives, Ishmael Departs

Well, this morning we begin chapter 21 in Genesis. Last week we completed chapter 20 and we considered the

Lord's covenantal commitment as we saw God rescue Abraham really from a clutch that happened to him in Egypt many years before.

We saw Abraham stumble into the same sinful fear and to get caught by the same consequences of his sin and yet God in His mercy came to Abimelech and delivered

Abraham, returned Sarah safely to him. And so we saw

God's covenantal commitment and again here in chapter 21 we see God's covenantal commitment though in a different way.

Here we see God's covenantal commitment in terms of God's long awaited promise being fulfilled to Abraham and Sarah.

We see Isaac arriving and that takes us from verse 1 through verse 7,

Isaac's arriving. And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said and the

Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which

God had spoken to him and Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah born to him,

Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was 8 days old as God had commanded him.

Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him and Sarah said God has made me laugh and all who hear will laugh with me.

She also said who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children for I have born him a son in his old age.

So this is the great chapter of fulfillment. It's a chapter we've been waiting for in one form or another since chapter 12.

And notice that this great chapter of fulfillment begins with the Lord. The emphasis is all on the

Lord. We read in verse 1, the Lord visited Sarah and answered to another woman who had been barren and sought the

Lord and the Lord answered. We read that same construction, the Lord visited Hannah in 1

Samuel 2. The Hebrew verb here translated to visit is used often to speak of divine intervention.

And so the Lord doesn't visit just to visit. He visits to affect something.

He visits to change something. This visit can be a visitation of blessing. Later on in scripture we also see this can be a visitation of cursing or judgment.

So on the one hand God may visit to deliver his people of Egypt. The Lord visited his people out of Egypt.

Or he may visit the Amalekites and that would be rendered he destroyed the

Amalekites. But the same verb here, the verb of God's visitation. So it's a way of saying

God is uniquely at work with an individual or a corporate group or some matter in a way that irreversibly changes their destiny in accordance with God's overarching purpose.

And so here we have really specialized vocabulary which says this isn't just that he promised a baby would come and now the baby's come.

This is a way of keying us into realizing this birth has significance far beyond Abraham and Sarah, far beyond Isaac.

The Lord is visiting according to his overarching purpose of redemption. And that's true in a way that's derivatively true of you as a

Christian. That you can truly say with this Hebrew verb pekah that the

Lord has visited you if you are in Christ, meaning the Lord has come to you in a way that has irreversibly changed your life, has begun to unfold his destiny for your life, which is a destiny of redemption in Christ.

So we too have been visited by God, which is an amazing thing to consider.

Perhaps in a more profound way than even Sarah was visited by God here in chapter 21.

So much of Abraham's life in this Genesis story as it's been unfolding has been driven by this long period of a lacking heir.

Really from the moment he was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, even as far back as chapter 11, we've been keyed into the fact that Sarah's barren, that Abraham and Sarah have no children and that here is this great promise that there's going to be an heir and that through this heir

Abraham will be a blessing to the whole world. He will be a blessing to the nations of the earth. But that was 25 years ago.

It's been 25 years since Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans. And so we too have been patiently slogging through these past nine chapters week by week and maybe we've had to be as patient, so to speak, as Abraham and Sarah have had to be patient.

We've seen these past nine chapters encapsulating 25 years marked by great triumphs of Abraham's faith.

Remember when he barged into the land of Canaan, how he immediately started building altars wherever he went in the land of Canaan.

He was laying down a foundation of worship for the generations that God promised would come through him.

So he was building altars for generations to come built solely on the promise of God.

We also saw his great failures, his disasters of faithlessness, and these too were used by God to help strip away anything that would deter his hope or his trust in God's promise.

And so whether the triumph of faith or the disaster of doubt, we've seen and we've walked with Abraham and Sarah waiting for the fulfillment, this day -to -day reality of walking in hope for a 25 -year -old promise, and now we get to witness finally the payoff, the glory, the astonishment,

Sarah conceived. That's music. Sarah conceived and bore

Abraham a son in his old age. The astonishment of Sarah is almost mimicked in the text.

Hebrew has many different ways to make things emphatic, and one of the ways is just repetition.

It's one of the most basic ways to emphasize, but the way the Hebrew is constructed here, it's almost like someone excitedly reporting something.

And so this is a way of emphasizing through repetition almost every line. Just read along with me what stands out to you.

The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken, for Sarah conceived and bore

Abraham a son in his old age. At the set time which God had spoken to him, and Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom

Sarah born to him, Isaac. Do you see the reputation? How many times do you have this, who was born to him, the one who born to him and was born to him, as God spoke, as God spoke, at the time that God said?

It's like this excited report, all of these things that are emphasized by repetition. Three times we have this repetition, as the

Lord had spoken. So what's being put right out here in chapter 21 is the trustworthiness of God's promise.

Did he not say, at this time next year I will come and Sarah shall have a son?

God had spoken the promise and now he's fulfilled it. This is again the trustworthiness of his covenantal commitment.

It's suffused throughout these opening verses. And look at the response of Abraham in verse 4.

Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Abraham has been renewed from this failure in chapter 20 where really he was disobeying

God. He was not walking in the faith. He was not walking according to God's promise.

If anything, he was jeopardizing God's promise, but God rescued him, delivered him, and so now his faith is renewed and that faith is being expressed in obedience.

And this obedience is being paid to a command that God gave back in chapter 17. You shall name him

Isaac and you shall circumcise him and all those in your household. And so Abraham is submitting to God here.

Notice this. This is significant. Second, Abraham obeys as a result of God's fulfilled promise, not as a cause of it.

Very important. Abraham obeys as a result of God's fulfilled promise, not as a cause of it.

In other words, it's not because Abraham is obedient or willing to obey or would obey that God allows this promise to be fulfilled.

God's covenantal commitment does not rely upon our obedience, upon our efforts or our desires.

It relies upon God's will and God's desire and God's unity of purpose alone.

And so Abraham obeys as a result of this. Having received this, now he obeys.

Having received the promise being fulfilled, Abraham obeys. It's no different in the

Christian life, brother or sister. We are not the cause of God's work, rather our obedience is the result of it.

It's an expression. It's a tribute. It's a form of thankfulness. It's an act of devotion and worship to be obedient unto

God's ways as a result of what He has done in and through Christ. So that's the response of Abraham.

Look at the response of Sarah, verses 6 and 7. We get this glimpse of her amazement. Sarah says,

God has made me laugh and all who hear will laugh with me. And she also said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?

For I've borne him a son in his old age. What a turnaround from chapter 18 where Sarah was scoffing at the promise of God.

Remember when the Lord gently rebuked her? No, but you did laugh and she was filled with terror.

She denied it. No, no, Lord, I didn't. No, but you did. You did laugh. She was afraid.

This was a major milestone in her understanding of God's concern for her, of His intimate care and providence over her life.

And now, despite all the promises that Abraham had been given, now Sarah has a promise to cling on to.

And Sarah clinging on to this promise which began with doubt and fear and scoffing is now filled with joy, astonishment even.

God has made me laugh. She could say that at the beginning in chapter 18 and not at the end, but it's a different kind of laughing.

The first was a laughter of scorn, of disbelief. Now God has made me laugh with astonishment, with amazement.

Nothing is impossible for the Lord. To use the hymn's words, the night of mourning here has become the morn of joy.

God has made her laugh. And this word play for Isaac is very significant in this chapter.

We'll see it again in a moment. Of course, God told Abraham to name the boy

Isaac, and Sarah and Abraham, of course, named the boy Isaac. And when

Sarah exclaims, God has made me laugh, she's using that name Isaac in a significant way.

She exclaims, God made laughter, that's itzkoch in Hebrew, it's a different stem. And then she says, everyone who hears about this will laugh, that's itzkoch, and again a different stem.

So she's using Isaac in two different ways here. God has made me laugh, and now everyone will laugh with me.

In other words, God made me Isaac, and I will make everyone Isaac. And notice that because of this, she's already anticipating the way that God is going to use her as a witness, right?

God has made me laugh, everyone who hears about it will laugh with me. In other words, now

God has given her a song, a testimony. When she begins to explain where the name

Isaac came from, or how Isaac came to be, or is that your grandson, boy, how could that possibly be your son?

She has a testimony. Everyone who hears will laugh with her, and the idea is they'll go from this scorn and disbelief to amazement and astonishment.

That what has happened in Sarah's life through her testimony will happen in other people's lives.

In other words, a witness is being prepared, and we know that in the

Christian life there are these kinds of witnesses. Sometimes it's the witness of this kind of joy.

Other times it's the witness of trial, isn't it? The witness of suffering. It's that Christian in the

ICU that the nurses just cannot understand, they cannot comprehend. How could you be on morphine with this much joy?

How could it be? There must be something that my medical training did not explain to me about this.

There must be something supernatural here. There's a witness that God gives. There's a testimony that he's prepared.

Notice that it wouldn't be much of a testimony if it just began here in chapter 21.

Oh, out of the blue. Out of the blue we have the sun now. Oh, this was unexpected. Not even anything we were looking for.

Oh, this is going to be an interesting story. What makes this song, what makes this story, what makes this laughter, whether chapter 18 or chapter 21, so effective, so powerful, so compelling is the fact that it came after a life of barrenness.

And so it is in the Christian life also. When God prepares a testimony for us, it's never just the blessing that breaks open on our head unexpectedly, so much as that life of faith coming through the valleys to the hilltop, experiencing the suffering and the turmoil and the doubt and the fear, and then meeting with God's fulfillment and satisfaction in the end.

It took a long time for this promise to come to fruition, but God was faithful to it.

It took a long time for Abraham and Sarah to settle their hearts into the reality of what

God had promised. And perhaps they never even got there until they were holding this little boy in their arms.

In all of the valleys and in all of the hilltops of our life of faith, God's promise is sure.

It's sure when we're doubting it. It's sure when we're resisting it. It's sure when we're walking opposite to it.

And then it's as sure when we're tasting it and eating it and seeing that it's good. Even when it seems far off, humanly impossible, more of a mirage or a daydream than any substantive hope, especially in these times,

God's Word, God's promise is sure. So now what are Abraham and Sarah going to do?

Can you imagine what these first few days were like in this tent? They must have begun to trace the faithful purpose of God step by step.

That's what it's like, isn't it? One of the things I love to do, I love meeting new people because I love, if they're believers, to hear their testimony.

And I love how they can reflect. They don't just begin their testimony about, well, I prayed the prayer, now let me tell you about my

Christian, right? That's not a testimony. No, no. Testimony. Testify. Pre -Christ, post -Christ.

And a testimony is not a testimony unless part of that story, part of that witness is not where I was before Christ found me.

And then you, from that point, from that deliverance, from that visitation, what?

You trace back and see God's faithful, you know, even then God was protecting me. And even this, God used to break me.

And even here, you know, I never would have seen this. That's part of this story.

You can imagine now, looking back, not just 25 years, but their whole life, they're looking back and saying, who is like God?

Who is like the Lord? He didn't waste a second. He didn't waste a minute.

Sarah, every, every prayer that we've wept, every night that we were turned away from each other in our feeling of despair and isolation, every shattered hope, every stumble and failure, every time we were frustrated and irritated at God and therefore at each other, oh,

God didn't waste any of that. And look what He's done. And so it is in the

Christian life. We begin to trace that faithful purpose of God. We realize that even those paths that seem to be so thorny, so difficult, that served no purpose but for us to suffer, were actually blessings in the hand of a providentially governing

God. So they can look back and they can see that God all along has been preparing them for this blessing, tearing down idols in their lives, stilling anxieties in their hearts, removing hindrances along the way.

They had to know more about God, more about what He was like, more of His promise, more that He was trustworthy.

Please keep this in mind for where we're going in chapter 22. Have you trusted me this far? Have you trusted me and know my power now?

Will you still trust me? Will you still trust me then? They can look back.

As the Christian looks back, we see that God baptizes our failures. He blesses our times of doubt and frustration.

This is all woven together in the life of faith in a way that brings glory to God's surety and we realize it's not of us, it's not of the flesh, it's of Him who wills, it's of Him who decrees.

And so in these times of despair and frustration and failure, we begin to see the divine fingerprints of God's purpose in our lives.

And as we head into more times of despair and doubt and confusion and failure, we begin to have a testimony, a song.

We look for those fingerprints. We're a little more aware that God is in control. It's still hard to see it in the midst of the storm, but we've learned lessons along the way that have prepared us.

And so here we see, brothers and sisters, that God has a purpose in His people waiting. God has a purpose in His people waiting.

Wouldn't it be nice if the blessings of the Christian life were just like going to the grocery store and plucking something off the shelf?

When you need it, you got it. Instant satisfaction. There is almost nothing in the

Christian life that is that way. The means of grace hardly work in that way. You don't receive the blessing so often until you've gone through it at quite a distance so often, if you're anything like me.

Every January starts off with a certain bang and expectation that never seems to be met. And so that desire and that zeal fizzles out pretty quickly because these blessings are not designed by God to be instantaneous so that we can get in and go on our way.

He would have His people lean in and pant and thirst and hunger and wait.

There's a purpose that God has on His people to wait. Waiting is a common theme throughout

Scripture. I thought this week, wouldn't it be amazing, wouldn't it be fun to do just a Bible study on waiting?

In the age of impatience, in the age of instant gratification, the Bible has much to say about the need to wait.

Waiting is a common motif, for instance, in the Psalms. This is a lesson compounded throughout the

Bible in almost every genre. Almost never does the Bible give in to some immediate fulfillment of our inward desire, but rather there must be a wait.

There must be a longing and a perseverance to unfold God's purpose in our lives.

Paul says that the whole created order is waiting in this way. It's awaiting

God's redemption. The saints, even when we're in glory, we're waiting.

Think about that. Even when we're in glory, we're waiting, waiting to be further clothed, waiting for the resurrection of our bodies, to be like unto

Christ, the firstfruits of our hope. Even the saints that are in glory, basking in the radiance of Christ, seeing the fullness of the

Godhead in Him, cry out to Him in the midst of that bliss, how long, O Lord? How long?

They're still waiting, even when we get to heaven, we still have to wait. So what does that say about our lives here on earth?

If there's waiting in heaven ahead of the consummated glory, certainly our lives as Christians here will be characterized by a certain faithful waiting upon the

Lord. It was 25 years before this day that Abraham had to wait, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade after decade.

Abraham had to wait upon the Lord. That waiting was not in vain.

God was not preoccupied. It wasn't as though he was aloof or he had forgotten. God was unfolding in Abraham and Sarah's life, building up their faith, preparing them to know more of Him as the

God who would give this blessing. And now they're called to wait for everything else that God had promised.

This is just one fulfillment. God promised a lot more to Abraham than just a son in Genesis 12.

So here's the first fulfillment, and now they have to wait even longer just to see the glimpses of any more fulfillment, the land fulfillment, the way in which his progeny will be a blessing to the world.

There's much more that Abraham must look long afar and wait by faith to see. Remember what

Hebrews says about Abraham. He's looking for a city whose builder and maker is

God. He's going to have to wait a long time to see that city from our point of view.

Abraham is still waiting, in other words. In some ways, we're a lot like Abraham in the sense that we have certain fulfilled promises of God at work in our lives, the promise of the

Holy Spirit indwelling us, the promise of deliverance out of temptation when we seek the way out that God provides, the promise of His presence and His blessed protection, the promise of sanctification and glorification held out to His people.

We have many precious promises, as Peter says, but they are promises. We're still waiting.

They're promises. What does Hebrews say about Jesus? He's the guarantee. You don't have a guarantee for something you already have.

You have a guarantee for something you await. And so, like Abraham, we still wait.

We're still waiting. Richard Sibbes, the great Puritan, says, in waiting we discern a main difference between a

Christian and a carnal man, meaning an unbeliever, a fleshly person. A fleshly person is short -spirited, all for the present.

He will have his good here, whereas a saint of God continues waiting, though everything in his life seems contrary to what he expects.

That's a great description of Abraham. If he were to tell people what he was waiting for, they would want to tie him in a white coat and put him in a padded room.

You're waiting to be the father of many nations? Kings are going to come from you?

This land is yours? You don't even own any real estate, okay, and the land is yours.

Nice to meet you. Have a nice day. It seems contrary to all that God had promised, and yet he's waiting on the

Lord to fulfill it. So often in the Christian life, what God has promised seems contrary to what we see, and faith bids us to wait on the

Lord. He will fulfill it. We have in Abraham and Sarah a lesson and a reflection on this calling.

We learn from them that in this struggle over the 25 years or more of our life of waiting, we're meant to rehearse the promises of God.

It goes well with Abraham when he builds an altar and calls upon the name of the Lord. It doesn't go so well with Abraham when he fails to do that, when he impulsively is driven by circumstances or concerns.

And so we learn from them to rehearse the promises of God, how they were meant to, by God, keep shoring up in each other this confidence.

Don't forget what God did. Don't forget he visited you. Don't forget what the angels said. Don't lose sight of that.

Remember where you were and how you reacted and what that filled you with. Don't lose sight of the promise. So it is in the

Christian life. Don't lose sight. Don't lose heart. Is that a distant memory that God was moving so powerfully in your life and you were more resolved and more committed than ever before?

Don't forget that. Don't lose heart. Not only do we rehearse the promises of God, one of the reasons we're called to gather weekly, isn't it, brothers and sisters?

We don't neglect the assembling of ourselves together for this very reason. We rehearse the promises of God. We rehearse the outcome of our faith.

And then we do that in order that we may meditate upon it and grow thereby. We dwell, in other words.

We remember, we dwell, we meditate upon these promises of God. We remember

His faithfulness to us in times past. We rehearse the testimonies of His faithfulness in Scripture.

We learn by His grace to trust Him and to trust His Word. Even when everything in our lives and everything in the world seems contrary to it, like Abraham and Sarah, we trust what

He has committed to. We trust what is revealed in His Word. The world looks at us sideways, no concern to us.

God will fulfill all that He has promised. And so our trust in His Word, it conducts how we walk, how we live.

We walk in accordance to it. This is what it means to wait upon the

Lord. Even when this fulfillment of Isaac has come, it doesn't change the fact that Abraham is still waiting on the

Lord and Sarah still waiting on the Lord. Blessings come into the

Christian life and though they fill us with joy and point us to something greater beyond, we realize that we're only being called further and helped further to wait on the

Lord. A more recent worship song that I absolutely love, and there's a lot of renditions of it,

Shane and Shane and Bob Coughlin and Gettys and all that, but the first place

I heard it was through Ten Schemes, which is a ministry in Scotland to the equivalent of projects.

They're called schemes. And there's this outreach called Ten Schemes to try to plant a church in each one of these projects around Edinburgh.

And they put out CDs to raise funds for their missionary work. And it's a song called

Out of the Depths. It's written out of Psalm 130, and this is just the first verse. Out of the depths

I cry to you, in darkest places I will call. Incline your ear to me anew, hear my cry for mercy,

Lord. Were you to count my sinful ways, how could I come before your throne?

Yet full forgiveness meets my gaze, I stand redeemed by grace alone.

It's this glorious meditation on the gospel, right? If you were to count my sins, how could

I stand? But full forgiveness I see, I'm redeemed fully by the blood. And then this is the chorus,

I will wait for you, I will wait for you. On your word I will rely,

I will wait for you, surely wait for you, until my soul is satisfied.

So we rehearse the truth of the gospel. We celebrate the reality of the gospel.

By God's grace, we experience the reality of the gospel. We enter into the courts with praise, we've been renewed by his grace, redeemed by his blood.

We come as a sinful people. We confess our sins to him, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us of unrighteousness.

And so part of the worship experience is coming with those heavy stains and burdens, those wrinkles and blemishes, and bringing them to the altar of God.

But that's not how we leave this place. By God's grace, we leave as a people, rehearsing and meditating upon the gospel mercies.

But what does that meditation ultimately point us toward? I will wait, I will wait, because I'm going to have to do this again next week, and the week after, and the week after that, and the week after that.

And so I'm waiting, Lord, I'm waiting until my soul is satisfied, until I never have to come with a heavy burden again, because I've been made like unto you.

So perfectly clothed in your righteousness that to see you is to see me, just as to see the

Father is to see you. Until that day, Lord, I will wait for you.

I will wait for you. This is what the Christian life involves, awaiting until the Lord meets with us and satisfies our souls.

When our Lord makes a promise to us, we're to count it as something absolutely certain, not a shadow of a turning of a doubt that it won't come to pass.

The Lord has promised many things about this life, many things about this world, many things about His reign, many things about the advancement of the kingdom of God.

We see the headlines, we listen to the reports, we see the wicked rise up like the tides, and it seems so contrary to what

God has promised. But we wait on what the Lord has promised, for we know it is sure.

With the arrival of Isaac, we're also pointed to the greater reality. There is an Isaac yet to come.

When God visited Abraham and Sarah, He was giving them one of the greatest displays of Christ in the whole book of Genesis.

Isaac is the type of Christ so far in this narrative of Genesis.

We've had many other echoes and allusions, we've had some types, of course, Abel, but here we have this profound display of Jesus.

And in the next chapter, we're going to see it even more so, in chapter 22, with the sacrifice. Isaac, of course, is the only one of the patriarchs whose name was given by God before he was born.

God announced it in a prophecy to Abraham, and so for that reason,

I think we have a reflection of the preexistence of Christ. In other words, all the other patriarchs have their name changed by God to show this dynamic of new life and being called according to His purpose, but with Isaac, God said, this is what you shall name him even before he's born.

And so that's already pointing us toward Christ, the one who's named before he's born, who will not receive a name change because He is.

And so it's a reflection of Christ. Again, like Christ, He's a divinely promised son.

It's a miraculous conception that comes after a long period of delay. Israel is likened unto

Sarah, waiting for God to bring forth the promised child, the Deliverer. Both mothers are given assurance of God's power.

Is anything too impossible for the Lord? Both of them need to hear that from the angelic messenger.

Both births come at the appointed time, at this time next year I will come, and what does Paul say in Galatians 4 .4?

In the fullness of time, in God's appointed time. And then of course, as we see in these first seven verses, both births are filled with great joy and wonder.

Mary bursts out in praise. We have what's called the Magnificat, Mary's hymn of praise.

And Luke is actually embedding, he takes it from the Greek, not the Hebrew, but he's embedding parts of Genesis 21, 1 through 7 in Mary's song of praise, which shows that Mary clearly understood and was reflecting upon Sarah in light of this glorious announcement.

We read in verse 8, the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.

Children were weaned most likely around the age of two to three in the ancient

Near East. It's hard to say with any certainty, there's some reports and accounts that are much later than that, but it seems to be at this point in time that it's likely that, let's say three,

Isaac was weaned around three. This was seen as significant and hence worthy of a feast because infant mortality was so high in the ancient

Near East. So if you got to the stage of actually weaning a child, there was statistically a much greater chance of that child's survival.

Those first few years were filled with all sorts of tragedy and affliction.

And so of course this calls for a great feast, and Abraham prepares this great feast, the fatted calf, the churning butter, all those things that he had brought out for those three angelic visitors, one being the

Lord pre -incarnate. Especially for these parents, especially as they had waited for so long for this child of promise.

But all is not well at this feast as we find in verse nine. Sarah saw the son of Hagar the

Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Since the first flight of Hagar and Ishmael, there's been some sort of reconciliation.

We have no detail of it. God told her to take Ishmael back. Somehow they've been getting by and getting along in these intervening years.

Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born. Abraham was 100 when

Isaac was born. And so if we understand weaning to be about three years, there's reason to think that Ishmael would be 16 to 17 years old.

Okay, so he's a teenager. In other words, it's not the sibling that's two years older being a bully to the sibling that's two years younger.

This is a teenager. This is a young man, and he's scoffing.

This is offensive to Sarah, and we need to understand something about that. Of course, the dynamics of it, he's old enough to understand the situation here.

He's old enough to understand the significance of what has taken place. Surely he heard just from his father and from Sarah what had happened.

Now that Isaac has come, Ishmael knows the deal. I'm no longer heir apparent. I'm about to be displaced.

All their affection, all of their desire, all of their hope, all of this fulfillment, all of the promises, all embedded with this little boy.

And I'm going to be maligned, cut out, put aside, no longer an heir.

And so at this great celebratory feast, Sarah catches him, again in our translation, scoffing.

Paul, interestingly, in Galatians 4 .29, says that Ishmael was persecuting

Isaac, persecuting Isaac. That may be following rabbinic understanding.

The scoffing here is not just teasing. It's something aggressive. The Greek that Paul uses would be like to pursue, and that's where you get that persecute.

But there's more wordplay here with the name Isaac. In Hebrew verbs, you can have different stems and they have different connotations.

So the cow stem, Isaac, he laughs. But here, the scoffing is

Isaac in the pl stem. In other words, it's an aggressive form of Isaac's name.

He's mutating this word Isaac. It's this bullying, this aggression, this persecution.

And Sarah sees it and she's completely infuriated. And she goes to Abraham, verse 10, cast out this bondwoman and her son.

The son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son. Notice she can't even dignify the name.

This boy that she's grown up with. And Hagar, who's been, at least for a time, her closest maid, and now she won't even dignify them with names.

This bondwoman, already there's an emotional detachment there. And her son, she won't even relate to him in any way that would be familial, as it would have been since Ishmael belongs to Abraham.

And so look at the reaction of Abraham in verse 11. This matter was very displeasing in Abraham's sight because of his son.

Abraham found it hard to agree with. And it's not just, oh, I'm disappointed about this,

I'm displeased. The verb here comes from the adjective for evil in Hebrew.

Abraham thought this was wrong, wrong, wrong. You have no right to do this. This is something we cannot do.

This is a line we will not cross. And so God comes and He says, heed what Sarah has said.

This was devastating to Abraham. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice, for in Isaac your seed shall be called.

And notice how God wants to shore up His discouragement. I will make a nation of the son of the bondwoman because he's your seed.

God reflects the language of Sarah, not the tone. Certainly, as we'll see in the remaining verses,

God does not treat Hagar and Ishmael the way Sarah would want them to be treated. But He copies the language because the language here is significant.

When God came to Abraham and gave him the promised birth of Isaac, do you remember

Abraham's response? Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. I've already got a son, I want him to be my heir.

Can't you do all of the covenant through him? And God rebukes him. In Isaac your seed will be called.

In Isaac will come the fulfillment. And so already you see his heart being divided between Ishmael and Isaac, understandably.

Abraham is still clinging to Ishmael. As a father, he loved his son Ishmael. He wanted

Ishmael to be blessed, but according to God's covenantal purpose, it could not be so. And so in the very place where Isaac is being weaned from Sarah, God has to wean

Ishmael from Abraham. And Sarah, realizing this, demands that Abraham formally recognize what

God has declared. Nahum Sarna, who's a Jewish commentator, points this out.

What Sarah did was to ask Abraham to exercise his legal right to clarify

Isaac's status as sole heir by removing Ishmael from the family circle.

In other words, as a slave born to the master, in this case

Abraham, Ishmael did have an inheritance. He did have a right. But if he were to be set free, he could have his freedom at the cost of his share of the inheritance.

And so Sarah's basically forcing Abraham to do this. Set him out, in other words, free him so that he is not heir.

He will not be heir with my son. And it may be to Sarah's credit.

She's very harsh here. She's in mama bear mode. You know, if you've ever experienced something like that, mothers are very protective of their sons.

I don't know if we have time for a little story, but one that always charms me toward my mother is when I was first getting to know

Alicia, and her and my dad were talking downstairs at the kitchen table one morning.

And I think I'd been working, like, doubles or something like that, and I was just totally exhausted and, like,

I wasn't even up. Like, here's Alicia, and I'm, like, not even up to greet her, so she's just chatting with my dad. And they just start commiserating about how

I'm asleep, I'm kind of an oaf, I'm not doing anything. And, I don't know, first of all, that's weird that they were commiserating about me.

And then my mother walks in the kitchen and goes, Alicia, do you need a ride home? Just like that. Mama bear mode, you know?

She will not have an inheritance with my son. God is weaning

Abraham from Ishmael, and to Sarah's credit, she's harsh here, but it's been three years.

It's not like as soon as he was born, she's, like, get him out of here. For three years, at least, she's trying to walk this out, figure this out,

I don't know, but this is, like, the last straw. Maybe this wasn't the first time she noticed this jealousy and actually had a real fear, real concern of what he was capable of doing.

He was a wild man, as the Lord prophesied back in Genesis 16. And so it may be to her credit, she doesn't propose this to come, but regardless,

God credits Sarah. Whatever her spirit was, she was right. She was right in that he will have no inheritance with Isaac.

Isaac will be the sole covenantal heir. And here we see another part of trusting

God. So the first thing we saw was trusting God in the long time of waiting. Trusting God no matter how long the trial is, no matter how much in your life or in the world seems contrary to it, you wait on the

Lord. Well, here's another thing we learn. Part of trusting God is learning how to sacrifice.

Part of trusting God is learning how to sacrifice. Losing Ishmael is an unimaginable pain for Abraham, who as an already elderly man was amazed that he had a son from his own body, if not

Sarah's. You can only imagine the affection that was poured out on this boy. And for now, the prospect of casting him out into the unknown, never to see him again, never to see him grow up and become a father and bring grandchildren back to the tent, that's an unbearable pain for Abraham.

But God is using this to build up Abraham's faith. He's teaching Abraham how important it is to sacrifice this in his trust of God.

In other words, God is breaking his heart so that he can build up his faith because he's going to need a stronger faith than he has now to go through Mount Moriah in the next chapter.

And so it is with us, brothers and sisters. God wants to build up our faith through that fiery trial.

And if we're going to trust Him, we must learn how to sacrifice. What would you require of your servant,

Lord? That's the demeanor of a Christian. Is it my health? Is it a loved one?

Is it some ambition or some success in my life, some level of comfort I've become accustomed to?

Lord, name it. It is yours. I sacrifice it. The great phrase of Calvin, Cormaeum Tibi Domine.

Here's my heart, Lord. I offer it promptly and sincerely. Take what you require.

Abraham's being taught to trust in the Lord, and part of trusting in the Lord is learning how to sacrifice.

He has to learn the significance of, in Isaac your seed shall be called. This is reiterated in Hebrews 11.

By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, this is talking of 22, offered up Isaac whom he had received, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

It was he to whom it was said, in Isaac your descendants shall be called. So it's bringing in this language of 21 to set the tone of chapter 22.

Isaac must be singled out. Ishmael must be cast away. Romans 9, where Paul opens up this whole doctrine of election, in Isaac your seed shall be called.

That's the word of God. And then Paul develops this in Galatians 4. Whatever's going on in this family, the sword that's now running through it as a result of God's covenant unfolding, whatever division and animosity and frustration and sorrow there is,

God is unfolding a larger redemptive picture. And Paul develops that in Galatians 4.

Remember how he's giving this illustration of a conflict between those who are born according to the promise and those who are born according to the flesh.

In other words, those, in this instance, it was Jews who were trusting in their own works and the necessity of law -keeping unto salvation against those who were born of the

Spirit by faith. And he says this in Galatians 4, beginning in verse 28. We, brethren, Christians, as Isaac was, are children of promise.

But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the

Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.

So then, brothers, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. So even here we understand our place in the economy of God's redemption.

There's a wonderful series of books. It tends to be

Paedo -Baptist, and if you could filter out that, it would be like five -star recommendation all the way through.

It just is very heavy on the Paedo -Baptist theology, but it's translated into English from the

Dutch about a century ago, S. G. de Graaf, and the series is called Promise and Deliverance. And he asked an interesting question, a good reflective question.

This is it. What would have happened if Ishmael had not mocked Isaac? This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

What would have happened if he didn't do it? And this is his answer.

If Ishmael had acknowledged God's choice of Isaac as heir to the promise, he too would have shared in the promise.

But he refused to bow to God's will because he wanted to be his own man, his own heir.

He rejected the covenant for himself. And then de Graaf says, Ishmael's struggle is the struggle of all of us.

When we have to acknowledge that life is not in us but in Christ, you see what he's saying?

When it comes to the time that we have to trust God, and in order to trust God, we have to sacrifice.

Because either we're going to be cast out or we're going to share in the inheritance of the one through whom life comes,

Christ. Ishmael was old enough. He was informed enough. He had heard the prayers, heard the testimony, heard the promises, seen the fulfillment of it.

But what he will not do is bow down to this little boy, so much younger than him, so insignificant.

How dare he take my place? How dare he be the one that brings blessing to me? How dare I submit to him?

And so it is always with those who refuse to bow and kiss the feet of Christ.

How dare I submit to this one? How dare I sacrifice this for this one?

How dare I abandon this pursuit to submit to this one? How dare I transform my whole life in order to receive blessing from this one?

So it is with all who reject Christ. And when Ishmael departs, as we read in the following verses, and we'll move up for the sake of time, they're sent out into the wilderness.

And of course, if you ever had some image of a baby being carried, you have to cast that out.

She's carrying the water and the provisions, and they're kind of propping each other up, especially as those provisions dry up.

And Ishmael takes a turn for the worst. She lays him out. The Hebrews literally, she throws him under a bush.

You know, it's just he collapses, and it's emphatic. She throws him because she can't bear to watch him die.

And she wanders off about a bow shot, that's about a hundred yards of football field away, and she cries.

She weeps uncontrollably to the heavens. And then the boy cries.

Maybe he heard his mother's cries. And now he's crying too. This is it. This is the end. And it says that God heard the voice of the lad.

Ishmael, remember, means God hears. Hagar, last time she was in the wilderness, despairing of life, she named the place where the angel visited her, the

God who sees, Beerlehoi -Roi, the God who sees. Now she knows the God who hears, Ishmael.

God intervenes. What ails you, Hagar? Fear not. God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.

Arise, lift up the lad, hold him with your hand. I will make him a great nation, reiterating the promises that had already been given to her in Genesis 16.

And then look at this. This is the most beautiful moment in chapter 19. God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.

So there's this choice to make between submitting to the one through whom life is given, entering into the covenant by abandoning your ways, sacrificing what you're pursuing, and submitting to the one who gives life.

Or you're cast off into the wilderness to despair unto the end. These are the two roads, as it were, before everyone.

And what strikes me about verse 19 is that God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.

You don't cast your teenage son under a bush to die and weep uncontrollably because you see a well. There was no well.

She was in the middle of nowhere. Where did this well come from? But when God opened her eyes because he heard her cry, a well appeared.

A well was opened to her. And so it is for every sinner, cast out, not willing to bend, but when they're brought to the end of themselves, they cry out to God.

And in that prayer and plea, Lord, deliver me, help me, save me, Lord. I submit. Just save me.

A well of life is opened unto them. It's a painful thing, brothers and sisters, it is a painful thing to see people thirsty unto death, unable to see a well right in front of them.

My sister -in -law has all sorts of drug issues and drug addictions, and there was a time recently where we were concerned that she was

ODing or was going to OD, and police were involved and we were having a hard time tracking her down from someone who was very abusive to her.

But she was ignoring calls and dodging anyone and everyone, but she was willing to converse with Elisha late, late one night, this is some weeks ago, and as we tried to just pour out gospel to her, at some point she said,

I wish there was something that could help, but I know it's not Jesus. I wish there was something that could help me, but I know it's not

Jesus. The well is there, and all you can do is pray,

God, open her eyes. Open her eyes that she may drink freely. Open her eyes,

Lord. It's a sad thing when people are so thirsty that they're dying and still willfully, stubborn, resisting the water of life that God gives freely.

And so our prayer when we see people in our lives is, God, open their eyes, open their hearts to receive, open the mouth,

God says, and I will fill it. There's a woman, of course, at the well in John 4, the

Samaritan woman. Not in this desperate plea, she seems to be rather playful and curious, but her life is no less desperate.

She's on a road to hell. Her life is given over to sin. And the same Lord that opens the well literally in front of Hagar and Ishmael here is the same

Lord who opens the well figuratively in John 4. If you drink of this water, you'll never thirst again.

Horatius Bonar wrote in his hymn, I heard the voice of Jesus say, behold,

I freely give the living water, thirsty one, stoop down and drink and live.

And then the believers refrain, I came to Jesus and I drank of that life -giving stream.

My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him. These are the words, these are the invitations of Christ, if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.

And our prayer for you, if you're sitting here this morning and you have not drunk of this life -giving stream, is that the

Lord would open your eyes, that you would see your thirsty unto death, that you would not delay a moment, but that you would cry out to Him that the well of life may be opened unto you.

Brothers and sisters, as we close now, it's through Isaac, not through Ishmael, that the nations will be blessed, that the promise will be made sure that Christ, the life -giving stream, will come.

And so wherever you might be this morning, whether you're in the deepest pit of affliction or on a hilltop of blessing or likely some 25 year span between the two, wait on the

Lord, trust in His word, learn to sacrifice what He touches and know that His promise is sure.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you, Lord, that your pleading invitation stands true today.

Lord, as surely as you heard the cry of distress, the plea for rescue back in Genesis 21,

Lord, you would hear it this morning. If there's someone here who does not know you,

Lord, if there's some weak and afflicted soul, Lord, if there's someone in the bondage of sin who's coming to the miseries and seeing their great thirst, but knowing not how to quench it, still stubborn in their hearts as Ishmael was stubborn in his heart, might they cry out to you?

Might they bend their will and submit to the Lord Jesus that He might open a well to them, a well that flows life -giving water from His own body in the form of His blood shed for us?

Lord, if there's saints here this morning who are discouraged, set back,

Lord, as they've been waiting long and long upon you for things yet to be fulfilled, encourage their hearts,

Lord, help them to rehearse your promises, build up in them faith in the surety of your word, reinforce their pursuit and perseverance of your means of grace.

Lord, help us as a body to know how to celebrate and rehearse these things that we might experience more of your blessing and more of your power.

No matter what the world looks like around us, no matter how much things seem contrary to what you have said, we know the

Lord Jesus is enthroned on high. All of His enemies are being presently made His footstool.

Help us to live and to operate by this faith, the faith that steals the nerve of those meeting in underground churches in North Korea or the

Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan this morning. May it steal our hearts as well, Lord. These things we ask in your son's name.