The Give and Take

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the

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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.

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Here's Pastor Don. Good morning. Welcome to Recast Church.

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We're going to go ahead and get started here, so if you can find your seats, that would be great. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the Lead Pastor here, and I just want to welcome all of you to the church here this morning.

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Be sure to fill out the connection card that you received when you walked in. If you're willing to, fill that out and turn that in in the black box back there.

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Then we'd also ask that if it's your first time filling out one of those cards that you'd do us a favor and take one of those coffee mugs that's there, just our way of saying thank you for coming and joining us.

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And then also remember that any offerings that you choose to give this morning, go in the black box back there. We don't pass an offering plate.

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We don't want anybody to feel pressured to give, but we do recognize that it's a spiritual act, and so if you would choose to give, use that envelope in the black box back there.

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And if you're not going to use that envelope, you could help us out just by recycling it in the white basket back there. We can reuse those next week, and so that's available to you.

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And then also remember that any gifts that are given that are marked expansion fund, either on the envelope or on the check, will go into a special account that is moving us towards a building.

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We already have property, and we're moving in that direction. So any money labeled specifically towards that is going into a separate account or being earmarked for that, rather.

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So we've been going through the book of Genesis, and it's almost turned into a biography of Abraham. Have some of you felt that way as we've been going through?

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You get into this section that's just extended about the life of Abraham, and it's tempting to see the stories that we're reading as primarily biographical, like you could walk away from here going, okay, now

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I know Abraham really well. And there's the temptation for that to be the case, but this is not merely the story of Abraham.

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The story of Abraham is included in scripture only because he was chosen by God and swept up into God's story.

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So we must remember that when we're reading the pages of scripture, we're reading about God, and he is, first and foremost, the main character of scripture, and Abraham is there.

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And in one sense, Abraham is along for the ride. It's not that Abraham was super righteous or super cool or just a fine specimen of humanity, and God was like, man,

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I gotta get that guy in my book. I gotta write some stuff about him, because he's super awesome. No, we've seen throughout the pages of scripture so far and throughout the book of Genesis that Abraham is a lot like us, ups and downs, mood swings, things going really well, sometimes taking leadership and just big strides and steps of faith, and other times just having major setbacks in his life and making dumb decisions and poor decisions for his family, and then all of a sudden just taking on a bunch of faith again, and we've seen that throughout the pages of the book of Genesis so far.

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But here in our text today, we see Abraham, the one blessed by God, and we're gonna actually see him experience and suffer some personal loss and also suffer some personal gain in the context of God's promises.

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God promised him that his descendants would become a great nation, a powerful nation, and then he promised to give him some great land for his descendants to develop as a nation in, and in our text we'll see one particular issue arise regarding the offspring of Abraham, which is that promise of making him a great nation, and then we'll also see one issue that arises regarding the land of Abraham, which was promised to him.

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I wanna point out, though, that I think a theme throughout this text is that the promises of God do not protect us from the storms of life.

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Have you kind of seen that in your own life as you've become a Christian? How many of you would say that a lot of problems have come into your life even after you have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ?

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Would you be honest and say that? I think many of us have experienced difficulties and problems and struggles even despite the fact that we're connected with Christ, some that even maybe stem from our connection with Christ, and yet we have a model and an example of how that works out in real life in that God did not spare his own son, but let him go to the cross on our behalf, even though that night before, before he went to the cross, he was pleading in the garden, but then ultimately concluded not my will, but yours be done, and God let him go to the cross on our behalf.

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So God, the promises of God do not protect us from the storms of life, and Abraham's life shows us that, ultimately, that being chosen by God doesn't make everything just run smoothly.

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It isn't the magical solution to all of our earthly happiness, and those who enter into a relationship with the

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Almighty still have difficulties and struggles, and here in our text this morning, we're going to see Abraham up against it once again, going through a struggle, going through difficulty.

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So I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 21. We're going to read 8 through 34. We covered the first seven verses of Genesis chapter 21 last week.

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We're going to start off in verse 8 and read through the end of the chapter. That's page 13. If you take out the paperback Bible in the seat back in front of you, turn to page 13, and I say this every week, but I mean it sincerely.

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If you don't own a copy of the Bible, please take that paperback one with you. I know it's just paperback, but we do want everybody to have a copy of the

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Word of God that they can read in their own house, and so take that if you need it. I'll follow along as I read

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Genesis, the majority of Genesis chapter 21, starting in verse 8. And the child grew, the child being

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Isaac, and the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

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But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.

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So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son

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Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman, whatever

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Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

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And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulders, along with the child, and sent her away.

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She departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes.

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Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off about the distance of a bow shot. For she said, let me not look on the death of the child.

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And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you,

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Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.

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

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And God was with the boy and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

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At that time, Abimelech and Phycol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do.

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Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity.

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But as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said,

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I will swear. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servant had seized,

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Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me and I have not heard of it until today.

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So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart and Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?

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He said, these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.

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Therefore that place was called Beersheba because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba.

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Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

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Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the

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Philistines. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us. Father, we come to this text and I think one of the things that immediately stands out to me is the family mess.

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There's just a lot of messiness in the household of Abraham. And I think many of us in this room can relate to that.

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Many of us have experienced that to various degrees of messes and problems, some caused by us, some caused by others.

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But in the end, we all can relate to what it means to be a broken human on a broken planet with messed up sin and crud in our lives.

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So Father, I ask that you would open our eyes to see what great and glorious salvation there is for us, even for us who are broken, even for those of us who are sinners and recognize our sin and the depth of our depravity.

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And as we recognize that, that we would rejoice all the more that you have saved us who are so unworthy and so undeserving, but you have loved us so much that you sent your son to die for us.

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And we see you ultimately preserving even those who are cast off in our text.

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And Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to your glory, your majesty, and your salvation this morning as we sing these songs to you.

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Let it be praise that rises up from our hearts, not just from our voices, not just from reading words on the screen, but ultimately that our lives and our hearts would rejoice in who you are and what you have done.

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And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. A big thanks to the band for leading us in worship. I'm just grateful for them and the work and the time that they put in to lead us before the throne of God.

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Yeah, that's appropriate. That's appropriate. Glory to God on that. Excellent. I encourage you to keep your

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Bibles open to Genesis chapter 21. I just think it's beneficial for you to be able to look through and walk through the text with me and having that open from verse 8 to 34 is good there.

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And then remember that at any time during the message, if you need to, you can get up and use the restrooms back here, coffee, donuts, juice available as supplies last there.

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So take advantage of that. Now to highlight, I mean, we're starting in the middle of a chapter, we're starting in verse 8.

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So it'd be kind of good to set the stage for what happened prior to this, just to remind us of where we were last week.

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And the first seven verses of chapter 21 were a celebration of sorts. They are one of the highest points in the book of Genesis so far.

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God had made a promise to Abraham that he would have offspring by Sarah. And now he has.

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He and Sarah had Isaac in their old age. And now we come to our text right away in verse 8 and we find that he has survived the tentative infant years.

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How many of you kind of know that there's some tentativeness to infants up to like, say the age three or so? And I mean, even like statistics kind of show and stuff, you want to get your kid grown up, right?

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I mean, that's kind of the nature of the way that things move and that they work. But if you put yourself in an ancient culture, for a child to make it to three infant mortality rates were through the roof,

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I mean, hundreds and hundreds of times what they are today. And so for a child to make it, usually a child went to solid food around the age of three.

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And we have documentation from ancient cultures that that was the case. And there was often a celebration associated with that, a celebration primarily that the child has survived to three.

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And so that's what's going on here, a pretty common cultural custom at the time. We see that right away. And the child grew and was weaned and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

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Anybody think this is probably an amazing feast from what we know of Abraham so far, his hospitality, the way that he rolls his wealth.

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He's an extremely wealthy individual. We've seen that all along. I bet this was some feast to behold. One that if you lived in the area, you wanted to be invited to.

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You wanted to be at this one. But verse eight tells us that Isaac moves on to solid food and they throw that traditional feast and that's what's going on here in this text.

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But notice how quickly things turn sour. So it turns from celebration to sourness very quickly in the text.

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Now the last time we saw Sarah, she was celebrating, she was exalting, she was singing with joy and with laughter that her son, whose name is

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Laughter, has been born. So that's where we left her in the first, really at the end of verse six and seven, she's singing, literally singing about the birth of her son.

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But now we get to verse nine and it says, but Sarah, and whether this actually occurs at the banquet,

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I think the context indicates that something at the banquet went on, but Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the

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Egyptian, notice that he's not even named in the text. There's a derogatory movement in the text towards the son

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Ishmael, but Sarah saw that the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, Isaacing.

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That's what the word is. He is Isaacing. He is laughing. Now there's been a lot of scholarship that's gone into translating that one word, laughing, in this text.

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It is a word that is a derogatory word, more along the lines of mocking. There's some kind of mockery that is going on in this context.

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Remember that the initial, what was the initial use of the word laughter in association with Isaac? What does that have a nuance of?

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A laughter of derision. Angels and the Lord appear to Sarah and say, you're going to have a child, and what does she do?

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Yeah, right, like that kind of laughter. It's not like, oh, ha, ha, ha, this is a really funny joke, and milk's coming out her nose and it's that kind of laughter.

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This is like laughter as in, right, that kind of laughter, and that's what's going on in the text.

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So when Ishmael is somehow mocking this little boy, and here

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I think it's implied quite clearly that he finds the whole Sarah and Isaac thing laughable.

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He thinks it's kind of funny. He's mocking them and likely mocking the entire concept of the promise of God that this child is the one.

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By this point, I think, put it in perspective. Put it down into real life, because I think sometimes we read these stories and the story is just a story, and it's like, yeah, it's included in Scripture.

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Move on to the next text, and just move on, check off your read through the Bible in a year list or whatever, and you don't feel this text.

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What's going on in Ishmael's life? He's approximately 16 years old by this point. I mean, we can pinpoint that pretty clearly.

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If indeed, we can say, for sure, according to the text and the times that are given and the dates and how old

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Abraham was when so -and -so was born and all this stuff, we can figure out that if indeed this celebration is happening at Isaac's third birthday when he is being weaned, then it makes sense,

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I mean, we can definitively say that Ishmael is 16 years old when this happens. Now, what is the first 16 years, or well, really the first 13 years of Ishmael's life been like?

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Think about that. He is the only, he's the heir. He's the only son in the family, really the only child in the family.

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What kind of family is this, economically? A wealthy, a well -to -do family.

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He's enjoyed his father's favor for many years, probably taking him out, teaching him how to shoot a bow, how to hunt, how to do all that stuff,

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I mean, learning all the man stuff and going through those traditions and all of that kind of stuff. He's been raised as the firstborn of a wealthy household with privilege and favor, but all of a sudden, do you see it, can you feel it?

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Something in the family has changed. What's changed? Another son has been born.

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A new son has come on the scene, a son who has been promised, a son who is being celebrated, a son who is being rejoiced over, who is being doted on as the child of the promise.

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And so what I want to suggest to you is I don't think it takes any imagination on our part to understand what might motivate

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Ishmael towards mocking his little half -brother. Does it take a radical imagination to kind of like, well,

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I wonder why would he be so upset? Why would he be all bent out of shape? Why would he be making fun of his brother? Some of you are looking at me like with a blank stare, and I'm not sure if you're getting it, but I think it makes sense.

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I mean, it does to my own sinful heart, I can look at this text and go, I can totally see how jealousy might seep into Ishmael's heart, and I think that's exactly what's going on here, and he is mocking, you know, haha, child of the promise, whatever.

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Well, we know further, though, in this family relationship, we know that Hagar and Sarah are not besties, okay, right?

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Did you know that already? Did you get that impression from reading the book of Genesis so far? Sarah has already kicked

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Hagar out of the house once, and not just kicked her out of the house, but kicked her out of the house while she was pregnant, like leaving her and kind of just hoping that maybe she just goes away and never comes back.

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And then in that incidence that we saw back in Genesis chapter 12, we actually saw

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God care for Hagar out in the wilderness to lead her to water and then command her to go back under the authority of Sarah again.

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And there is nothing in the text so far throughout the book of Genesis that indicates a healed relationship between Hagar and Sarah.

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You can look for it and you're not going to find it. There's nothing that says, oh, Sarah brought her in and just kind of put her arms around Hagar and said, there, there,

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I'm sorry that all of this happened. And I mean, they probably unfriended each other on Facebook. I mean, that's how bad this relationship has gone.

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You know, I mean, this is pretty dire here. And it was all, that first incidence was all because Hagar was mocking

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Sarah for being barren, for not being able to bear children. I mean, that's a pretty significant thing that she's making fun of Sarah for, and she kicks her out of the house.

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And now once again, we see mocking happen from that part of the family. Maybe Ishmael came by that honestly.

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Maybe he learned that a little bit of that from mom, I don't know. I've mentioned before, and I think that it's worth addressing here again,

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I've mentioned before that polygamy is not a good arrangement. The text of scripture never paints a rosy picture of polygamy, animosity, hostility, competition, volatility seem to be the norm in a family with more than one wife.

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And have you seen that in the pages of scripture? Go through it and find out where there's more than one wife in the family, and it's never a pretty picture that scripture paints of that.

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And in verse 10, Sarah commands, look at verse 10 with me, look down at the text. So she said, that's

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Sarah, so Sarah said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman. She is commanding her husband to do something on her behalf.

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This is the terminology in Hebrew is a command. Do you think Sarah's a little hot under the collar? Do you think she's a little upset?

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She uses all kinds of pejorative language, including the word throw away, cast out.

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It's the same word that you would use for rubbish in this ancient time. It's like, just throw it in the bin, cast it off, get rid of her.

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And then not only that, but she doesn't say her name, she calls her this slave woman. Her son shall not be an heir with my son.

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Do you see how derogatory Sarah has become? Just like that. Do you think there's a little bit of history between Sarah and Hagar here?

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Again, just saying, they are not best friends. This is a super low point for Abraham, as many of you can imagine.

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Can you imagine this being a little bit low on the scale of things? As a matter of fact, the word that is used here in verse 11 is a little bit unfortunate in the translation, displeased.

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Is that a really strong word? It doesn't really, so it doesn't convey the Hebrew language very well, the word displeased.

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I wonder, I'd like to sit down with the translators of the ESV and figure out what motivated them to use such a subtle word for this.

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It's an extremely strong word in Hebrew. That's what I want to communicate. So strong that if God is said to be displeased with a human, they are almost always dead by the end of the chapter.

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For real, for real. So if God says, I am displeased with you, throw up your hands, it's over, okay?

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So it's that kind of word, it's that strong. If a human demonstrates displeasure toward another human, it almost always comes to blows or violence in the text of scripture.

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And then here's the thing, this is the only place in scripture where the word very modifies the word displeasure, very displeased.

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Are you getting what I'm saying? So the word displeased in and of itself is a strong word, and then he modifies it with the

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Hebrew word mayode, very displeased. Abraham is spitting mad, and can you put yourself, men, women, everybody in the room, can you put yourself in a situation, have you ever been in a situation where you knew you could not win?

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You're faced with a decision. You know you have to make a decision, and you know if I choose this way,

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I am in trouble, and if I go this way, I'm almost dead. Caught between the hammer and the anvil, and that is right where Abraham is, and he does not like being there.

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But there's more motivation than that. It's not just the difficulty of the situation, but there's another motivation that is burning in Abraham's heart here.

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And that is that Abraham loved Ishmael. Abraham loved his son, loved him with an intense love.

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So far that we saw earlier, I don't know if you remember this in the book of Genesis, but earlier in the book of Genesis, he actually speaking with God Almighty, he said, hey, maybe we could skip the whole baby with Sarah thing, and you could just take

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Ishmael and make him the child of the promise. Some of you maybe remember that, most of you probably don't, but he actually said that to God.

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He said, maybe we could just skip that whole, we're old, we're not getting any younger, I'm not sure what it's,

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I mean, the bleachers at Little League are pretty hard, and I'm getting old. I'm 90 years old, and I can't imagine that being comfortable, and so maybe we could just go with Ishmael, he's already old enough, and maybe he could just be the child of the promise.

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Did he love Ishmael? Yes, he loved his son. It actually says, it grieved him, he was greatly displeased on account of, because of his son, on account of his son in verse 11.

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He loved him. So that Abraham gets so irate in the text, that makes me pretty sure that I don't believe he would have done what his wife suggested to him.

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Were it not for verse 12, verse 12, God is gonna intervene in the situation and give him guidance and direction.

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How many of you would love that if God just kind of like appeared to you and gave you, like you're caught between the hammer and the anvil, and then all of a sudden

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God shows up and it's like, thank you for being here right now, what do you want me to do?

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And I really believe that God actually appears to him in a dream or in a night vision, because in verse 14, we're gonna see so Abraham rose early in the morning after he has this meeting with God.

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And God speaks to him, it seems likely, again, appears to him in a dream, and God tells Abraham to follow his wife's instructions.

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Anybody kind of struggle with that? Okay, so let me paint this picture. Sarah is angry, do you agree with me on that?

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Sarah is upset. Sarah is acting rash, would you agree with me on that? Some of you?

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Sarah is responding with vindictiveness, would you agree with me on that? She is suggesting divorcing his other wife.

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Another way of translating that, cast off is the exact root for the word divorce. For him to cast her off is to officially be done with her.

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And Sarah is suggesting that he disown his own son, and God says, yeah, run with that plan, do that, do what she says.

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Anybody struggle with that, a little bit? But God here gives a reason at the end of verse 12, he says, the offspring

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I promised you will come through the line of Isaac and not Ishmael. Abraham is once again being called to follow

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God and to trust him, and this time he must do this at his own personal loss.

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But I think that this situation is preparing us in some degree for what's gonna come next week.

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Abraham here is being asked to lose something, next week he's gonna be asked to lose it all, everything, you see that here.

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Some of you know where the text goes and you know exactly what I'm talking about. He must give up, in this text, his firstborn son, his second wife.

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And I wanna point out that the inheritance of Isaac is indeed in jeopardy by Ishmael's presence.

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God is cutting Ishmael and Hagar free, but he is not abandoning them. We're gonna see that shine through later on in the text, that he is not leaving them alone, he's not done with them yet.

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But he is setting them free, ultimately that Isaac might flourish and have the inheritance of his father by himself.

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So Abraham rises early in the morning, steps out to obey, a shining point for Abraham here, gives her bread.

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About three gallons of water, which is the word for skin there, is a sheepskin or a goatskin, would hold about three gallons of water, and that's about what she can probably carry over her shoulder anyways.

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And he then gives his firstborn son to Hagar. This is, picture this being somewhat official in a sense.

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But on the other hand, if you imagine this being a simple transaction, then you are missing the reality of human life, the reality of human experience.

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He is giving away his firstborn son and sending away his wife and probably anticipating that he will never see them again.

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The text becomes hard to translate into English, actually, because the Hebrew text employs some tricks in order to communicate that the last thing that Abraham does is give

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Ishmael to Hagar. The language gets tricky in it, so it actually looks like, if you were to read it in English, it looks like he places the child on her shoulder, doesn't it?

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But it's because the text is bending over backwards to make the very last thing that he does give the,

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I mean, it's like, you get the picture that he's hemming and hawing, he's got some bread, and he kind of gives that to her, and then he, hands her some water, no, no, take the water, and I'll put it on your shoulder, are you okay, you're gonna be okay, go up.

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And then the very last thing that he does is give over his 16 -year -old son to his wife, who is about to become his ex -wife, and that's what's going on here.

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She departs into the wilderness of Beersheba. I imagine a lot of tears and a lot of emotion in this departure. This wilderness that she's gonna be going to comes into play in the next account that we see here about Abimelech, and it can be kind of confusing, but it's connected by this concept of this well,

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Beersheba, and I think it's intentionally connected. Beersheba means well of the seven, or well of the oath, and we're about to find out why it's named that.

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And that's the area where she's wandering in. And that she wanders in an area named after a well is a little bit ironic in light of what's about to happen, they're gonna run out of water.

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And I would imagine that water goes quickly in that area of the world. This is the

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Eastern Negev, a desert near the Arabian Peninsula in the north, and the

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Arabian Desert is right there. This is the very same area where the exodus occurs. Water seems to be a pretty big deal to the people of Israel as they're going through this area.

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I mean, water is a significant thing. It's like gold to those who live in the desert, right? It doesn't matter if you have gold in your pockets if you don't have water.

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You're gonna die, right? So you'd trade all your gold for water if you're wandering in the desert. And that's what's going on here.

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I mean, if you've learned anything from Bear Grylls, have any of you ever learned anything from Bear Grylls? Do you know who

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I'm talking about when I say Bear Grylls? Man versus Wild, he's the dude who they drop him out in the middle of the wilderness and then boom, he like shows up in the middle of the city or something.

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And he's like magical. So first thing he tells you to do, number one, number one priority for Bear Grylls, survival in the wilderness, water, water.

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You gotta get water. Apparently, Hagar didn't have cable TV. She wasn't able to learn from Bear Grylls and so she doesn't find water and they run out.

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Now Ishmael's around 16 and his mother has to help him find a tree for shade to lay under. He's in a bad way.

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And she is so certain, put yourself in, I mean, this is a horrible situation.

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She's in such a bad situation that she's so certain that he's dying that she removes herself about the distance that a man can fire an arrow, about a bow shot away, because she doesn't want to see or hear her son dying.

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Pretty desperate, extremely desperate situation. It's quite likely that he's suffering from heat exhaustion, that he's suffering from dehydration.

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It's also quite likely, if you put the context, how is Hagar functioning versus how is her 16 -year -old son functioning, that he has probably let her drink most of the water.

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Put that in perspective. She's gonna do all right in the majority of this text. As a matter of fact, enough that she's able to pick him up and carry him to water here in a moment.

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She's doing okay, he's not. It's a dire, desperate situation.

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She is weeping and crying out to heaven, as you can imagine. But God hears, and so apparently

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Ishmael is crying out as well. And God hears the voice of Ishmael, which ultimately is a crazy play on words in this text.

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God Ishmael's Ishmael. The name Ishmael means the God who hears. And God once again hears

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Ishmael, Ishmael's Ishmael. And now the one who's mocking has put them in this situation.

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Think about this. Why are they even in this scenario? Why are they out there? I'm struggling in the desert. Because he was mocking his three -year -old brother, right?

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Half brother. Isn't that ultimately why they're in this situation to begin with? And yet God hears the voice of the one who has caused this predicament.

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Now, I'm not sure, look at verse 17 with me. How comforting is this?

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Put your, I don't wanna belabor the point. I don't want you to be in too much misery this morning.

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But I mean, if you're in this situation, are you just fit to be tied beside yourself with anguish and frustration?

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And then this is the words that God sends through an angel to her. What troubles you,

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Hagar? Are you just, are you angry?

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Are you frustrated when you hear those words? Like what? I mean, you better move on to the next sentence pretty quick here, angel. Right? Can we move on to where you're going with this?

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Because I'm hearing your voice and I'm not sure I like what I'm hearing. And then even the phrase, have you ever thought about this? The phrase fear not is not a particularly comforting phrase by itself.

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How many of you would love it if you're in the middle of one of the darkest times of your life and your friend just comes up and is like, fear not, man.

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Fear not. You're all right. Why don't you fear with me for a little bit?

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Like can we fear together? Okay, I just need, are any of you built like that? Like that's the way I feel. It's like, could you just sit in this with me for just a little bit before you start offering platitudes and cliches and some of the little

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Christianisms that we launch people's direction. Fear not, God is good. God is great.

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And you're just like, oh. But he doesn't end there. And that's good because the text doesn't,

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I mean the speech of the angel moves right on to what is comforting and I think would be super comforting and that is that Ishmael will indeed become a great nation.

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And I think that lifted her up because she said he is going to survive. He can't become a great nation without surviving, right?

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Without making it out of this situation. And so now she has the comfort that she needs. And at this point,

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God opens Hagar's eyes and shows her a beer. Says that in the text, in the Hebrew text, that's what it says.

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He shows her a beer. Now beer is the word for well, so bear with me on that one. I don't think this was, it's not a micro brew or something.

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But this is an actual well and I don't know if the word, I never thought about that, but I don't know if the word beer in English comes from the

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Hebrew word well or whatever. But whatever. Don't wanna get too far into that.

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But there's something that's a little bit confusing to me or was confusing to me in this text early on and that's like, I mean if somebody is dying of dehydration everything looks like water to them, right?

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So that there could be like a well right there and she doesn't see it. Is anybody a little bit confused by that in the text?

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What I think has happened here, and I mean I'm not alone in this, I'm not making this up or just inventing this, but what

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I think has happened here is that, have you ever been, remember before, any of you remember before GPS? Before you had a cell phone and you could type in the address and you had to use a map or something and somebody would give you direction someplace and you'd be like,

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I think I've gone, I think I've gone too far. And so you'd turn around when you found out you only had to go 200 yards further and you would have been at their driveway.

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You ever had that happen? I think that's kind of what's happened here is that if they had just gone a little bit further, they've stopped and given up yards away from a well.

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And God reveals that to her, opens her eyes to the fact that there's a well just beyond where they've already traveled.

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Just take him up, grab him in your arms and pull him just a little bit further and you will find water.

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And so that's what happens here in this text. That's what I believe happened in this text.

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It's interesting, I mentioned this earlier, just reemphasize it here. She is not completely out of it.

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She's able to actually grab him in her arms and it makes me wonder again if the young boy had let his mother have most of the water.

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But by the intervention of God, they survive in the wilderness. We don't know from that point on, it's just like the narrative moves.

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We don't need a lot more detail about Ishmael's life other than the fact that he's a man who lives by his weapon. He becomes an expert in his bow and his survival is based on his skill with a weapon.

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We know that it was declared of him prior to this text in the book of Genesis that he would become a wild donkey of a man.

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He would be over and against all of his neighbors and against his brothers and against those who are related to him. And that proves to be the case for Ishmael.

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His mother, what is her nationality? Does anybody remember? What's the nationality of? She's Egyptian and so where does she go to find a wife for her son,

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Egypt? We don't, again, do you see the lack of detail in the text? The text is closing on Ishmael and his part in the story.

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And so we are suddenly just getting some rapid things in here that are getting ready to close that down.

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But they survive. She survives, he survives, and they end up making a life in the wilderness.

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Now we come to what appears to be like a weird kind of text in the middle of it. As I was reading it, it just seemed kind of out of place to all of a sudden be talking about a well and a

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Bimelech and Feichel, his military leader and all of that stuff.

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But it's important to understand this is an account about a well called Beersheba. And for multiple reasons that I can't explain,

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I don't want to get into all the scholarship and kind of bore you with the details, but I believe that these two accounts go together chronologically.

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And I believe that what we're reading in the second account actually comes prior to the one there. They both happen almost simultaneously around the same time all of this goes down.

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I do believe that the well that ends up saving Hagar and Ishmael is the very same well that Abraham and a

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Bimelech argued over. That's what's going on here. And that God used a decision of Abraham to dig a well in his youth that now saves the life of his own son in the future.

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That the behavior and the actions of Abraham early in his life actually come to play in this situation.

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But a Bimelech is growing fearful. So we saw him last week. He's the one who actually took Sarah to be his wife because Abraham lied and said she's my brother.

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And so some of you maybe remember that situation that was going on there. You can, if you weren't here last week, you can go back and listen to that message online or just even just read the text yourself.

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But a Bimelech is growing fearful of Abraham. He's growing in power. And a Bimelech saw the power of God flow through Abraham.

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And so he actually declares that everything that you do is blessed by God, Abraham. He sees that.

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He actually, if you remember, right, Abraham actually prayed for his entire nation, for a Bimelech's nation, he's king.

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And prayed for his nation and all of his nation was healed. And so he sees the power of God through Abraham.

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And a simple question for you and I is how much do we reflect our blessings back on God? Do you take credit for the good things in your life?

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Or do you allow others to see that it is God who gives good gifts that is blessed you, whether that be talents?

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So many times I think we can have a focus on our intellect or our ability or the things that we're able to do.

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And we take that all on ourselves. And it's like, boy, am I good? I've honed these skills. I've done this.

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I've invested well. I've, and whatever. And we can, am I alone in that? Or do some of you struggle with that to some degree?

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Like, this is me and I've done this great thing. And have you ever considered that the blessings in your life may be given only for the purpose of reflecting highly on the

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God who gives all good gifts? That we are indeed blessed. Would you agree with me that we're blessed? Raise your hand if you're blessed.

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Everybody's hand goes up. We are a blessed people. And to what end, for what purpose has God blessed us then?

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To be a blessing to others, but most importantly to reflect his goodness and his kindness and his mercy.

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And so we should be pointing to him when somebody says something good about what we're blessed with.

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But Abimelech wants a covenant of non -aggression to be signed by Abraham. He wants an indefinite agreement, an agreement between you and I, yes, but between our offspring as well.

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One that's gonna go on down through the generations that they're not gonna take us out because he's seeing how wealthy and how powerful

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Abraham has become. And Abimelech has shown kindness to Abraham. Remember, he gave him oxen and sheep and servants and all kinds of stuff last week.

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So he's requesting a return of the favor. Please sign this document. So Abraham agrees and his signature looks a lot like sheep and oxen.

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In verse 27, his stamp is sheep and oxen. But before they agree, Abraham uses this moment as an opportunity to address a concern that he has with Abimelech over a well.

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Apparently a well had been dug by Abraham a while back. It's been seized by Abimelech's men without Abimelech even knowing about it.

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So Abraham gives Abimelech seven ewes, seven female lambs in exchange for the return of the well into his custody.

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It was his to begin with, but now this is an exchange just saying, you are admitting that it's mine and that it belongs to me in front of all of your people.

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Again, remember water is worth more than gold in this territory. And so to have water rights is very essential to Abraham's livelihood, to his wealth, to his flocks, to his ability to live in the land that God is giving him.

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And so that he gets this well is indeed significant. So Abraham and Abimelech entered into a peace agreement and agreed to Abraham's ownership of the well at Beersheba.

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And the name Beersheba is a pun because in Hebrew the word for, the word sheba means both oath and seven.

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So we have words that mean two different things in English, right? And that's the way that it is in Hebrew. Sheba means either, and what would the seven pertain to?

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Why would they call it the well of the seven? Because that's the price, the seven ewe lambs that were given.

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So that was the price for the well, for sealing the deal. And then also at that place, they made an oath.

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And so it's called well of the oath as well. And they probably liked that. They thought they were being clever when they named it that. And we think that puns are kind of funny too.

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But Abraham then planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called on the name of the everlasting God there, a new name of God being revealed, that he is the eternal one, the one who has always been, the one who is now and the one who will always be in the future, he is eternal.

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And he calls on the name of the everlasting God there in Beersheba. So we see in a backwards way, a young tree planted by a well in Beersheba.

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And then we see a woman lay her dying son under a bush near a well in Beersheba. And I believe that the very same well that Abraham dug and defended to Abimelech was used by God to preserve

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Hagar and Ishmael in the area of Beersheba. We see God in this text identifying clearly that he has chosen

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Isaac to be the child of the promise. Do you see that there? It's very, very abundantly clear. He says, Isaac is the one.

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Once again in the text though, we see people behaving poorly. Do you see that there? Yeah.

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The family mess is like a train wreck of emotions, pain, hostility, and suffering. And it may not be far off from what many of us have experienced as family.

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We're honest. There's hurt and there's pain and there's frustration, both coming to us and coming from us in the family context often.

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So the question that I have for all of you is who do you relate to in this text? I'm gonna walk through each individual, and I'm certainly not gonna ask for a raise of hands who relates to what.

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And I think we're gonna find that we all relate to a lot of them in various, and it just depends on the day and depends on the circumstance.

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But listen, do you relate to Sarah? Sarah who is bitter, protective, angry, hostile?

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Yes. At times, right, if we're honest. How about, can you relate to Abraham who is angry, cornered, impressed to make a decision he doesn't want to make?

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Been there? Not a fun place. Yes, we can relate to that. Hagar. How about Hagar who is cast off and cast out with no human protection?

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Can we relate to her feelings of abandonment? Yes. Yes, we can.

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How about Ishmael? Caught in his sin, facing consequences that seem too severe or too harsh.

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Yes. I think at any given time, we can see ourselves in the faces of these people through the text.

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So I wanna ask you, and I ask myself, who is God to the Sarahs?

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Who is God to the Sarahs who are angry and bitter and pushing? He is the

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God who blesses us with good things despite our own efforts. Sarah created the whole scenario by giving her servant to her husband in the first place, right?

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She plotted and schemed to get a son, and it backfired. And God kept his promise to her and said,

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I am still with you, Sarah, and I will still accomplish the good that I had in store for you.

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I'm still there despite your bitterness, despite your anger. I'm still here. Who is

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God to the Abrahams? He's the God who guides and directs us in the pathway forward.

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He tells Abraham in verse 12, his plans for Isaac, he tells his plans for Ishmael and gives comfort to those who are cornered by the messiness of life and sin.

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And the messiness of life and sin certainly does corner us at times, doesn't it? He continues,

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God continues to beckon the Abrahams to follow him. Who is

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God to the Hagars? The Hagars who are beaten down and cast off and feeling discarded.

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He is the protector, the savior, the one who comes in and comes to us in our darkest hour and offers hope like a well of fresh water to quench our souls.

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That's God to the Hagars. He gives us dignity and hope even when we feel most cast off.

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Who is God to the Ishmaels? Sometimes we're sitting in our own mess. You ever sat in your own mess? You recognize that the problems facing you are your own doing.

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I mean, do you think Ishmael kind of had a clue why he was out dehydrated in the middle of the desert? Do you think he probably had some indication of what he had done wrong?

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Yeah, yeah, he had a good handle on that. I'd imagine he's 16 years old. He probably has a pretty developed brain able to figure out like, okay,

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I mocked my half -brother and my step -mom got angry.

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And now we're out here dealing with this. But sometimes we're sitting in our own mess and we've wronged others and the consequences come swift and harsh to us.

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But God is there offering a pathway of salvation. He doesn't give up on us as quickly as people do. Think about that.

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God does not give up on us as quickly as people do. Did Sarah give up on Ishmael pretty quick? She's done.

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Get rid of him. Get rid of him and his mom. Get them out of my sight. She's done with them.

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But God is not done with them. And there he is offering a pathway of salvation.

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And even this child, Ishmael, who will end up rejecting authority, according to the prophecy that was given, rejecting community and even eventually rejecting

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God's ways, is one who could look back if he had eyes to see and say, the

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God who hears has shown me mercy. Even Ishmael.

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And as we reflect on the messes we've endured, we ought to also reflect on the messes we have caused.

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We live in a culture, we live in a day, we live in a time when everyone is a victim, right?

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And everything is a result of what's happened to me. But we rarely will flip the tables on that and suggest that maybe we victimize others from time to time.

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So it's often a focus on, oh, you know, I've been wronged. Bad things have happened to me. And so because bad things have happened to me, then

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I do bad things once in a while. When the reality of it is, we don't just have messes happen to us, but we cause messes.

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Every human life has left a wake of destruction behind it. Some leave a wider wake than others, right?

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But none of us have come through without breaking God's plan for us in some way. And the sinless son of God stepped into this human mess.

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And this was not some field trip from heaven to see what things are like here on earth. He came on a rescue mission that ultimately required his sacrifice of his very own life for us.

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So as we take communion this morning, I want you to consider both the brokenness in yourself, ultimately answering the question, how worthy of this sacrifice am

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I? How worthy of the blood of Jesus am I? How worthy of his body? And I think you'll all come to the same conclusion as me.

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If the only question I ask you this morning is how worthy of this are you, then we ought not to really pass the juice and the crackers.

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Because I am convinced that if we're honest with ourselves, we wouldn't even pass it this morning, right?

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Are you getting what I'm saying? How worthy are we of this sacrifice? Not at all. I am not worthy of the son of God dying on the cross for my sins.

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But praise God that that's not the only question to ask. But really in the end, there's a statement that needs to be made.

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And that is that amazing truth that while we were yet sinners, unworthy sinners,

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Christ died for us. That's our value. That is the place where we actually realize we are loved.

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And that love has the possibility of radical transformation in our hearts and in our lives to actually really feel unconditional love.

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And not just unconditional love, but unconditional love from the Almighty. That's an amazing thing.

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That should lead us to rejoicing and joy. Especially the more that I know my own sin, the more that I see the darkness in my heart, the more that I'm forgiven.

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And it's not that you go sin more so that grace abounds more, right? We know that.

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We know that love changes us, love transforms us. It's love that moves in our hearts to move us to the place of going, you know what,

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I'm tired of offending God. I'm tired of walking against Him because I see how much He's sacrificed for me.

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I see how much He has given up for me. Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

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He loved this world so much that He sent His only Son to die for us that anyone who trusts Him might be saved from the judgment they deserve.

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I think you guys can all probably relate to the statement I'm gonna make of myself. I was like Ishmael, dying under the tree.

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But my eyes were opened to the life -giving well. And the life -giving well is nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself.

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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in the sacrifice of Jesus.

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And we're gonna have a moment here to celebrate communion and to remember the death of Jesus and getting saved by taking the cracker and eating it and by drinking this juice.

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It's a remembrance of the great sacrifice that was required to bring us to you to reconcile our broken relationship and here in the text we see a messiness of life that is just crud and junk.

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And it's not that far off of where we live every day. And so all the more

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I rejoice in that I see my own messes, the messes that have happened to me, the messes I've made.

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And I look at you and I look at the cross and I keep my eyes fixed there and rejoice that you could save a mess like me, that you could save a sinner like me.

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I pray that you would move in all of our hearts to lead us down that road this week to a place of walking every step, recognizing that it is grace, grace, grace, the cross, the cross, the cross.

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Not trying to make ourselves pleasing to you but ultimately recognizing that what is pleasing to you is the sacrifice of your son.

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And I pray that as we take this juice and we take this cracker and that we would genuinely rejoice in our hearts that the price has been paid to make us well with you.