A Little Good News Series

Genesis 21:1-7

June 29, 2003

I rolled out this morning...kids had the morning news show on

Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon

Some senator was squawking about the bad economy

It’s gonna get worse you see we need a change in policy

There’s a local paper rolled up in a rubber band

One more sad story’s one more than I can stand

Just once, how I’d like to see the headline say

Not much to print today can’t find nothing bad to say

Because...

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD’d, nobody burned a single building down

Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today

And in the streets of Ireland all the children had to do was play

And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA

We sure could use a little good news today

We sure could use a little good news today. We have been living these past few weeks in the uncertainty of the moral choices being made in our nation. As well, even our study on Genesis has been in a very negative section. We have looked at the bad choices made by Lot and the devastating consequences of those choices. We have seen God’s judgment on the sin of Sodom. We sure could use a little good news today.

1. The Amazing Promise Fulfilled 21:1-2

God had first promised in chapter 12 when Abraham was 75 and Sarah was 65. My parents are around Sarah’s age. It would be pretty miraculous fro them to have a child now. But that was not enough for God - He delayed the promise till Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90. Henry Blackaby calls these types events "God-sized."

What is the key to these two verses?

Three times - God promises are fulfilled just as He said.

- Israel around Sinai

- miraculous beginning

- evidence that God can be trusted

- Us today

- miraculous beginning to our salvation

- evidence that God can be trusted

2. The Response to a Promise Fulfilled 21:3-7

a. Abraham’s response 21:3-4

Obedience

For Israel around Sinai or for the Christian today, the first response to the fulfilment of God’s promise is obedience.

b. Sarah’s response 21:5-7

key word - laugh

17:15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.

16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."

17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"

18:10 Then the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him.

11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.

12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?"

A promise so preposterous that both of its recipients laughed when they heard it.

Joyful praise - laughter not of derision but of pure unadulterated joy at the promise of God fulfilled in laughter her son.

Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever