Some of you have had the pleasure and/or pain of participating in a step-family. On rare occasions this works out really well and goes smoothly, but most of the time it’s very hard and all the parents and children involved, have major adjustments to make both lifestyle wise and emotionally.
It’s often hard for one parent to discipline the other parent’s children, hard for a parent to love somebody else’s children, it’s hard for the children to say goodbye to one parent and be expected to love the new one just because mom or dad does. There can be jealousy, anger, mistrust and so many other dynamics that must be dealt with.
Now our story with Abraham and Sarah and Hagar may not be what we think of as a typical step family, but the dynamics are similar. Abraham has a baby with another wife, he loves the boy from Hagar, but despite her best efforts Sarah can’t get herself to love Ishmael. Hagar and Sarah at best tolerate each other for several years. Imagine a step family where all the parents live together.
Then Isaac is born and it’s like bringing in a new step-brother, and Ishmael, only a teenager, is clearly going to have a hard time loving this kid who everyone is making a big fuss over, when he has been the center of attention for so long. Not to mention that this is their own biological child. Oh how hard it is for the step kids to compete when the new couple has their own child together.
Emotions and human nature make these situations difficult even when there are the best of intentions on all parts. And so it should be difficult I guess, this is not God’s design. Not that you can’t make it work, or should feel guilty for a failed marriage, but simply it’s not God’s design, so it may not work out as smoothly as if it was. Of course many marriages don’t go very smoothly even when there is no step-family involved.
So as you listen to this story today, think about it from those terms, how hard it would have been for all the people in this scenario to be loving and stay Christ like. Of course in our situation in Genesis we need to throw in direct disobedience and lack of faith in God’s promises, that led to this situation. So let’s begin with:
I. Abraham and Sarah: Faith and Promise (vv 1-7)
Look at the components of God’s promise here. He visited Sarah as he had said, he did to Sarah as he had promised, and he did it at the time He spoke of. It’s all about God fulfilling his promise as he said, and in His timing.
Now immediately Abraham follows the Lord’s instructions to a tee. Has he finally learned his lesson? He names the boy Isaac and has him circumcised on the eighth day “as God had commanded him”.
The next few verses confirm the miraculous nature of this event as Abe is 100 years old, making Sarah 90. God miraculously made them capable of having children and Sarah’s even able to nurse. Even in those days of slightly longer life spans now, this would have been biologically impossible. God wanted them as good as dead, so he could really reveal his miraculous power. Their faith sort of released God’s power, as can ours.
Now were they perfectly faithful while waiting through these 25 years since the original promise? No. I’m sure none of us would have been either. But we do see how waiting strengthens us, gives us time to grow, allows God to train us like an Olympic athlete who has to train hard and wait four years before getting a shot at the prize. Hebrews 6:12, “through faith and patience we inherit the promises”.
Their faith may not have been perfect, but they did continue to believe the promise even though they had times when they doubted. Really what this shows is that God’s promises are not dependent on our faith, but when the time is right, on his agenda he fulfills them, regardless of our situation. When God wants to build our patience and our faith he gives us promises, sends us trials, and tells us to trust him.
Why does God tell Abraham to do what Sarah says? Because he was the one who said “yes dear” to Sarah’s disobedient plan before, and this was the result of that. This is a bit of an irony God uses here. God is basically saying, “Hey buddy you didn’t take responsibility before, and got yourself into this mess, why should I let you make the decision this time? Here’s your consequence, you will not see your first son again.” We are forgiven but that does not negate the consequences of our sin.
Finally we see Sarah’s incredible joy. She finally sees God work and bring the promise to be. A lifetime of shame and humiliation in that culture for being barren and having a husband with the name that means father of many nations. She was probably a laughing stock, and now she is laughing with joy, and rejoicing in the fact that people will be laughing with her because of what God did for her. A relationship with the Lord should bring us joy (Ps 4:7, 66:1, 92:4, Isa 35:10).
Then in chapter 8 we shift gears a little and look at:
II. Isaac and Ishmael: Spirit and Flesh (vv 8-11)
In Galatians 4:28-29 Paul makes it clear that Ishmael represents the believer’s first birth (the flesh) and Isaac represents the second birth (the Spirit). Ishmael was born of the flesh by human doing without faith, but Isaac was born of the Spirit through faith because Abe and Sarah were basically already dead in terms of having children.
This was as much a miracle as the conception of Jesus. The natural always comes before the spiritual and you’ll notice that often in the Old Testament it’s the second son that God blesses, though this goes against the Jewish tradition.
Isaac was born “by grace ..... through faith”. Just as a believer is reborn into Spirit when by faith, we are able to be saved through grace. What a great foretaste of what was to come. This is the only way a lost sinner can enter the family of God. By grace, through faith.
So Isaac resembles the child of God through his miraculous birth, and also through the joy that he brings. We never hear of Ishmael bringing joy. From before his birth he brought painful trouble. No matter how hard the old fleshly nature tries to manifest the fruit of the Spirit, it is not able because it has not been reborn into the Holy Spirit.
Isaac grew and was weaned. The new birth is not the end, but the beginning, just as we are called after our second birth to begin a new life, to put away childish things as we mature in Christ and allow God to wean us from temporary pleasures that hinder us later.
Why does a mother wean a child? To give the child freedom, but the child interprets this as rejection and wants to hold onto the comfort of the past. In this way the time comes in every Christian life when as Warren Wiersbe says, “toys must be replaced by tools, and selfish security by unselfish service.”
Ishmael loses his inheritance, is not named here (he’s called the son of the slave woman) showing no honor, and he makes fun of Isaac the “promised one”. Isaac comes through God’s promise, not man’s efforts, and again this shows that physical descent means nothing to God. Just like you will not be saved and be a good Christian just because your parents were.
So Isaac experienced persecution from Ishmael (representing the world). The flesh began to oppose the Spirit. Hard to fault Ishmael after being the only son for so long (which wasn’t his doing) to make fun of the big fuss that was given to Isaac. Just like today those in the flesh ridicule those of the promise. But it’s only those who by faith receive God’s promise who are truly free, and not children of the slave.
Isn’t it ironic that those people who object to being a Christian because they think it takes away their freedom, are the ones who are truly not free.
To this day Ishmael (the Arab nations, children of the flesh) and Isaac (Israel, children of the promise) can’t seem to get along.
Then there’s:
III. Sarah and Hagar: Grace and Law (vv 9-13)
I wonder if Sarah was also afraid of what this 16 year old son would do to the toddler Isaac, out of spite and jealousy. Clearly Sarah would not treat Ishmael as she would Isaac, so this would never have worked out anyway. Sarah may have been wrong in getting Abraham to marry Hagar, but here she is right in sending Hagar and Ishmael away.
Again Paul makes it clear by his allegory in Galatians 4 that Sarah represents grace and Hagar the Law, and those under grace should not live under the bondage of the Law. Read Gal. 4:21-31.
Now let me quickly point out that the Old Testament Law, or Law of Moses is not the same as God’s laws. And neither is it just the Ten Commandments. The Law contains over 600 commandments that were impossible for man to follow to a tee. And that was the whole point, God wanted to show us that we can’t live up to His standards and that is why we need His grace.
God’s laws on the other hand are the commandments he gives to believers already saved by faith under the New Covenant, because we still need direction to follow Him. These do include the Ten Commandments that Jesus affirms, but also every other command that Jesus gives. So no, we are no longer obligated to follow the Law, but we are still required as believers, to follow God’s laws or commands in the New Testament. In fact Jesus plainly says this is how we love him.
You see Hagar was temporarily added alongside Sarah until the birth of Isaac, like the Law was added temporarily to God’s grace and His already existing promises of redemption through Jesus. Grace was before the Law and the Law only led us to an understanding of grace, then the Law was no longer needed.
The Law was God’s servant as we hear in Galatians 3:19 just as Hagar was Sarah’s servant, to prepare Israel for the coming of the redeemer, and to keep them under control. The Law revealed sin but could not give redemption or life, it simply let’s us know we need grace. Abraham was considered righteous by faith over 400 years before the Law was even given to Moses.
Now it seems Hagar is the one who apparently never disobeys God. She submits to her master Sarah, she returns to Sarah when God told her to, and she does what God says now, and she appears to be blessed. But because she is a slave under the Law, she is a legalist who obeys out of fear and obligation rather than faith and love. Ultimately no blessings come to God’s people because of her, only pain.
Now Hagar obeys again and this time her and Ishmael are on the brink of death when God comes in power and saves them. No doubt this was all setup so that these two people of the flesh would get to a point where they had to depend on God just like the Israelites would have to in the wilderness, and they had to learn to trust him. But as we saw with the Israelites, the miraculous interventions of God did not bring about a lasting faith in Him.
God always gives these opportunities whether we take them or not. But later Scripture tells us that this faith didn’t last as Ishmael and his descendents become forever enemies of God’s people. It is possible that through Ishmael’s seed Islam is born.
Just like the promised son Isaac and ultimately Jesus, we can’t make God’s promises come true by our own efforts. Only by depending on God’s grace. Do you see how it doesn’t take faith to follow laws, just obedience and fear can be enough for that. But when we develop faith, we follow God’s true overarching will, which is to love and make disciples, which does require faith, and we desire to do what he commands because we have faith that His ways are right and best for us.
For a second time Hagar is kicked out and heads for Egypt, this time God doesn’t send her back. She had served her purpose as the Law she represented, but now that the promise was fulfilled and grace has arrived in Isaac, she is of no use anymore and needed to be cast out, because the Law actually arouses sin as Paul states in Romans 7.
Is the Law in and of itself bad? No, even Jesus says it’s good as it’s from God. But if it is the basis of our life instead of the grace of God, then it’s interfering with a relationship with Christ and discounting His death on the cross which installed the New Covenant. Living by the Law is directly living without faith in what Christ did for us. Still thinking we have to make ourselves righteous before God.
Even Adam and Eve didn’t want to do evil, they weren’t snubbing their noses at God. Like most sin, they had what appears to the world to be good motives, they wanted to know good and evil so they could be more Godlike and do good. This was Satan’s trap. Just like making sinful decisions to gain safety, or protect someone’s feelings, or make more money for your family, can also be considered good decisions as measured by the flesh, but can still be disobedient to the Lord.
That’s kind of how the Law works, and we are tempted by it even today. We think if we do good most of the time, that’s what God wants, but in focusing on that, it takes away from our focus on developing an intimate, loving relationship with Jesus. That is what God really wants and he knows the rest will take care of itself, because then we will have the mind of God and be in tune with His Spirit.
So let’s finish with:
IV. God and Hagar: Promise and Provision (vv 12-21)
Ishmael is now about 16 or 17, not really a helpless child. But maybe he let his mother have most of the water. For some reason he is in worse shape than her, and Hagar basically gives up and can’t stand to watch her son die. So she cries out to God.
Many people including unbelievers, cry out to God in crisis. And perhaps if their prayer is answered they’ll get on the bandwagon for a while, they might even start going to church, and even make an emotional profession of faith.
But it doesn’t mean they have developed a saving faith in Christ, and they are often the rocky soil, who believe for a while, but in time of testing they fall away.
Now last time when the angel of God came to Hagar, the word used for God was Jehovah, the God of covenant and redemption, because she was still under Abraham’s care. Now the angel is the angel of Elohim or the God of power and creation, because she has now become a stranger to the Abrahamic covenant of promise, and requires God’s power and provision to survive.
God shows up to provide in their time of need even though they are no longer under the promise to Abraham. But God will only provide when it serves his purpose and will. He doesn’t want any to perish, so his promise of provision applies to everyone, even sinners and unbelievers. We know this is true because look how much some sinners and unbelievers have from a worldly perspective, and how little some Christian saints have. Of course it depends on your definition of provision.
His hope is that through His provision people will turn to Him in gratitude and love. But even though he provides materially, it doesn’t mean you’re going to receive his ultimate promise of eternal life in His presence. His provision may be hit and miss depending on His will at the time, but His major promise is completely available at all times to everyone. In other words, just because he provides for us in this life does not mean we are also covered by His promise of eternal life.
God’s promise of eternal life, which is also really his main provision, is for everyone who cries out to him, to Ishmael and to Isaac. Anyone who lives by faith in Jesus Christ as Messiah, are all Abraham’s descendants adopted into God’s family, Jews and Gentiles, even though we make mistakes.
The only criteria is true faith in Christ. We can then all give ourselves away and be a blessing, trusting that God will provide for us either in this life or the next.
Now in terms of an Action Plan for this week. I am going to suggest that we look at where in our lives we may be focused too much on what we are doing as Christians, and how it distracts us from developing the relationship with Christ that He desires. Perhaps we need to start doing fewer things that seem to make us good people, and use that time to be with the Lord.
Now just to clarify, the doing I am talking about is more the service work, and the trying to good people. We need to keep doing some of that. But works that take the place of prayer and reading the Bible, need to be limited somewhat, because those are the two major ways we develop the relationship with God through letting him speak to us, and us speaking to him. We need more of that, and less trying to be good. Our goodness comes from Him as more of Him dwells in us. Does that make sense?
