The Promised Son
Text: Genesis 21:1-21
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Well we’ve finally got to the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham so long ago. And right off the bat we see an important lesson. It’s probably… I’d say… one of the most important things you can know about God. And that is that He keeps His Word. It isn’t always in our time, or the way we think it should be. But He always keeps His Word. If you think about it, Abraham is about 100 years old, Sarah’s 90 and they finally have a son. About 3 times in this passage we see the phrase – “As He had promised.” Or, “As He had said.” Depending on what version you’re using.
Verse 1 starts out by saying the LORD visited Sarah… I actually like how the NIV puts it here when it says, “The LORD was gracious to Sarah.” Because rather than a word for word translation, it’s conveying the idea here. Because if you think about it, Sarah had laughed at God’s promise prior to this. And she also tried to circumvent God’s way of doing things by giving her maidservant to her husband, but God has shown her grace. He had grace on her. Instead of punishing her for her doubt, and her disobedience, and her trying to do it her way instead of God’s way… God has grace.
And so God has kept His Word. He’s done exactly like He said He would. Abraham and Sarah have had a son, exactly when God said they would. So… God is a God of grace and He keeps His promises.
Now I don’t know… I guess I could stop right there for today, because if you get those two things, and I mean really get them. Then you’ve got all you need. But the text goes on, so I guess I will too.
As we read on, we see that Abraham names his son Isaac; which literally means “Laughter.” And that can have all kinds of connotations I guess. There was laughter because Abraham was so full of joy in the fact that God had kept His promise to him. And don’t forget that Sarah; prior to this had laughed in unbelief at God’s promise. You know; I look at this and I see a lot of things that could bring about laughter. I mean Abraham’s nearly 100 years old. I can see Sarah mashing both Abraham’s and the baby’s food so that they can eat it, because neither of them have any teeth. Look at verse seven (Read) – What about nursing at 90? Come on! You got to laugh at that unless you’re just too uptight in your religion. Now the Bible doesn’t get into how all of that worked out for them. The main idea is that Sarah laughed at God in her unbelief but now she’s laughing with Him and Abraham in faith. There’s joy here! As a father I can tell you how wonderful it is to have children that you can raise to love the Lord. So there’s joy, there’s excitement. There’s laughter.
But… trouble is just around the corner… or I guess we could say, a few verses down.
But before we get to that I want to look back up at verse 4 (Read).
God has kept His promise and Abraham responds in faithful obedience. Basically; by doing this, Abraham was saying, “God I know that you have done this for me. I know that my son belongs to you.” It was the sign of being part of the covenant community. When my girls got baptized they both knew what they were doing. I taught them about it, what it meant and what it signified, and then I questioned them about their understanding of it. Then pastor Dirks at Lincoln Avenue did the same. He talked to them, he asked them questions to make sure they understood it. Pastor Andrew actually did the baptism, but both Jason and I had gone over what it meant. I did that, I took them to Jason, to avoid any bias on my part. But the point is that they understand what it means to publically confess their being united to Christ through baptism. And so Abraham commits his son to the Lord. He’s committing to raise his son the best way he knows how in the sight of God.
But like I said a while ago, there’s trouble in the making. The day that Isaac is weaned, Abraham throws a party. He was probably very happy because… you know, it goes back to that whole 90 and nursing thing. But for whatever reason Abraham has a party to celebrate but verse 9 tells us that Ishmael was scoffing. He was making fun of Isaac. Now Isaac is probably about 2 years old or so, and most likely Ishmael is laughing at him as he’s walking on unsteady legs, or maybe he had an accident in his goat skin pull up, or something. Some commentators say that Ishmael was actually being mean to Isaac, you know… picking on him and being mean, like a bully. And that’s probably more likely the case, because back in chapter 16 God said that Ishmael would be like a wild donkey. Whatever was going on there, Sarah didn’t like it.
Now just to remind you of where Ishmael comes from… You’ve got to go all the way back to chapter 12, when Abraham was in Egypt. And while he was there, he had lied to the Pharaoh and God straightened that mess out, and in the process Pharaoh gave Abraham livestock and wealth and slaves… and one of those slaves was an Egyptian woman named Hagar. Then Sarah had a plan to circumvent God’s plan and she had Hagar bear Abraham’s son… and that son is Ishmael. And if you remember; initially, Sarah wasn’t happy that her plan worked, she was mad, and she tried to send Hagar and Ishmael away, but God brought them back, and for a while things seemed to be working out ok. But now we’ve got Ishmael; whose probably around 16 years old or so, and we’ve got Isaac whose two years old… maybe three, depending on when he was weaned and the teenager is picking on the toddler. And Sarah steps up and says, “Hey Abraham, your girlfriend’s son is picking on our baby. If you don’t do something about them, I will!” And can you blame her? I mean, she’s been waiting her whole life for this, and some 16 year old bully’s picking on her 2 year old. I mean; this is how every other episode of C.O.P.S. starts out. The police are called; they show up and there’s some guy standing there in a greasy white tank top. The police ask him what’s going on and he says, “I don’t know… my wife and girlfriend just started going at it!”
Now Abraham’s upset about all of this, but God speaks to him and says, “Abraham, it is through Isaac that My purpose is going to be fulfilled. He’s the one I gave to you. He’s the one that all the promises are going to come through. He’s the one, not Ishmael. Don’t worry about Ishmael, I’m going to take care of him as well, but Isaac is the promised son. Do what Sarah says.” Now this is one of the strong proof texts for the doctrine of election. And if you don’t get the doctrine of election, then I recommend that you read romans chapter 9. If you still don’t get it, then come see me and I’ll try to explain it to you.
The point is that God has chosen Isaac not Ishmael for His purposes. It’s all part of God’s plan to bring about redemption to mankind. God’s going to take care of Hagar and Ishmael as well, but they aren’t the ones that He has elected to eventually bring about the Savior of mankind. It’s though Isaac that the promise comes.
Now way back when we started this series in Genesis; I told you that it was a book of beginnings.
It talks about the beginning of creation, the beginning of time and history, the beginning of man, and here we’re seeing the beginning of two nations… of two people groups; the Jews and the Arabs. You see the Arabs trace their lineage back to Ishmael. If you read the Quran, you see that. They say that Ishmael was the promised son, not Isaac. Not we can document and prove historically that it’s the Quran that doesn’t line up with the original Scriptures. The Bible does… the Quran doesn’t. And I don’t have time to get into showing you all the details involved in that, but if you want to know more about it, just talk to me after the service and I’ll give you the historical evidence that proves this. And again, the point is that God chose to work through the Jewish people to bring about redemption, not the Arab people. And that goes all the way back to the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Remember when we talked about that? In the New Testament, in the book of Romans, Paul describe it as the child of promise and the child of the flesh… or the child of faith and the child of the flesh.
And I’ll just tell you this right now… as we read about the lives of Isaac and Ishmael, and then later on the lives of Jacob and Esau – you’ll see that there’s really nothing to commend the lives of Isaac and Jacob over the lives of Ishmael and Esau. All of them sin and make their fair share of mistakes. What it boils down to is God’s sovereign choice of grace. We could say, “Well God chose Isaac because Ishmael was the result of Abraham and Sarah trying to do it their way and not God’s,” but with Jacob and Esau, we can’t even say that. It’s entirely God’s sovereign choice of grace. Remember last week when I quoted to you Psalm 115:3 which says, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” I think I also told you to read Romans chapter 9 for more understanding…
That’s your homework… while I’m gone on vacation the next two weeks, read Romans chapters 9 through 11, and read it in light of what we’ve been talking about here with Isaac and Ishmael.
Now one more thing, really quickly and we’re done.
Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away. And while they are out in the desert, they run out of water, and Hagar basically gives up and thinks they are all but dead. This is a sad, hopeless state. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there. You’ve got more bills than income. You’re not sure how you’re going to buy food and clothes for your kids, or how you’re going to make ends meet. Well that’s kind of where Hagar is at. She’s lost all hope. She’s basically accepted the fact that she and her son are going to die in the desert. So she lets him take a nap under a shade tree and she goes off and cries. And so the last thing that I want you to see here in our text is that God hears and understands. When there seems to be no hope, God shows up and He brings hope to the hopeless.
I mean that’s a picture of God sending His only begotten Son to hopeless humanity. You and I have no hope whatsoever without Christ. None of us would have any hope without God intervening and saying, “I love them and I will have mercy upon them. I will send My Son to redeem them back to myself.” God hears this hopeless cry, this broken cry, and He has mercy upon Hagar and Ishmael.
And God still has mercy today! No matter what you’re going through in life, He can help you. He can bring you through. His mercies are new every morning. Cry out to Him, fall on His grace and mercy. Trust Him, and lean on Him.
Let’s Pray.
