In our text this morning, we finally come to God's fulfillment of the promise that he made to
Abraham way back in Gen. 12. So far, God has made some grandiose promises, and thus far there has
really been no indication of whether he would keep his promise, other than the fact that he continually
restates the promise, and each time he is more and more specific. At first, God promised that he would
bless Abraham and make him a blessing to the world. Then, in Chapter 15, he promised that he would
have descendants as innumerable as the stars in the sky. Finally, in Chapter 18 he tells Abraham that in
about a year he will have a son named Isaac. All of those promises are fine and well and good, but so
what if God cannot keep his promises. Have you ever known someone like that? Someone who is
always promising but never fulfilling. Perhaps you are like that. Perhaps you tell people that you will
help with something, and then you forget or just don't really want to do it. Perhaps you promise to give
money to something, and then the going gets tough and you renig. Or, maybe you even make promises
to God that you don't keep. So, when it comes to God, we can't help but think of him as being like us.
Abraham has done just that. Abraham stinks at keeping promises. He has tried to give away his wife
twice. But, God is the only person in the whole universe who is faithful to keep his promises.
In our text today, we find God fulfilling his promise to give Abraham a son, and in this story we
find two different sons of Abraham. We find the son of promise and the son of sin. In looking at this
passage, I want to consider three points: The Son of Promise, the Son of Works, and the Analogy of
Grace.
The first point that we see in this passage is the Son of Promise in Chapter 21:1-7. In this
passage, there are two things I want you to see: The fulfillment of the promise and the joy of the
promise. First, we see that God is faithful in fulfilling his promise in a very real and practical way. We
find out in verse 1 and 2 that God causes Sarah to conceive. I don't want you to miss the absolute
improbability of this. Sarah's womb was already infertile before she turned 90, but then when she
turned 90, she hit menopause and now any hope of having children is virtually impossible... except for
God. God takes Abraham, who is 100 years old, and Sarah, who has a dead womb, and he somehow
causes what is naturally impossible to happen. This is the definition of a miracle. We have a bad habit
in our day of making a miracle out of everything. I've had three children, and I can tell you that the
process of pregnancy and birth is a marvel of God's creation. It is an amazing feeling to hold your little
baby, who is a part of you. But, it is not a miracle. It's something that happens every day all day in
hospitals around the world. But, when a 90 year old menopausal woman and a 100 year old arthritic
man conceive a child without any help from the medical community, it's a miracle.
The second thing we see in this passage is the joy of the promise. Sarah is overjoyed by the
birth of her new son. She praises God for the fact that God has given her laughter, and He has brought
about great celebration and joy in her life. Notice that she gives God all the credit for her joy, because
there is no one else to credit. God did all the work.
Brothers and sisters, the fulfillment of God's promises in our lives should be a source of joy, but
so often it just goes overlooked. When a new believer is baptized in our church or in any church, that
should be a source of laughter and joy because God has kept his promise. When our church grows and
we have new people coming and we are able to do new things that haven't been done in a long time,
that should be a source of laughter and joy. When God answers prayers by healing someone or bringing
them through a trial, it should be a source of laughter and joy. But what do we do? We get aggravated at
the inconvenience of a new member that doesn't know how we've always done things. We get sore over
the inconvenience of new faces and new opinions. We totally ignore God's work in someone's life and
just write it off as the miracle of modern medicine rather than the provision of God. There should be
something for us every week that we can come into this house and praise God for because he has been
faithful to fulfill his promises to us. But, instead of thinking on those things, we think about the
mechanics of church.
The second point we see in this text is the Son of Works in verses 8 thru 21. We find out in
verse 8 that a little time later Abraham throws a party for Isaac. It says that he waited until after he was
weaned. Because the infant mortality rate was so high in those days, often times they would wait until
after the first year to name a child because they weren't sure if the child would make it or not. And,
because of the uncertainty of nutrition, the mother would often nurse the child until he was around 3
years old to insure that he got adequate nutrition. So, typically, around the age of 3 the family would
wean the child and they would have a birthday party to celebrate the success of this young child. That
is what is happening here. But, there is a problem at the party. Ishmael, who at this point is a teen punk
of about 16 to 18, is seen mocking his half-brother. Now, there is a debate as to whether he was just
jeering the boy or if he was actually assaulting him, but in either case Sarah is having none of it. Isaac
has just gotten passed all the dangers and threats of nutrition and disease, and she's not about to let this
little punk spoil everything for her. So, she implores Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. Now,
what is surprising about this time is that Abraham prays about it, and God tells him to let them go. God
reiterates the fact that he has chosen Isaac to be the recipient of the promise, not Ishmael. But, God
does promise to take care of Ishmael.
Ishmael and Hagar leave and they get out into the desert that is modern day Saudi Arabia, and
they run out of water. They are in desperate straights, and apparently Ishmael has lost all of his energy.
So, Hagar puts him in a shady location and then goes about a football field length away so that she
doesn't have to watch him die. At this point, the angel of the Lord appears to her again and reiterates
the promise that he had made to her back when Abraham had cast them out before. He then reveals a
previously hidden spring that saves their lives.
There are two points I want to make about this. First, notice that in verse 14 it says that they
stopped in the wilderness of Beersheba. Do you know where that is on the map today? It is Mecca. God
kept his promise to Hagar, and Ishmael did become a great nation. The descendants of Ishmael are the
Arabs of the middle east. One descendant of Ishmael named Mohammad took parts of Christianity and
parts of Judaism and blended them together to make the religion we know as Islam. The place that he
chose as the holiest of places, the place where millions of Muslims come every year to worship a false
god, is the same place where God spoke to Hagar and saved Ishmael. I want you to understand that
God has a plan for all peoples. He has a plan to save people from every tribe, including from the tribe
of Ishmael. Be careful that you do not despise a race of people, because God does not. Just as he saved
Hagar and Ishmael and kept his promise to them, God can save the Arabs through the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Second, once again God proves himself to be the God who sees even the one who is most
despised and forgotten. Hagar was ready to die, and it is at that point that God intervened to save her.
She had done everything by the book, as far as this world is concerned. Marry up in the world. Try to
gain the top position by ousting everyone else. Use your influence, whatever it might be, to get your
way. She had gone from a slave girl in Egypt to wife of a wealthy nomad in no time at all, and that
scheme had brought her to the point of death. It is at this point, when she was at her wits end, unable to
do anything more to save herself or her son that God acted. Have you ever wondered why God waited
till this point? Why didn't he come to her as she was leaving Abraham? Why didn't he tell her where to
go to avoid dehydration? He didn't because she was not ready to be saved. If you think that you are
earning your way to heaven, getting recognition for all the work you've done in the community or in
the church, earning your crown for all the times you've attended when no one else did, then you are like
Hagar, living by your own works and wits. If you find yourself flat on your back, wondering how you
will ever make it and how God could ever save or forgive you, that is when God will do his work.
My final point is the Analogy of Grace. To see this we have to fast forward to Galatians 4:21 –
28. In this passage, Paul uses this very story from Gen. 21 as an analogy for what God does in
salvation. He reminds us that Abraham had two sons. One son was born to a free woman, and one was
born to a slave girl. One was born as the child of promise, and one was born as the child of a conniving
scheme. Paul says that if you are trying to live by the law to earn God's favor, then you are a child of
the slave girl. If you are counting off the things that you have done for God, if you are expecting your
name on a plaque, if you want the applause of men, then you are lost because God saves through
promise. But, if you are trusting in what God has done through Jesus Christ. If you believe that God is
able to save you because God has kept his promises thus far. Then, you are a child of the promise.
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