Fun. If you don't have a Bible, that's okay. You should look in your announcement sheets or somewhere you should find today's text printed. I'll be picking up in verse 8 and I'm going to go ahead and read it today. So in chapter 21 verse 8, I say to you, hear the word of God. The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son for the son of this maid shall never be not be an heir with my son Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son, but God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the lad in your maid. Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her for through Isaac your descendant shall be named. And the son of the maid, I will make a nation because he is your descendant. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread in a skin of water and gave them to Hagar putting them on her shoulder and gave her the boy and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Irshiba. And when the water and the skin was used up, she left the boy and they're one of the bushes, then she went and said, do not let him and lift it up her voice and wept. God heard the lag crying in the angel of God called the Hagar from heaven and said to her, what is the matter with you Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Her eyes lift up the lad and hold him by the hand for I will make a great nation of him. Then God opened her eyes and she saw well of water and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink. God was with the lad and he grew and he lived in the wilderness and he became an archer. He lived in the wilderness of Perran and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Let me pray. Father, we thank you that you have given us your word and I pray now that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf so that they may see it and the one to whom it points Jesus and him crucified. We thank you for this and your name we pray. Amen. Well, if you are visiting for the first time, I am not going to give you a lot of background. I have been preaching through Genesis in the fall now. This is the third year and we are picking up again this year in the life of Abraham. If you were here last week, you will remember that last week was a huge sort of almost a combination of the book of Genesis in many ways in that the promised sun was born to Abraham and Sarah. Remember, God came to Abraham and Sarah and promised them a child and through his descendants all nations would be blessed all of these things and for almost 30 years, they waited and remember they kept screwing up in the intervening time. In the intervening time, they wondered if God was really going to be faithful and he kept coming back and being faithful in spite of their faithless mess. Today, if you remember last week also, the most remarkable thing, at least to me, about Isaac's birth in the book of Genesis is that it is so unremarkable that here is the child that they have longed for forever. Here is the child that took 30 years to concede and when he finally comes, he gets seven verses in the Bible. The other son, however, gets a lot more. You see, that would make you angry if you were a mother, I assume. You see, it would also make you angry if your husband almost jeopardized the whole thing before and you see Isaac's story is right between Abraham jeopardizing the promise with a bimolec and you have a whole chapter on that and then you have Isaac was born and then you have almost a whole chapter on conflict with Ishmael. You see Ishmael is the other son. He is very other. You will see later and how did this conflict even begin? Where did Ishmael come from? Ishmael is a result of Sarah's unbelief. Her sin is coming back to bite her and it will over and over again. I remember in chapter 15, God promises a son and 16 Sarah begins to worry that it is not going to happen and she goes to Abraham and she says to Abraham, Abraham it is probably not going to happen. I probably can't conceive so here is what I am going to do. I am going to give you my Egyptian handmaiden and I want you to take her as a wife and conceive a child with her. These are things you need to keep in mind that that was a mistake. It was not only a mistake to give her. I believe it was a mistake for her to be taken as a wife. I don't advocate adultery or a concubinery being a concubine. However, being a wife is going to make things more difficult later on because she will have the rights and privileges of a wife. She is taken as a wife and she, in fact, conceives and she, very interestingly, begins to mock Sarah. It says that she showed contempt for Sarah and Sarah became angry and treated her harshly and so, Heghar flees. That is where this whole thing picks up because everyone does not laugh. With her, it is some people laugh at her. First, it says that the child grew and believed that Abraham made great peace on the day of the Isaac. Now Sarah had a sense of Heghar flees and she had born. Abraham mocked. Therefore, she said to Abraham, drive out this maid or something. That is very interesting and most of the commentators don't have a clue as to why Abraham waited until Isaac was weaned to have a party for him. You would think that when he was born, they would have had a feast. The sin was born. There would be revelry and joy. But in fact, there really wasn't anything until he was weaned and then when he was weaned, it says there is a great feast. And at that feast is where Sarah looks over and she spies Ishmael mocking Isaac. Now it is the same word, laughter, but with a different Hebrew stem which actually makes it malicious. He is mocking him or he is teasing him and in some cases in the Bible it is actually used for sort of sexual abuse, molestation. We don't know how bad it was but whatever it was it made Sarah very angry to see Ishmael doing this to Isaac. Let's give Ishmael the benefit of the doubts and say he was just mocking. He was just laughing at the bearer of blessing this child. And you know that is understandable isn't it? Imagine if you are Ishmael and you have been born to Heagar and for your whole life you have been groomed to be the heir. You can imagine is what his mother who did not like Sarah told him, you know that old bitty she will never have a baby. You are going to be the heir, trust me. And so his whole life he is wondering if he is going to be the heir. And his whole life he is the only child so Abraham probably treated him as if he was the heir. The blessed one, the child the blessing, the one of promise. And then in one fell swoop his legs are cut off from under him. He is not the heir anymore. This baby is the heir. He is not going to be the one who is the blessed all nations. He is going to be nobody, relatively speaking. That Abraham's descendants and the great blessing will come through this baby. You can understand what he might be a little upset at that. On the other hand, whether it is fair or not, he might have thought it was unfair. Whether it is fair or not, the fact is that even Ishmael, one of Abraham's covenant children is still responsible for embracing the blessing bearer. And the blessing bearer in this case was not him. It was Isaac. Even though he is within Abraham's household, even though he is an heir of Abraham according to the flesh, he will still remain alienated from God. Until and unless he embraces the bearer of blessing who has now become Isaac, his brother, and ultimately we know, will become Jesus. See, that is the problem. That is why the ethnic Jews of Jesus did such a problem with him. Remember, imagine, if you are Herod, and you have worked your whole life, you have finagled and barged and bartered, and done everything you have sold your soul to the Romans to be set above the Jews as the King. The Romans were really in control, and Herod was placed above the Jews by the Romans and called the King of the Jews. And he hears one day that the Magi are coming in town, and they are coming to visit the King of the Jews. And so Herod gets a big party ready, and he puts on his best clothes and his crown and everything in the Magi come in. And they say, we are looking for the King, and Herod says, here I am. And they said, no, not you. We mean the one who is just born, the one who is born King of the Jews, the one who is the descendant of Abraham that will bless all nations. That is the one we are looking for. It is understandable why Herod would seek to kill Jesus, because in one fell swoop, the baby takes away everything he has worked for. You have to deal with Jesus, not with Herod, right? And there is even a more interesting passage in John chapter 8, when Jesus is dealing again with some ethnic Jews, and He comes to them, and He says, you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And they say, what is the truth, and what is Jesus always say? I am the truth, and you cannot be reconciled to God the Father, unless you come through Me, and in fact, unless you love Me, God is not your Father. And they reply, oh, what does it matter, because Abraham is our Father. And Jesus says to them, if Abraham were really your Father, you would love Me. And they said, what do you think you are greater than Abraham? And Jesus says that Abraham rejoiced to see the coming of my day. He saw it, and was glad. And they said, you are not even 50 years old, and you say you have seen Abraham. And what does Jesus say? He says, before Abraham was born, I am, period. That was the name of God. He doesn't even say, I was, I was here, I saw Him, He says, I am God. I am the great blessing bearer here in the flesh, that Abraham longed to see, and I am, and what is their response? The response was silence, because they were picking up stones to kill Him, because of the claim he had made. Because Jesus came to them and says, I don't care if your air is according to the flesh of Abraham, that doesn't mean anything. What matters is if you embrace Me, the great blessing bearer, and that's the same thing he says to us, and that's why Jesus is so frustrating to all of us. Why? Because most of us spend our lives trying to gain affirmation from people around us. We spend our lives trying to gain affirmation from our job. We spend our lives either trying to be good, to impress God or being bad, to impress our friends. We do all of these things, and Jesus comes and says, you know what Tommy, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is what you do with Me, right? Will you be defined by Me, will you be defined by the fact that I lived the life you should have lived, and that I went to the cross and bore all of your sins, and will never hold any of them against you, and that I rose from the dead, God heard Me. The blessing is sure, and the blessing is secured in and of Me. I, in me, all the promises of God are yes and amen. Will you embrace Me? Will you? You see, to bless Jesus is to be blessed and to curse Him, that is hold Him in low esteem, is to be cursed. In other words, you either laugh with Jesus, or you laugh at Jesus, but there's no in between. There's no neutral ground. Remember you've hurt Me, say, Jesus is constantly saying, love Me or hate Me, but for God's sake, don't tolerate Me. And that's what Sarah's problem with Ishmael was, is that she was hating the bearer blessing, Isaac. He was laughing at Isaac, not with Isaac. He was laughing at Sarah, not with Sarah. And because of that Sarah actually had the right idea, but the wrong motives probably. Her decision is very harsh on one hand. She's probably, you know, I don't want to say too much about Sarah. You know, it seems a little bit caddy, almost, a little bit, you know, snipy. She's angry. She just wants them out of here. And she actually makes a very harsh demand. This word drive out means actually to disinherit. He doesn't mean I just wanted to move out of my house or my tent. What he says to Abraham is, I want you to disinherit her and that kid. It's very important to notice that in this passage and throughout Genesis, God, Sarah, of course, but God himself never refers to Ishmael as a son. He's just the kid, the lad. Why? Because there's only one son, Isaac, and all who embrace him. And so Sarah makes this harsh decision probably because she's motivated in her heart by bitterness. On the other hand, it's the right decision. Because Isaac is the child of promise, not Ishmael. And that, of course, puts Abraham in a pretty sticky position. So let's look next at Abraham's difficult decision. Right? Sarah says, to drive out this maid and her son and the son of this maid should not be air with my son Isaac. And it's like in verse 11, it's almost laughable. It says, the matter distressed Abraham greatly. Right? Because the first wife has said, you need to disinherit the second wife. And the reason that this is so sticky one is because Abraham probably loved Ishmael. Maybe even Hagar very much. But also what makes it sticky is that Hagar has to consent to the agreement because she's a wife. She's not cattle. I think the law of lipid ishtar is the law in the ancient Near East where the husband could disinheritance to the wife and to the children but they would have to accept it. And so Abraham's got to be thinking, what's going to happen when I go to kick Hagar out of the house and disinherit her and she doesn't accept it. What's going to happen is I'm going to end up living in the dog house if you were right that I'm going to be constantly caught between these two fighting women for my whole life. And then something happens that actually depending on whether who you are in your perspective, it either makes it a lot easier to deal with or a lot harder to deal with. And that's that God agrees with Sarah. Right? That God comes to him and says, don't be distressed. Do what Sarah tells you. Right? Sort of like arguments I have in my family. God seems he always agrees with Judy. She's right usually just because she is. I always think I'm right, but she generally is. Listen to what God says in verse 12. It says do not be distressed because of the lad in your maid. Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her. For through Isaac, your descendants shall be named. And the son of the maid I will make a nation also because he is your descendant. That God comes Abraham and he encourages him with two things. One is that Isaac in fact is the child of the promise and through Isaac, all of Abraham's descendants will be named. The other promise he gives him is that I'm going to take care of Ishmael. He's a covenant child, if you will. He was circumcised. He is in your family and because of that, I will take care of him. However, he still must deal with the blessing bearer that doesn't get him off the hook because God is taking care of him. And the best way to help you understand that if your Presbyterian, this should sound familiar. This is what we say when we baptize babies. Right? That when you baptize a baby, you're putting a mark of the covenant on this baby and what happens is you baptize the baby and you claim God's promise that this child will enjoy all of the benefits of being in covenant with God. The God will take care of this child. However, at some point in the child's life, the child will still have to deal with Jesus. They have to decide whether to be a covenant keeper or to become a covenant breaker but up until that time, they enjoy being in the covenant community because of your faith, not their own. And that's what God promises to Abraham. Notice he doesn't, in a sense, he doesn't have any special affection for Ishmael. He just says, Abraham, because he is your son, I will take care of him and I'll make him a great nation. And because of that, that's what makes Hagar's decision, which follows and Ishmael's ultimately, that much more foolish, why does God do that for Ishmael? Why does he do it for the babies? We baptize here for my children. And the answer is this is because God is very patient. And he basically gives Ishmael his whole life to keep covenant. And because he was circumcised and he had the mark of the covenant, that covenant would always bear witness to him, that he has a chance to go back and bless the blessing bearer. He knew that's a benefit in and of itself. And Hagar makes this decision which ends up being pretty foolish if you look at Hagar's decision. It says that Abraham gave her the boy. He disinherited her and sent her away. And what makes the decision foolish is that, and we know it from silence, is that she doesn't contest it. She accepts it. That Hagar could have done two things. She could have gone according to the law and said the law says that I'm your wife and this is your first born kid. And so we're going to fight this out in court to see whether or not I have to leave. We're going to fight this out in court to see whether or not he gets inherited. The other side of the coin, of course, would be submission and repentance and grace. She could have said Abraham, you know, I'm sorry for mocking Sarah these past 30 or so years. I'm sorry that Ishmael mocked Isaac. Please let us be in your household because this is the place of blessing. She doesn't do anything. He offers to, he gives her the chance to leave and she does. And where did they go as soon as they leave? The wilderness en route to Egypt. Listen to what it says in verse 15. It says when the water skin was used up. She left the boy under one of the bushes and she went and sat down opposite him about a boat shut away. She said, do not let me see the boy die. She said opposite him and lifted up her voice and wept. Now it's interesting that Sarah looks up her voice and cries out but most commentators even would say she's not really praying here. Remember verse 16. God came to her personally and gave her this promise that he would sustain this kid and knows she doesn't cry out to God. Yahweh helped me or Elohim whoever helped me she doesn't. Nor does she pray according to the promise. You promise me you would take care of this kid. She just says, oh don't let me see him die. And that's why God comes. He says, a stage of lurch says, what is the matter with you? Agar. I will take care of the boy. Do not fear. I've heard the voice of the lad arise and lift him up and then God opened her eyes. She filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink. And then in verse 20 it says that God was with the lad. Now this thing you might think that's encouraging but in fact given the context of it it ought to be pretty discouraging because basically what we see in verses 20 and 21 is God's faithfulness and ishmael's covenant breaking. The God is faithful to his side of the covenant. God was with the lad. He promised Abraham that he would take care of him. Ishmael still has to bless the blessing bearer. And we see here that he does not. In fact what is Ishmael doing instead it says one that he was in the wilderness and he grew and he became an archer. In other words he became a man of war. He was not a man of peace. He ended up living his life by the sword. The other thing of course we see is that he takes his wife from what place. The land of promise. No he takes her from the land of bondage. He goes back to Egypt and to the original audience especially of this letter of this book Egypt is the bad place. You do not want to go back to Egypt and if you want to make it look like someone is in very bad shape what you do is say ishmael went back to Egypt. And you do not need to say anything else because we know when he went back to Egypt that he gave up on the covenant that he became a covenant breaker and the Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 4 uses the story to make a point. He is basically he uses the same story to talk about what it means to be a Christian. He says let me tell you what it means to be a Christian is like these two women. One of the women is Sarah and she had a child of promise by faith and all those who come to Jesus by faith trusting in his promise are like Isaac you become a child of promise or a son or a daughter. That what you must do is trust in the finished work of Jesus upon the cross and if that's what you do if you believe that promise he says you become like Isaac a child of promise. He said now there was this other woman hey gar and she had a son according to the flesh and that son was a slave and all of you who insist on doing things your own way. All of you he says who insist on living by your wit to exist on on being a firm by everything except Jesus he says you remain a slave. You see isch male even though he was under God's protection because he refused to deal with the blessing bearer he remained alienated and what the gospel says is that even if you go to church even if you are raised in the church. You are still alienated from God unless and until you deal with the blessing bearer that is Jesus. Some people think they are Christians because they go to church some people think they are Christians because they are American. Some people think they are blessed because they are Jewish and what the gospel says is this you must deal with the blessing bearer one and all. You know a simpler story than even Paul's story that makes all of this even more clear is the great pumpkin. Over the great pumpkin Charlie Brown I was watching the great pumpkin the other night and Linus and Charlie were on the fence and I said that is Isaac in Ishmael. What do I mean by that? What I mean is this if you remember in the great pumpkin Charlie Brown that Linus the film opens up and all the kids are very excited about Halloween. They are all excited about going out and trick or treating all except one one of them Linus is determined that the great pumpkin somehow has promised him that he is going to come. It is what Linus does Linus' life is defined by his faith that the great pumpkin is going to come. And so if you remember there is a great scene at the beginning where Linus is sitting at his kitchen table and he is writing a letter to the great pumpkin and all of his friends coming one by one and mock him for his stupidity. How could you believe something so stupid as the great pumpkin and Linus just keeps on writing. And remember at the end of the letter he even writes p.s. if you are not real please don't tell me. And so Linus Halloween finally comes and Linus gets his blanket and he goes to the pumpkin patch and it is funny he has a big sign like a prophet that says welcome great pumpkin as he walks there and all of the kids are walking this way to go trick or treating and Charlie Brown is at the end of the line. So Linus goes and of course Sally follows because she is secretly in love with Linus and you can tell by the hearts that fly up around her head. She goes to the pumpkin patch with Linus and Charlie goes with the other people and as they are going out remember all the kids get lots of candy and every time they come and they say what do you get and they stand in the circle and they say I got apples I got raisins I got snickers I got this Charlie Brown what did you get? A rock over and over and over Charlie Brown gets a rock. Linus on the other hand gets nothing and at one point Sally even mocks him and leads him and he yells out great pumpkin if you are not going to come and then he catches himself because oh forgive me for saying if forgive me for saying if I can't believe I said if you come when you come when you come let everyone know. If the great pumpkin never comes and Lucy remember Linus is shivering under his blanket gets him and puts him in bed and at the end of the great pumpkin Charlie Brown Linus and Charlie Brown are sitting on the fence and Charlie Brown says to Linus Linus you know I know how you feel I've done a lot of stupid things in my life before and Linus loses it. He says what do you mean stupid the great pumpkin promise and because the great pumpkin promise I will be there next year and every other year until he comes back you see what's the difference between Linus and Charlie Brown. And once there's no difference they're both losers right how does it to be seven years old and completely bald or still carry your blanket everywhere you go they're both complete and utter losers and yet why is Linus always happy and Charlie Brown is always miserable. Because Charlie Brown is always trying to make something happen he's trying to figure out how he can make his life better Linus on the other hand he looks and sees the great pumpkin. And his whole life is defined by waiting and trusting that this great pumpkin made a promise and that's what I'm going to rely on and I don't care if I never see it in my lifetime but that's what I'm going to look for now and that of course is what Paul was saying in Galatians wasn't that simple. But some of us waste our lives trying to make it happen and trying to make things good and trying to have our own sins taken care of by our works and all these things and we wonder why we're miserable. He says you're like Ishmael you're like Charlie Brown others of you you look to Jesus and you said Jesus I've got nothing anything that you give me I would be happy for he says you are a child of promise you're like Linus your Isaac. Think about that that the gospel has been freely and utterly offered to you will you take it we become a child of promise let me pray. Jesus we thank you that you as the great blessing bearer have come and given gifts to us. Mostly you've given us your spirit and I pray that even today you would grant your spirit that many who came in here as Ishmael would leave as Isaac as many who came in here. I pray that all of us who have trusted you for some time that you would help us to understand the laughter and the joy of our son so we thank you for all of these things in your name. Amen.