Introduction:
A. A group of students in Texas was taking a class on the psychology of emotions.
1. The professor wanted to know what the opposite of happy was.
a. One student raised their hand and said, “Sad.” “Very good,” said the professor.
2. Then the professor asked, “What’s the opposite of depression?”
a. Another student answered, “Elation.” “Excellent response,” said the professor.
3. Finally, the professor asked, “What’s the opposite of woe?”
a. One student, confidently hopped up and said, “The opposite of woe is giddy-up!”
B. While the opposite of woe is giddy up in some places, in most places the opposite of woe is joy.
1. Life is full of highs and lows and we can be sure we will have moments of happiness and sadness, elation and depression, and joy and woe.
2. Our task is to learn to navigate the extremes of life as we walk with God and depend on Him.
C. In today’s segment from Abraham’s life, we will see how he navigates the highs and lows of life.
1. Let’s see what lessons we can learn from Abraham that will help us face life’s highs and lows.
I. The Story
A. In the first part of Abraham’s story segment for today we see him experience one of life’s highs.
1. The Bible says: 1 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:1-7)
2. At long last, at the appointed time, Abraham and Sarah received the fulfillment of the promise.
a. Ninety-year-old Sarah gave birth to a son, and in obedience to God, they named him Isaac, which means “he laughs.”
b. Years earlier, when God told Abraham that Sarah would birth him a son, Abraham had laughed.
c. Then later, when God came again to announce that Sarah would have a son, Sarah laughed.
d. So, when God accomplished the impossible through this elderly couple, their disbelieving snickering became joyful laughter – laughter of praise and thanksgiving.
e. And anyone who saw this elderly couple with a newborn baby would certainly join them in their laughter.
f. Imagine seeing elderly Abraham and Sarah at the mall pushing their own walkers, while also pushing a stroller.
g. Imagine the astonishment when inquirers praised them for their handsome grandson or great-grandson, only to be informed that this is our son!
3. In obedience to God’s command, Abraham circumcised his son on his eighth day of life.
a. God had established His covenant with Abraham by formalizing it with a covenant-cutting ceremony, and commanded circumcision as a sign of the boy’s participation in God’s plan.
b. The practice of circumcision wasn’t new with Abraham.
c. Egyptian temple paintings show that circumcision had been part of human culture since 4000 B.C.
d. Usually, however, boys were circumcised when they reached puberty as part of fertility rites, but God drastically changed that starting point by commanding Abraham to circumcise his descendants on the eighth day of their lives.
e. Here is an amazing fact that points to God’s supremacy and the inspiration of the Bible:
1. Medical science tells us that chemicals necessary for clotting are not present in a baby boy until days 5 through 7, and on the 8th day, the amount of clotting chemicals present actually is elevated above one-hundred percent of normal.
2. And is the only day in the male’s life in which this will be the case under normal conditions and if surgery is to be performed, day eight is the perfect day to do it.
B. Why had God waited so long to fulfill this promise to Abraham and Sarah?
1. We might speculate and say that perhaps Abraham and Sarah would not have appreciated the birth of Isaac as much as they did after having waited for him for so long.
a. And that could very well be true – how often have we not appreciated something that came to us too quickly and easily?
2. But more than that, I believe God waited so long to fulfill His promise to them because God was waiting until the ticking biological clock of Sarah’s womb to completely run down.
a. God wanted to leave no doubt as to the reason for Isaac’s birth.
b. Isaac’s birth needed to be a supernatural demonstration of God’s power so that the credit for the miracle of Isaac’s birth would be God’s alone.
C. Before we move on in the story, let’s pause and try to imagine just how much Abraham and Sarah must have adored this newborn baby boy.
1. Just watch grandparents with a newborn in their arms who came from their daughter or their daughter-in-law – it’s magnificent to behold!
2 But we’re not talking about a couple of adoring grandparents – Abraham and Sarah were dad and mom at 100 and 90-years-old, respectively.
3. Long after they had given up hope of experiencing this joy, they held their son in their arms.
4. As we will see in a future lesson, this may be why they might be tempted to cling so tightly to this child.
5. So here we see Abraham and Sarah experiencing one of life’s highest and happiest moments, but unfortunately, as is often the case in life, the high doesn’t last very long.
D. The very next verse in Abraham’s story moves them from life’s highs to its lows.
1. The Bible says: 8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” 11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. (Genesis 21:8-11)
2. So the birth of their long-waited heir, Isaac, gave Abraham and Sarah great joy, but their delight became tinged with regret.
a. About 15 years earlier, Abraham and Sarah tried to rush God’s plan and in their haste to provide an heir through Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar, they made a mess.
b. So now the new baby, Isaac, joined his half-brother, Ishmael, who is a teenager and as you will recall was prophesied to be a wild one who will have open hostility toward everyone.
3. In most, if not all families, the birth of a new baby always threatens the older children, especially if he or she has enjoyed exclusive attention in the past.
4. For Ishmael, this was the first time in his life that he had to share his home with a rival.
a. To make matters worse, he understood his position in the family hierarchy.
b. Normally, the firstborn would be the main heir, but that was not the case for him.
c. Isaac, this new baby, was the child of promise, and was the primary heir.
5. Verse 8 mentions that Isaac grew and was weaned.
a. We learn from this that about three years has passed since Isaac was born, because most children were weaned around age 3.
b. So for three years, this conflict had been brewing in Ishmael and the family, and it finally came to a head at a family celebration.
c. Drama always surfaces at family celebrations, doesn’t it?
6. So Isaac was 3-years-old and Ishmael was 17-years-old and during the family celebration for Isaac, Sarah caught Ishmael mocking her son, Isaac.
a. The term rendered “mocking” means “to jest, to make sport of.”
b. So as Ishmael ridiculed little Isaac, Sarah’s blood boiled.
c. If you think a momma bear is protective of her cub, just imagine the rage of a 93-year-old mother in defense of her toddler!
7. And so with motherly protectiveness mixed with petty jealousy, Sarah demanded that Abraham get rid of the slave woman and her son.
8. This, of course, put Abraham in a very tough place.
a. Anyone who lives in a stepfamily home can identify with Abraham’s situation.
b. Abraham loved Sarah and was overjoyed by the little boy tottering around his tent, but he also loved his other son, Ishmael, and I’m not sure about his feelings for Hagar.
c. Although he wanted to keep Ishmael close, he knew that the rivalry between his two sons would likely grow even more intense and would eventually make life intolerable for everyone.
E. The narrator twice described Abraham as distressed, but thankfully and gracefully, God stepped in and gave Abraham instructions and a promise.
1. The Bible says: 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.
17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. (Genesis 21:12-21)
2. So, God told Abraham that it was okay to follow Sarah’s instructions and send Hagar and Ishmael away.
a. God promised to take care of Ishmael and to multiply his descendants.
3. So that settled the matter and Abraham quickly followed through the very next day – which says something about the distress the situation was causing in the home.
4. Upon leaving Abraham’s camp, Hagar wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba, about 30 miles southwest of Hebron.
a. Hagar, like most suddenly single parents, faced the challenge of having to survive alone.
b. Her situation becomes a metaphor that illustrates the challenges of most single parents.
c. Like Hagar, many single parents have too little provision to cover their needs, they often feel forsaken by loved ones, and they often wonder if God cares about them.
5. God’s treatment of Hagar can offer all of us some needed comfort, especially those who are single parents.
a. While we might feel alone, we are never alone.
b. God sees us, and God hears us, and God will provide and sustain us.
c. As Hagar lay weeping in despair and the young man lay dying of thirst, God heard their sorrow.
d. God hears and knows our distress, our confusion, our regrets and bitterness.
e. And God wants to help us through it all.
6. As we reflect on Hagar, the single parent, and Ishmael, the fatherless son, let’s be reminded of Psalm 68:5-6, “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows – this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.”
7. God then helped Hagar to open her eyes to the provision that God was providing around her.
a. The spring had been there all along, but because of her despair she was blinded to it.
b. Oftentimes, when we are in a bad place, we can’t see beyond our own misery.
c. God helped her to see what she had been missing and what she needed so badly.
d. If we focus on our bitterness and misery, we will never see the well nearby and will die of thirst.
e. I think for many of us the thing we need so badly that we had been missing is the church – God’s family is often the way of provision and strength in our time of need.
f. That’s true not only for the single parent, but for all of us.
II. The Application
A. Hopefully, we have already learned many lessons from today’s segment in Abraham’s story, but I want to conclude today’s sermon by drawing our attention to two primary lessons.
B. The first lesson I want us to take to heart is that God keeps His promises.
1. While we may not be able to count on everyone, we can always count on God.
2. Because truth is central to God’s identity, and because He cannot violate His own nature, it is impossible for God to speak an untruth – it is impossible for God to lie.
a. So, when God makes a promise, we know He will fulfill it.
3. It’s a good thing that God keeps His promises, because the Bible is full of them.
a. Years ago, someone counted 7,474 promises in the Bible, and while I cannot verify that number, I know that there must be hundreds, if not thousands of promises in God’s Word.
b. Some of God’s promises have already been fulfilled, like the promises surrounding the coming of the Messiah, and the promise of Isaac being born.
c. Other of God’s promises are yet to be fulfilled, and yet we can know that God will keep those promises, because God is a promise keeping God.
4. Here are some important things for us to keep in mind about the way God keeps His promises:
5. First, we must remember that God is not in a hurry.
a. Unlike God, we view all life from the limited perspective of time.
b. God, however, is not bound by time or by human perspective.
1. While we hurry because we might be late for something, the Lord doesn’t need to rush because He maintains complete control over time.
2. Unlike us, God is never early or late, He is always on time.
c. For us, within the flow of time, waiting often feels like an eternity.
1. Many of us are waiting for God to fulfill His promises – we may be waiting for relief, or waiting for an answer to prayer, or waiting for what we need.
2. As we walk with God in faith, we learn to wait with anticipation instead of worry.
3. When we walk with God and wait upon His promises, we don’t fret over the “if” but trust that it is only a matter of “when.”
6. A second thing we must remember is that God never forgets His promises.
a. While all of us sometimes forget what we have promised and to whom we have promised it, God’s memory does not fade over time.
b. Even before God speaks His Words, His promises have been woven into the fabric of the future, waiting to unfold at just the right moment.
7. The third and final thing we must remember is that God’s promises are linked to their context.
a. Some of God’s promises are universal – they are for everyone.
1. Like: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28)
2. Or: “Anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life.” (Jn. 3:36)
3. You and I can claim those promises for ourselves – anyone can – they apply to all people, everywhere, throughout all time.
4. But not all of God’s promises are universal, some are not for everyone.
b. Some of God’s promises are personal promises that apply only to a specific person or specific people group.
1. Like God’s promise to Abraham’s descendants that He would bring them out of Egyptian slavery and take them to a land flowing of milk and honey.
2. Or God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would be like the sand of the seashore.
3. When God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son in their old age, we should recognize that God made that promise to them and to no others.
4. If you or I were to marry extremely late in life, we shouldn’t say to our spouse, “Honey, don’t let the fact that you are 68 and I’m 70 mean that God won’t give us a son, after all, the Bible says “You will have a son in your old age.”
5. We would be foolish to lift a promise out of context and apply it to ourselves when it was not given to us.
8. But we can know that God keeps every promise He makes!
C. The second lesson I want us to take to heart is that God’s forgiveness doesn’t necessarily remove earthly consequences.
1. One of the most comforting promises and realities in our relationship with God is the forgiveness of our sins.
2. But when God removes the eternal and spiritual consequences of our sins, often the earthly consequences still remain.
3. Though nearly every act of sin is forgivable, the effects of some sins are not erasable.
4. For Abraham and Sarah, although God had forgiven them for taking matters into their own hands to produce an heir, the reality of the situation with Hagar and Ishmael remained and created earthly consequences that continue to affect people even today.
5. Although the alcoholic may repent and sober up, the damage of years of sinful behavior may permanently remain on their body or family relationships.
6. A person may be forgiven by God for years of angry abuse of their family, or infidelity, but the consequences of out of wedlock offspring or loss of wife and children may remain.
7. See, God may forgive the crime, but we may still have to do the time.
8. I wish that it was the case that only the guilty experienced the fallout of their sin, but the truth is sin hurts the innocent as well.
9. Sin is like a terrorist’s bomb in a crowded mall – it causes chaos and throws fragments everywhere, injuring anyone of any age close to the explosion.
10. This reality should help us be ever more diligent to walk more closely with God.
11. One of God’s promises is that He will help us overcome any temptation and will provide a way out – so let’s take God’s promise to heart and with God’s help avoid sin at any cost, so that neither we, nor others will have to live with sin’s lingering earthly consequences.
12. Mercifully, and thankfully, God will even help us through the painful earthly consequences of our forgiven sins.
13. Life has its highs and lows, and we can trust God to help us through them all.
Resources:
Abraham – One Nomad’s Amazing Journey of Faith, by Charles Swindoll, Tyndale, 2014.
Friend of God – The Legacy of Abraham, Man of Faith, by Ray Stedman, Discovery House, 2010.
