Isaac and Ishmael

Good morning. Has God ever provided for you, not by causing something to happen

that hadn't happened yet, but rather by opening your eyes to something that was already there?

That's happened to you before? Yeah.

Have you had a situation where you were praying to God and what happened was

not that he changed something, but he made you aware of something that was already

true? That has happened to you?

So that and many other things take place in today's passage as we continue our

series through the book of Genesis.

So we're in our series in Genesis, how it started. We are now at part 21 and

we are in Genesis chapter 21. So if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn there.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read to you the entire chapter, Genesis chapter 21.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

All right, here's our text for this morning.

It is great to hear actual Bibles turn. I noticed that in the first service too.

Like everyone switch to like phone Bibles, it seemed like, and like,

you just, you can never hear the swoosh, and then suddenly today,

I can hear real pages, and it's wonderful.

I mean, not that phones are bad, and pages are better, but phones are sort of

bad, and pages are better.

Okay, phones aren't bad. I'm happy I have one, nice guess. All right,

Genesis chapter 21, starting in verse 1.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

The Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore

a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time God had told him.

Abraham named his son who was born to him, the one Sarah bore to him, Isaac.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Isaac circumcised him as God had commanded

him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Sarah said, God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.

She also said, who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?

Yet I have born a son to him in his old age. So this talk about laughter,

the name Isaac means he laughs.

And so it's a play on words. And she is saying the reason that she's laughing

is like, how hilarious is it that she had a child at such an old age?

Let's keep reading. Verse eight. The child grew and was weaned and Abraham held

a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

But Sarah saw the son mocking the one Hagar, the Egyptian had born to Abraham.

So she said to Abraham, drive out this slave with her son for the son of this

slave will not be co-heir with my son Isaac.

Now this was a very difficult thing for Abraham because of his son.

But God said to Abraham, do not be concerned about the boy and your slave.

Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her because your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

But I will also make a nation of the slave son because

he is your offspring early in the morning abraham

got up took bread and a water skin and put

them on hagar's shoulders and sent her and the boy away she left and wandered

in the wilderness of beersheba and when the water and the skin was gone she

left the boy under one of the bushes and then she went and sat down nearby about

a bow shot away for she said i can't bear to watch the boy die so as she sat nearby she wept loudly.

God heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven

and said to her, what's wrong, Hagar?

Don't be afraid for God has heard the voice of the boy from the place where he is.

Get up, help the boy up and support him for I will make him a great nation.

And then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.

So she went and filled the water skin and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy and he grew. He settled in the wilderness and became an archer.

He settled in the wilderness of Paran and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

At that time, Abimelech, accompanied by Pekol, the commander of his army,

said to Abraham, God is with you in everything you do.

Swear to me by God here and now that you will not break an agreement with me

or with my children and descendants.

As I have been loyal to you, so you will be loyal to me and to the country where

you are a foreign resident.

And Abraham said, I swear it.

But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the water well that Abimelech's servants had seized.

Abimelech replied, I don't know who did this thing. You didn't report anything

to me, so I hadn't heard about it until today.

Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant.

Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock, and Abimelech said to Abraham,

why have you separated these seven ewe lambs?

He replied, you are to accept the seven new lambs from my hand so that this

act will serve as my witness that I dug this well.

Therefore, that place was called Beersheba because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

After they made a covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Pichol,

the commander of the army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name

of Yahweh, the everlasting God.

And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.

So this is our passage for this morning. And I know that I've made this illustration

several times lately, but it keeps applying, so I'm going to keep doing it.

If this were a TV show, the beginning of this episode would certainly need to

have one of those like previously on Abraham's Crazy Life,

because every single thing in this chapter, I mean, literally almost everything

in this chapter is connected to things that happened before.

Fights that had happened earlier, promises that were made earlier,

things that had talked about earlier in the story are all connected to the stuff that happens here.

So if this were a TV show, you'd have to have these flashbacks that show you

the things that had happened before that led to this moment that they're in.

One of the flashbacks would have to be, I think probably the first one would

be God promising to Abraham, you're going to have descendants.

You're going to have a son and you're going to name him Isaac.

Another flashback they would need to show probably would be like some footage

of like Sarah sitting there like sullen and saying something like,

I'm not able to have children. And you'd have to know that.

And then they probably have a flashback where Sarah says to Abraham,

hey, maybe you should take my slave Hagar as your wife and have children with her.

Okay. That is an incident that happened back in chapter 16.

And that may be weird to us. For those of you that were here,

maybe you remember that, that she was like, well, I'm not able to have children.

So we do have this servant. We have this slave named Hagar.

Maybe you sleep with her and then whatever child comes from that,

maybe we could raise as our own child.

There's some of you that go like, wow, that's so weird.

And I don't know for sure, but

I think it's possible that it wasn't as unusual back then as it is now.

Back then, obviously women struggled with infertility back then just like they

do now, but they had way less options back then.

So when you aren't able to have children, there wasn't like,

well, let's go to the doctor, let's take this shot, let's take this pill, let's try this thing.

Like there wasn't much to do. And so I think there were probably other occasions

other than this one where someone said, well, what about if you were able to

make a baby with one of the servants and we could raise the child as our own?

I would imagine that was probably more common back then than now.

Okay, not saying it was good. Okay, in fact, if you read the story,

it did not go good, but it's what happened.

So Sarah says so we'd have a scene where she said hey

why don't you uh why don't you um you know

why don't you sleep with Hagar and then see what happens with that and so Hagar

gets pregnant and so you'd have to have a couple of scenes at least where you'd

show what happened there because the power dynamic and the relational dynamic

between Hagar and Sarah changed dramatically when Hagar got pregnant um the

passage the Bible says Hagar once she was pregnant started treating Sarah with contempt.

There was some sort of thing going on here where she was like,

well, look at you. Why are you like the head female in this household? Look at me.

Look what I was able to do that you're not able to do. Look how I was able to

provide, like I was able to like do the job of a wife unlike you were able to do.

I was able to provide for Abraham a son in the way that you are not able to do.

And so the dynamic between the two of them, like Sarah's the one that's in charge,

right? She's the master and Hagar's the slave, but Hagar's the one that has one up on her now.

And so she's she's holding her in contempt, and then Sarah, in reaction to that,

starts mistreating Hagar, starts mistreating Hagar severely.

Like, if you did a flashback, I'd probably pick, like, one of the worst mistreatments

that she did, which we don't know what they were, because the passage doesn't

say specifically what she did. It just says she mistreated her.

But I think it must have been really bad, and the reason I think it must have

been really bad is because Hagar ran away.

And in that culture, I think to run away, you can even see it in the story that

I read to you, to run away was dangerous. Do you realize that?

So let me kind of explain just a little bit, I think, of how slavery worked

back then so you can understand some of these situations.

I am definitely not like a pro on Mesopotamian slavery, but I do think I understand

the Bible well enough that I can explain some of this to you.

That there would have been slavery all over the Mesopotamian world at this time.

It would have been very common and there would have been different,

I don't know if it's different types, but different situations that people would

be in. Like if you were going to make a spectrum of like from bad to good,

okay, you would have all different types of like slave situations.

Some things that were awful and things that weren't so bad. And some people

that were in slavery positions that would go, wow, my life is a lot better than

a lot of other people who are enslaved.

So situations like that you can see even in the Bible.

One famous example would be Joseph at Potiphar's house. Do you guys know that

story with Joseph and Potiphar?

Joseph comes there as a slave and then kind of works his way up the ranks and

becomes the most, I don't know, like the highest ranking one that's in charge

of the whole household, making all the decisions.

You can tell until the wife falsely accuses him and things go bad,

up until that point, it's actually a very good situation for Joseph compared

to the other slaves in Egypt.

He has much more like perks and influence and power than other people.

Like it was just, it was a much better situation than a lot of people had.

Another one that you see an example of kind of a good one is Eleazar in Abraham. household.

In Genesis chapter 15, Abraham brings up Eliezer in the context of like,

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

God, I'm never going to be able to have children.

I'm never going to be able to give my inheritance to my children.

And apparently Eliezer was Abraham's top ranked slave.

And he said, my inheritance is going to go to Eliezer. And so you could tell

by the way it's written, at least it seems to me, Abraham, because he had no

biological children of his own, was intending on treating one of his slaves as his son.

And upon the death of Abraham, Eliezer would not only receive his freedom,

he would be a rich man starting that day.

So if you're looking at like Mesopotamian slavery, you look at it,

you go, okay, so some situations were like, well, that would be a lot better.

And then some of them were terrible, so terrible that you'd have the situation of a runaway slave.

You see that in Genesis chapter 16, and you can see the effects of when a slave

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

is driven away in this passage, okay?

The reason I think that sometimes they did not run away was not because they

were like, oh, this is so wonderful, but there was nothing to run to.

Like if you run away from your master in ancient Mesopotamia,

like that, it seems to me you must, you're probably being treated severely bad

because you're immediately homeless, there's nowhere to go, and you risk dying.

Right? You're sitting there, you go, okay, well, I'm, you know,

because I think a lot, maybe a lot of us think this way. Well,

if I was back then and I was a slave, I would run away.

Maybe you wouldn't because there's nowhere to go. So all of a sudden now you're instantly homeless.

There's no one to take you in. There's no one to protect you.

You're staying outdoors. There's no food. There's no water. Like,

what are you, how are you going to get by?

And so it seems to me when someone is running away from their master in this

period of time, it's because things are so bad.

They'd rather die than keep being in that situation. They go,

I know I'm going to be homeless.

I know I'm risking death and I don't care. I would rather that than ever see her face again.

And that's what I think was happening back in Genesis chapter 16 when Hagar left. Okay.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

And then in the middle, so this is the, like, I think I'd rather die than keep

doing this. And this is the, like, oh, this is a lot better than most.

I would imagine there's a lot of slavery in here in the middle.

Like, well, this is not good, but it's not enough that I'm going to leave.

So Hagar, I think, was in a really bad situation where she was really being

mistreated. She leaves. She eventually comes back because God told her to.

And then 16 years pass.

And the math, just in case you're wondering how I got to that number,

Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born. That's what it says. Okay. 86.

And he was 100 years old when Isaac was born. So that's 14 years, right?

100 minus 86. We're all on the same page here. Okay. So 14 years have passed

from the birth of Ishmael to the birth of Isaac.

And then we're not at the birth of Isaac right now, but a lot of this passage

takes place a little bit later on, right? It says it's not at Isaac's birth that this happens.

It's at Isaac's weaning. Did you notice that?

What in the world is a weaning? Okay, I hardly hear anybody.

Like, I mean, I've lived in Ocala a long time. No one has ever invited me to a weaning, not one time.

But what it was is it was a celebration.

Abraham held a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

What the word weaned mean is that the child has now transitioned from being

breastfed by their mom to now eating solid foods like a normal person or whatever,

like how we all are. I assume most of us probably do that. okay?

And so that transition was a big deal. Apparently we're celebrating back then, okay?

So there's like when you're breast milk, like that's like baby and who knows

if that kid's even going to survive. But by the time the kid is whatever age,

two, three years old, and now they're eating foods and they're all done with

that, they're kind of not a baby anymore.

They now have made it to the next stage in their life. And so you have to remember

back then, I know none of us go like, weaning day.

But back then, the infant mortality rate was so high.

Like most people died in the first two years of their life back then.

So if you got to stage two, okay, which is what this is, like they realized like this is wonderful.

The odds of this three-year-old or this two-year-old making it to adulthood

is a lot higher now than it was last year.

So they have a big party. So I'm guessing here, so if you've got Abraham's 86

when Ishmael's born and then he's 100 when Isaac is born and let's just imagine

weaning day takes place maybe around two years old.

That would make Ishmael about 16 years old, right?

Okay, so my guess is it has been 16 rocky years filled with relational drama

between Hagar and Sarah.

Maybe I'm wrong. The passage doesn't specifically say it. Maybe it was a delightful 16 years.

But if it was a delightful 16 years, the story doesn't make a ton of sense because

what it would mean is they had a delightful 16 years and then with no buildup,

one day, 16-year-old Ishmael shows up at baby Isaac's party and makes fun of him.

And then Sarah, with no warning at all, flips her lid and says,

Abraham, kick them out. Kick them out now.

I don't care if they're homeless and die. Get them out of here.

So it seems unlikely that like nothing happened and then that happened. Are you following me?

Okay, so the last time we saw them, Hagar's pregnant and Hagar is treating Sarah

with contempt and Sarah is mistreating Hagar.

Then 16 years intervene in the middle with no description of what it was like.

And then the next scene we have is Ishmael mocking Isaac and Sarah wanting to kick them out.

I think it's best to assume that those 16 intervening years that we don't know

much about were probably more of the same. the same kind of things that were

happening before and the same kind of things that happened after it.

These two women had probably been at each other's throats for years.

It would not surprise me if Ishmael mocked baby Isaac because he had spent his

whole life watching his mom mock baby Isaac's mom.

And so maybe this is the last straw of a whole series of events and Sarah wants them gone.

And Abraham does not want that, okay? Abraham does not want that because it's

his son. Right? It's not Sarah's son, but it's his son.

And I think he's worried, like, what are we going to do? We're going to kick

them out and they're going to go where? Like, what would happen to them out there on their own?

However, God speaks to Abraham and tells him that this is essentially,

he says, this is all part of the plan. Let it happen. Do what Sarah says.

In fact, God assures Abraham that they're not going to go out there and die

on their own. Look at verses 12 and 13.

But God said to Abraham, do not be concerned about the boy and your slave.

Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

He's saying this does need to happen. These two boys need to be separated.

The rest of this story needs to be like, Isaac is the one through whom the inheritance

and everything is going to happen next.

And so Ishmael does need to go. But, verse 13, but I will also make a nation

of the slave son because he is your offspring.

So I think he's saying, you're gonna send them out there and they're not gonna die.

He's going to make it to adulthood and he's gonna have a bunch of kids and they're

gonna have a bunch of kids and

there's gonna be a whole nation that comes from him. He's gonna make it.

So Abraham listens to God, Hagar gets kicked out.

And it seems to me she is at this point, I mean, she's receiving her freedom,

right? She's not a slave anymore.

But in this particular situation, that's no good. This is essentially a death

sentence. Did you see that that's what happens?

They go out and they go, how are we even gonna live?

They can't, like, I don't know. It says that they went out and they wandered

in the wilderness of Beersheba.

I don't know why that happened. Like, was it that there were not other places

they could go? Was it because they didn't know where to go?

Was it because they were worried that they'd be vulnerable? There's just the

two of us who's gonna attack us. Let's stay out here, out of the way.

Did they get lost? And now we don't even know where to go. Like,

I don't know what the situation was, but it wasn't just as simple as like,

oh, well, let's just go down to the Ramada.

Like, there's not that. they're just, they get handed a thing of bread and some

water and they're trying to figure it out.

And if you look at verse 14, early in the morning, Abraham got up,

took bread and a water skin and put them on Hagar's shoulders and sent her and

the boy away. Okay. And they left and wandered in the wilderness.

So from what I've read, this water skin, if it's what people think it is,

something that was made out of a goat, it would have held about three gallons

of water, which is, I guess, kind of heavy. That's why she would have it on

her back rather than holding it.

So if they've got, if that's correct, and they have about three gallons of water,

then I'm thinking Hagar and Ishmael are now wandering in the wilderness,

and on three gallons of water, they probably lasted for several days, okay?

They probably ate through the bread really fast, but you need water more than you need bread.

And so I would imagine three days went by, four days went by,

however, five days went by, and at some point, they run out of water.

And then they're out of water for a long enough time that they start to go,

oh, I think we're going to die.

It seems to me, Hagar, my guess is that Hagar probably drank more than 50% of

the three gallons that they had with them.

And the reason I say that is because it looks like Ishmael is the one who has

dehydration symptoms first.

Look at verses 15 and 16.

When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.

So this is not saying the moment the water was gone, like as soon as they took

a sip, They took the final sip and went, we're going to die.

No, they took the final sip and then they kept living.

And they kept going for another day. And then they kept going for another two days.

I'm going to guess probably around day three, they went, we're going to die.

And I think, by the way it's written here, it looks like he was the one that

had the least amount of water stored up because he's the one that has problems first.

She left the boy under the bushes and then she went and sat down nearby about

a bow shot away for she said, I can't bear to watch the boy die. Okay.

So as she sat nearby, she wept loudly. So you got to picture what's going on here.

She leaves the boy under the bushes because she thinks he's going to do what?

Die, which means something had happened. I know the story doesn't say it,

but something gave away like, oh, he's going to be the one that will perish first, right?

Especially got to factor in his age. This kid's like 16, 17 years old.

So when it says she left the boy under one of the bushes, I don't know if you

ever imagined what I probably pictured when I was in like Sunday school.

Like she does not go and put like a little four-year-old baby under some bushes

and hand the baby a rattle and say, you stay right there, and then went over somewhere else.

We're talking about a 16-year-old kid who she puts, she places him under bushes.

I'm guessing at this point he is passing out, he is falling over,

maybe he's seeing hallucinations, whatever happens when you start to get to

that dehydration point just before your body gives out.

And so she takes a, not a little baby and sets him there,

she takes like this 16, 17-year-old man's body that is about to die and shoves

it under some bushes and then walks away because whatever he was visually doing

and whatever, like you could hear whatever noises he was making,

she was like, I can't bear to actually witness his death.

And so she just sets the body down and walks away so that the death will happen when she's not around.

This is intense and tragic.

And then God rescues them.

Even though Ishmael is not the child of the covenant, God looks out for him

and provides for him in accordance with what he said he would do.

Back in chapter 16, it was said, like Hagar said, that God is the God who sees me.

And in this story, it is God is the God who hears my son.

So how does God rescue them? Look at verses 18 and 19.

God says to Hagar, get up, help the boy up and support him, which is making

me think maybe he was having a hard time even standing on his own at this point.

Help the boy up and support him for I will make him a great nation.

You're gonna get through this, Hagar.

And then what did God do? Opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.

So she went and filled the water skin and gave the boy a drink.

I thought this part was very interesting. It looks to me like there was a well

that was already there within eyesight.

Like somewhere nearby, there was this well that she was able to see.

Like this would make such a good TV show that you would have to see.

Like these two people are just about to die.

The boy is like losing it first. So there's bushes somewhere and she shoves

his body up under these bushes and she walks off and she's crying because she

realizes he's about to die and then she's gonna be next.

And meanwhile, the camera would have to pan in such a way that you could see

there's a well right there.

There's a well nearby that they are not aware of.

And so God opens her eyes. Do you see how it's phrased? Like it does not say

God dropped down a well and provided for them.

Rather, God spoke to her and said, there's a well right over there.

And so they're dying of dehydration. They don't see it and God points it out

to them. And so she fills up the water skin and she gives the boy a drink and they make it.

And so I just wanted to ask you this, the question, I started off with this.

Have you ever had God answer one of your prayers by opening your eyes to what's already there.

I bet this still happens. I bet this still happens all the time.

Well, God provides for Hagar and Ishmael, but God provides far more than just this well.

The way that you could tell is from the next verse, verse 20.

It says, God was with the boy and he grew.

He settled in the wilderness and became an archer. Now, can you tell a bunch

of time passes in this one verse? Can you tell?

Like he doesn't just take a sip of water and then go, I am now an archer, okay? No.

They took the sip of water, they nursed him back to the health,

they got back out of that situation, settled down somewhere,

and over time grew up and became an adult and became an archer and settled in the wilderness.

But the significant phrase in this passage, at least when I read it,

I was like, wait a minute, look at this. Do you see what the significant phrase is?

The way you know this is not just about a well, but God was with him long-term. Do you see what it is?

God was with the boy and he grew and settled in the wilderness.

He didn't just survive and grow and settle in the wilderness.

He grew and settled in the wilderness and became an archer because God was with the boy.

That phrase is significant. That same phrase is used in other places in the Bible.

It's particularly Genesis. The way that the writer of Genesis uses this phrase,

it does not simply mean like God was with him in the sense that like God is

there, like how God is everywhere.

Like sometimes we could say like, oh yeah, God is with the boy,

right? And saying God is with the girl and God's with you and God's with you

and God's with you in your situation and God's with you in your situation.

Yes, there is this sense in which we know God is omnipresent. He's everywhere.

That's not what this verse is saying. It's not just saying God was with the

boy like he's with everything. This is God's special presence with this boy.

This phrase is used two verses later about Abraham when he's talking to Abimelech

about that treaty that they were having.

Remember that later in the story? Let me just skip to it. Verse 22,

Abimelech comes with the commander of his army.

And what does he say to Abraham when they wanna have this treaty? He says to Abraham.

God is with you in everything you do. What did Abimelech mean?

He did not mean God is with you in the same sense that he's with everybody else.

Abimelech is saying, God is not with me and God is not with other people who

are living around here, but he is with you.

God's special presence is with you. Abraham, I can see, and again,

we probably have to have a flashback at this point.

We'd need to see the scene from the episode earlier where Abimelech took Sarah

into his house and then there was a curse on the house. You remember that?

And there was a plague and then he gave Sarah back and then Abraham prayed for him.

And then there was a blessing and they were all healed.

Like Abimelech knows like, whoo, God is on that guy's side.

You cross him and everybody gets sick, right? And then you give him some gifts

and then everybody gets healed.

God is on that guy's side. So we would remember that from the previous episode

and Abimelech certainly remembered it. And he went, you know what? I got an idea.

There's one dude that when you cross him, bad stuff happens to you.

And when you bless him, good stuff happens to you. I need to make a treaty with that guy.

And that's what he's talking about when he says God is with you.

That God is on your side, therefore I want to be on your side, Abraham.

In fact, even after I die, I don't want my descendants to be enemies with you, Abraham.

I want us to not be enemies and I don't want my children to be enemies with

you because you have God on your side.

So back to, and you don't have to go back there, but when it says God was with

the boy, I don't think it's just saying God's like just God's everywhere.

This phrase, God is with Abraham and this phrase that's used other places in Genesis.

One day later, finally, when we get to the Joseph story at the end of Genesis,

you'll see that same phrase is used there a lot.

God was with him. God was with Joseph. God was with Joseph. Multiple times in

the story, it says God was with

Joseph. And every time you can tell it was God was looking out for him.

God was watching out for him. God was making the thing, next thing that needed

to happen the way it needed to happen. God was providing for him.

God was on Joseph's side. God is on Abraham's side. And it's that same phrase.

Ishmael is out here in the wilderness becoming an archer, and God was with the boy.

And so I guess I'm just trying to point out, God did not just provide a well

on this one occasion. He provided for this kid for years.

And then we get to the next story,

which is Abraham's covenant with Abimelech. So we see it right here.

Abimelech shows up and says, hey, I think we need to have peace between your

people and my people because God's on your side and I don't want God against me, okay?

And this is, I think, a big deal. If you don't remember this,

Abimelech is the king of this region.

Abraham's just a dude wandering around. He's a foreign resident and he's just in the land, right?

He's just an immigrant in their land. And Abimelech is the king of the land.

And Abimelech goes to Abraham and treats him like an equal and says,

hey, could we have a treaty?

The king is saying to some random foreigner, can we have a treaty between your

people and my people that lasts even after our lifetimes?

Because God's with you in everything you do, and I don't want to be on the other side of that.

And so Abraham says, yeah, we'll do that.

And then he brings up a dispute about some water rights, which I think he was

just taking advantage of the situation he was in.

The guy goes, hey, can we have peace between our peoples? Yes, we can.

Let's talk about a well that your people took from my people.

And Abimelech goes, well, tell me about this. And Abraham explains the whole

story. I dug a well, right?

And then your people came and seized my well. And so I wasn't able to use the

well to water my animals because your people took that section of the land.

And Abimelech immediately fixes the problem. He says, I didn't know.

I did not send those people to go do that.

You never complained to me or told me about it, so I didn't know about it until

just now, but I will fix that right away. The well is yours." And then Abraham

gives Abimelech cattle and sheep, which is interesting because in the previous

chapter, Abimelech gave Abraham cattle and sheep.

I don't know if it's the same cattle and sheep that they keep handing to each other.

And then the passage ends this way. Look at verses 33 and 34.

Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name

of Yahweh, the everlasting God.

And Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines for many days.

And so the way this chapter ends, Abraham is now dwelling in the promised land, okay?

It's not his yet, right? It's Abimelech's

land, but he's there in it and living on it as if it's his own.

He's dug a well, he's planted a tree, right? He is living in the promised land

and he's living in the promised land with his promised son, who no one thought

was possible, right? It was hilarious that that even happened.

But God gives him, he's dwelling in the promised land with his promised son.

He's got the well that he's dug there. He's got the tree that he planted.

I imagine he probably planted a lot more trees and a lot more like plants and

stuff because this was an agricultural like society. So I'm sure he planted

more than just this one tree.

It seems like this tree is being, is stick out as like a, like this is a memorial

tree. This is a tree that he planted like on purpose, like this is my God.

This is the tree of my God. This is the place I'm staying with my God and I'm worshiping him here.

And so Abraham is there with the well and the tree and his promised son,

worshiping God in this land. And he's making treaties and working peacefully with the other peoples.

And that's how the chapter ends.

So as I was thinking about it

this week, it's like, okay, well then how do we apply this to our lives?

What do we do with this story? What's the point here? And so this is what I

wrote down. it is fairly simple.

God is faithful. God keeps his promises.

So trust in him. That's the point this morning.

God is faithful. He keeps his promises. So trust in him. Well,

how do you know that's the point of the chapter? That's what happens in this chapter.

Go back to the very first sentence of the chapter and look at it.

This is how the chapter begins. The Lord came to Sarah as he had said,

and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.

So the whole chapter begins with, God does what he says. He keeps his promises.

He is faithful to whatever he has said.

And then as the chapter goes on, we see that God also keeps his promises to

Abraham, and God also keeps his promises to Hagar.

God provides for his people and he does what he says he will do.

And it seems to me sometimes God does this in small ways and then bigger ways and then bigger ways.

Like sometimes when God makes a promise, it seems to me that the fulfillment,

and I don't know if you've ever seen this in scripture before,

but it seems to me sometimes when God makes a promise in scripture,

he fulfills it a little bit and then later on he fulfills it more.

And sometimes even later on he fulfills it even bigger than the first time or the first two times.

And so I don't know if you've ever thought this through, but I think it happens

multiple places in the Bible. And I'll just point out the one that I think is happening here.

Earlier in the story, back in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15, God had spoken with

Abraham and had made a covenant with him, had made promises to him.

He had said, you're going to have a descendant, right? You're going to have a son.

In fact, you're going to have more than just a descendant. You're going to have

a whole bunch of descendants. A whole nation is going to come from you.

And he also talked about land, right? This land is going to be yours and the

nation is going to come and the nation is going to live in the land that I promised them.

And then he also said, whoever curses you, I'm going to curse.

And whoever blesses you, I'm going to bless.

And he said, like, through you, somehow through your descendants,

it will be a blessing to all the nations and all the other people groups.

Right? That was the promise. So when was that fulfilled?

Well, it seems to me that was fulfilled in seed form in this passage right here.

Like you can already see that it's starting to be fulfilled because what do we see at this passage?

Abraham is living in the promised land with the descendant that had been promised to him, right?

And he's interacting with the other peoples.

And when they are crossing him, they're getting cursed. And when they're making

covenants with him, they're getting blessed.

Like what he promised to Abraham is already starting to come true in this passage

during Abraham's lifetime. Do you see that?

And yet that's not the total fulfillment of the promise, right?

That's not a nation, that's just one kid. There's just Isaac, not a whole nation yet.

So the promise is starting to be fulfilled in this passage, but it doesn't get

fully fulfilled until after Abraham's lifetime, right?

Which it had to be, like Abraham knew that. When it'd be anytime you promise,

I will make you a great nation, you know that that's gonna be way down the road after you're dead.

And so the promise begins to come true in Abraham's lifetime,

does not fully come true during Abraham's lifetime, but hundreds of years go

by. And then what happens?

God rescues the descendants of Abraham, the Israelites from Egypt and brings

them to this very land and they conquer it and the land is theirs and there's

a nation that came from Abraham.

Like the promise was your people will be a nation and they'll take over this

land. It's exactly what happened.

Hundreds of years later, it came true. So was that the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant?

And I would say, well, yes and no. Yes, like that's what happened.

But it seems like there's even more to come after that because the people of

Israel go into their land, but it doesn't, the people of Israel really aren't

in these stories in the Old Testament. They're not a blessing.

Like the way that all the other nations are blessed isn't through Israel.

In fact, Israel does a bunch of things wrong.

God makes a covenant with Israel and tells them like rules and things they're

supposed to do and things they're not supposed to do. and Israel mess up like a lot.

They reject God. They start worshiping other gods and they lose their land.

They get attacked by other nations multiple times. And God says like,

we're gonna let this nation attack you so that you lose, so that this happens

to you because you've abandoned me.

And so we see the people of Israel not fulfilling what God has for them.

They're not being a blessing to other nations and they lose their land a bunch of times.

And then a few hundred more years goes by and Jesus shows up.

And Jesus fulfills everything that Israel was supposed to be.

All of the commands that were given to them, everything that they were supposed

to be before God, Jesus fulfills all that.

It seems to me when you look in the New Testament, Jesus is true Israel who

does exactly what God requires of Israel and earns the blessings that come from

doing exactly what God requires.

Jesus then dies on the cross and rises again, rescuing Israel from their sin

and rescuing not Israel only.

But all the other peoples on the earth who would believe in him.

Now, remember the Abrahamic covenant was through you. All peoples on earth will be blessed.

And so not only does Jesus die and save Israel, but he saves any single,

any Gentile out there who will also believe in him, which is wonderful.

I think I'm like, I'm a lot Italian and like 0% Jewish.

So this blessing goes out to the other peoples all over the earth.

And so we can see like, well, then the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise

happened in Jesus, right? Yes. And is that the end of it?

I don't think so. I think there's still more to come.

Jesus is going to return a second time. And when he comes, he's going to make all things new.

There's going to be people, okay, on the earth, a new renewed earth where there's no bad things.

And there are going to be people there, some of whom are biological descendants

of Abraham, right? Jewish people. and there will also be Gentile people who will be there, right?

Spiritual descendants of Abraham who were grafted in because they believe in

Jesus Christ, true Israel.

And those people will all be there, the children of Abraham,

on God's land, and no one's ever gonna take it from them ever again.

It's gonna be constant blessing from that point on for all the peoples forever.

And so that's what I mean when I say sometimes God makes a promise and it seems

to me it comes true a little bit, and then bigger and then bigger and then biggest.

And so that's the beginning of what we see happening in this chapter.

And it seems to me, when I think about how this applies to our life,

a lot of the book of Genesis is not like, go and do this.

In fact, most of the things that people in Genesis do, you should probably not go do. Amen.

There's not a lot of go do this. There's not, like writing sermons in Genesis,

you're not gonna have a lot of like three steps to finding God's will from your life.

Like that's not the kind of sermons you write when you come to Genesis, okay?

A lot of Genesis is pictures of God's dealings with this world,

pictures of God's provision for his people, pictures of God like keeping his

promises over and over again.

And so today's point is we serve a God who is in control of the world and he

provides for his people and he keeps all his promises.

So we trust in him. That's the point, right? This passage is not about how to have a better marriage.

Those passages exist, but that's not what's going on here.

What's going on here is God is in control. He provides for his people.

He keeps all of his promises. We can trust in it.

And so I was talking with Daniel Gilland, our associate pastor earlier this

week, and he told me this story about a conversation he had with another pastor

that I thought was very helpful and thinking about how do we make sure that

we trust in God's faithfulness. And so this is what he said, the guy said to him.

So Daniel used to be a pastor in New York. And before they moved to New York,

he was having this conversation with this pastor in New York.

And the pastor said to him, hey, just so you know, when you get here, it's going to be hard.

Like it's hard to be a pastor in New York.

So start keeping track of God's faithfulness now before you even get here.

So that when you get here and when it's hard, you can look back to God's past

faithfulness and you can use those memories to get you through the present.

And as he told me that, I thought, yeah, that's true. That's not just true in New York.

Sometimes you gotta look back at God's faithfulness to get through the present.

And so I leave you with this. We serve a God who is in control of his world

and he provides for his people and he keeps every promise that he ever makes.

Therefore, we must trust in him. Let's pray.

God, thank you so much for what you do.

I thank you for this sermon and I pray that you would use it in ways that are

like beyond just what happens when sound waves hit ears.

But that you would work in our hearts.

I pray that those of us who are in this room that know you, that it would be

good for us to think back on your promises that you made and who you've rescued

and what you've done and which things you've partially fulfilled and which promises are still to come.

And you would renew our faith. You would build it up. We would keep trusting in you.

And for, if there's anybody in this room that does not yet know you,

I pray that they would trust in you. I pray that they would trust in you starting today.

We love you and we thank you for the gospel. We look forward to the new heaven and new earth.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let me end with these good words from God's word.

This is from Proverbs chapter three.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding.

Think about him in all your ways and he will guide you on the right paths. That is good news.