Isaac

Today's reading is from Genesis chapter twenty-one, verses one to seven.

It says the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.

And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.

Abraham called the name of his son, who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.

And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

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

And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me.

Everyone who hears will laugh over me.

And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?

Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

We're so excited.

This morning we've got baptisms right after our time of worship here.

That will be right through those doors under the carport thing that's right out there.

It was supposed to be raining, so we'll see.

But either way, some of you will definitely be getting wet.

That's the plan.

A couple of announcements before we get into uh the text for today.

We've got a book club this summer.

Uh we'll meet twice on June 2nd and June 23rd, and we're reading a book called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

It's by a guy named Carl Truman.

It's an excellent survey of why we think of ourselves the way that we do in our culture and helps us filter those things through a biblical lens.

So if you uh no need to sign up or anything, just join us on June 2nd.

Information is on the calendar, on our website, and in the app.

Also, we've got a discipleship workshop coming up on Sunday, June 6th, right after church.

Our very own Carolyn Kellum will be teaching that.

Carolyn, will you stand up and say hi to everybody?

Carolyn is the one who uh welcomes you into church every Sunday.

So um, those are our announcements for today.

Let's pray.

Holy Father, we pray that you would attend this morning, that you would make tangible in the demonstration of your gospel through the sign and seal of your covenant of baptism.

Lord, in the same way that Isaac, who was this promised child, became tangible, will you make the faith that we see in those of us gathered here more tangible today through the practice of baptism?

Holy Father, we ask that you would attend to this time, that in your text we would hear directly from you.

Lord, we pray that you would open our hearts to work in our hearts.

Uh that way we would uh hear your word.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So uh there's a there's a big difference between uh knowing your release date and getting let out, right?

There's a big difference between uh many of you know or would perhaps like to know right now in today's market.

There's a big difference between being under contract and closing.

There's a big difference between knowing your graduation date and finally getting your diploma.

What's the difference?

The difference is that it one is a hope.

It's just a promise, but in the other, it becomes real and tangible, an actual part of your life.

And that's what happens in our story in Genesis today.

Isaac, the promised child, is born.

He's here with Sarah and Abraham.

Isaac, this this child of promise that was given the promise having been given to Abraham decades before, when he first sets out, being promised by God to be blessed and be a blessing to others.

The child is now finally here.

So, how do we respond when we actually receive the promises of God, when we experience in a real way the faithfulness of God in our lives?

That's what we're going to learn today.

We're going to see the promise that's fulfilled, we're going to see the response of faith to the promise, and then we're going to see the wonder and celebration that are meant to accompany the fulfillment of the promise.

So let's go ahead and jump into the text.

Genesis 21, verses 1 through 7, says the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.

Genesis 21:1–7

And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.

Now, look, we've been looking forward to this moment of Isaac finally being born for so long now.

And the text reveals it to us in the simple way.

Isaac was born.

So we need to look why uh in the spare way, what are the details that are shown?

What is Moses, when he's writing Genesis, wanting to bring our attention to at the birth of Isaac?

We can see this repeated refrain that the Lord visited Sarah as the Lord had said, as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah just as he had promised.

And at just the time of which God had spoken to him, Isaac was born.

All of this is the Lord's doing.

What's being shown to us is that these promises of the Lord are the things that are taking place here.

This is not happenstance, this is not an accident of biology like my first son.

This is a, this is the fulfilled promise of the Lord that's taking place here.

And the text is driving us directly into real knowledge of that.

Now, at the time of the fulfillment of a promise, what often happens is we look at it and we say, well, of course.

I mean, look, the promises of the Lord were there, and now Isaac is here.

Of course, this is what was going to take place the whole time.

But we need to remember the actual story of how this promise felt to Abraham and Sarah from when they first received it until Isaac was finally born.

And it did not feel like an of course Isaac will be born.

While they were in the middle of that story, it felt like something they could barely hold on to.

And we see in all sorts of ways, as we looked at the trajectory of their story, that they run away from it.

First, the the land and the promise, uh the the promise of the land and the child are related because it's the children who will inherit the land.

But when they first go to the promised land, they experience a famine.

And it doesn't even seem as the land can support their small family.

And so they flee to Egypt away from the promise of the Lord.

And when they're in Egypt, they lie that saying that Sarah is not Abraham's wife, uh, when in fact she is, and just saying that she's his sister, which he also is, which is a whole other story.

But they uh they're fleeing from the promise of the Lord.

And then they receive the promise that it will be Abraham's offspring, but they doubt that it will take place through their marriage, and so they break their marriage covenant in order to try and bring the promise into their own hands.

And instead, Hagar uh has a son by Abraham at Sarah's request, and it brings this deep tension and almost tears the family apart.

And then once again, even though God has revealed himself in all sorts of particular glorious ways to them, uh right before Isaac is born, they once again flee to the south, not all the way to Egypt this time, but they once again repeat the same lie and try and bring their protection of the promise back into their own hands.

We see that in the middle of the story, it did not feel like, of course, Isaac will be born.

It felt like this may never happen.

But then, finally, God shows his faithfulness to them, and Isaac is born.

In all that doubt and all that fear and all that running away, one day Isaac was really here.

And I think this text is pushing us into a sort of question.

It starts to recolor the way that they're able to understand that whole, that whole season of doubt and of not receiving the promise of the Lord.

And so they're pushed into this sort of space where they have to consider how was I acting when I hadn't yet seen the promise fulfilled?

Was I acting as though God would be faithful?

Or was I acting away in a way as to say God's promises are not something that can truly be leaned upon?

So many of us right now find ourselves in these middle spaces in our own stories where we haven't seen the promise of the Lord fulfilled yet, but yet we know and can trust in the Lord's goodness.

So here's what I want to ask.

To trust that the Lord is good is a risk, right?

How would you have liked to have acted if at the end of the story you would look back and see he really was good?

Would you have liked to have acted like a spoiled, entitled brat who complained the whole way that you weren't getting what you wanted?

Or would you have liked to have acted as though you were someone who trusted that the Lord was faithful, that the Lord would deliver.

We see that God is faithful.

Next we see the response of faith.

Genesis 21, verse 3 through 4.

Genesis 21:3–4

Abraham called the name of his son, who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac.

And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

See, the response that they have of faith is one that continues keeping Isaac within the story of God's promises to them.

How many of you have done this?

You'll pray for something and pray for something and pray for something, and then and you'll stress about it and you'll be worried about it, and then when it finally happens, you're not on your knees praising the Lord.

Instead, you're saying something like, it probably would have happened anyway.

And all of a sudden, when we finally receive the thing that we've been asking from the Lord uh so much and stressing over so much, all of a sudden we make this switch in our minds, and we say, uh, you know what?

God isn't actually a part of the story now that it's fulfilled.

And we miss this step.

It's like we know how to long and we know how to be in tension waiting for someone, waiting for something.

We know how to draw close to the Lord in those seasons, but then once it finally works out, it's like, oh, I could have done this without God anyway, probably.

And we miss this step that we see Abraham and Sarah really demonstrate well to us, which is they celebrate in wonder at the provision of the Lord.

It's not as though the conclusion to the story arrives and they don't need God anymore.

The conclusion to the story arrives and they press deeper into the story that the Lord was writing for them.

And what that looks like here is they name their son Isaac.

That was the very name that the Lord told them to give to their son in Genesis 17.

And the name means laughter, which we'll talk about.

And then they circumcise him on the eighth day.

And that was the very sign and seal of the covenant promise that was given to Abraham at also in Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

And so they're saying, by circumcising their son, giving him this sign and seal, by naming him in the very name that the Lord had given him, that we are in the story that God is writing.

This is this would not have happened anyway.

This is not a fact of life to be written off in any way.

This is another picture of the glory of the Lord.

And it's just made tangible in our life now.

I want you to consider what is something that you have stressed over that now you just take for granted as a part of your life.

Do any of you have those things?

Where can you be giving the Lord glory for his provision in those places?

So the child is given the sign and seal of the covenant.

He's being shown that you are a part of this story.

You are the promised one of God.

Make no mistake, this would not have happened without God's intervention.

And then finally, they're driven to a response of wonder.

In Genesis chapter 21, verses 6 through 7, it says, And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me.

Genesis 21:6–7

Everyone who hears will laugh over me.

And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?

Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.

Do you hear Sarah's wonder at the birth of this child?

Who could have possibly said this?

Who could have said that hundred-year-old Sarah and Abraham would have a child?

That's that Sarah would nurse a child.

People are going to laugh over me with this in wonder and joy when they see this and when they hear this story.

It's real now.

It's fulfilled.

It's complete in that.

And this is the response of faith that's required of us when we see God's promises made real.

It's a response of wonder and joy.

That is the hope that we could experience that wonder and joy in the Lord's presence.

In uh The Great Divorce, C.S.

Lewis um writes this, and it's a helpful rebuke for all of us mortals who he's address addressing.

He says, that is what mortals misunderstand.

They say of temporal suffering, no future bliss can make up for it.

Not knowing that heaven, once attained, will work backward and turn even that agony into a glory.

Do you want to hear that again?

That is what mortals misunderstand.

Raise your hand if you're a mortal.

They say of temporal suffering, no future bliss can make up for it.

Not knowing that heaven, once attained, will work backward and turn even that agony into a glory.

You want to hear how this happens in Sarah's life?

They name their son Isaac.

Isaac means laughter.

When they're given that name, it's right after Sarah is told by the Lord that she will have a child, and she laughs at the Lord when he says that, saying, Lord, you're being ridiculous.

Who could possibly believe in their right mind that me, Sarah, at 90 years old, will conceive and have a child?

The way of women has left me, she says.

This is not something that she will ever experience.

And she laughs at the Lord.

So that's where her story starts.

It's literally laughing at the Lord, calling him ridiculous, saying that the very promises of the Lord are absurd and not to be trusted.

And then God says, name your son laughter.

And the laughter of cynicism that her story began with.

Now, when the child is here and the promise is fulfilled, stretches back in time and transforms that laughter of cynicism into a laughter of joy, into a laughter of people are going to just laugh over me when they hear the story because they won't understand how such a joy could be here and be possible to see.

That's what us mortals don't understand.

That when God's blessings come and they're actualized, they will swallow up the pains of this suffering.

And they will reach back in time and transform this temporal something, this temporal suffering into something more glorious than we could possibly imagine.

Now, how much more do we know this than Sarah even knew it?

Sarah got the promised child, the child that she was promised, but he is just a pointer, a pointer towards the true promised child who was promised to all of us, a pointer towards Christ, the child who would be born, God who would come into the earth incarnate to take on our flesh.

And when this child would come, he would take on all the temporal sufferings of the world.

And he would bear in himself our very sins, all of that wickedness, all of that cynical laughter that we point towards the Lord, he would bear the sufferings of that in his own body and be put to death on our behalf.

And then he would be raised, raised to be seated at the right hand of the Father three days later, so that all who come to him in faith might be counted as righteous.

The very same thing that that circumcision of Isaac represented, that bloody rite of circumcision represented, is that by faith we might be made righteous and Christ might draw near to us.

Now that has happened.

We have closed.

It is real now.

Certain as his resurrection.

And we no longer have the bloody rite of circumcision because the blood has been spilled.

Instead, we have a cleansing rite of baptism.

And this rite of baptism extends the same promise to you and to me and to our children.

And this promise is the principle of Emmanuel.

I will be your God, you will be my people.

This is the highest promise that we are given.

That there is nothing that can stand between us and the Lord, because God has taken our own sin off of us and put it onto his own son that we might be spared and come into the Lord's presence.

That's something that we hold as something that is real and accomplished now.

And we hold it by faith, because we, of course, are not all made new in a tangible way yet.

But we see glimmers of it.

And we look forward to the day when He returns.

And it is made perfectly real in the world.

So we have a hope and a wonder.

This is what the Christian life looks like.

What is the shape of the Christian life?

In our present moment, it is shaped by hope.

A hope grounded in the certainty of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

It looks forward to his return, where we will enjoy his presence forever.

And then it is a celebration and a wonder at his return, to glory in his presence.

It's something that we'll need to learn how to do.

A lot of us, we're good at the longing part.

We draw close when we're longing.

But once we get what we want, it's like, all right, thanks God, I'll talk to you later.

Let us celebrate and wonder at the Lord who draws close.

This morning, we get a chance to act this out in baptism.

What's the difference between being a Christian and not being baptized and being a Christian and being baptized?

What's the difference between something that's that's an idea and something that's tangible, right?

God gives us these helps in our faith, of these covenant signs, so that he can teach us by going through these practices the truth of the reality that's taken place between him and us, so that we can say, not only do we just know it, we've also experienced it.

That is the beauty of baptism.

So, with that, before we move into the sign and seal of baptism after we sing together, let us learn to celebrate in the glory of the Lord's presence, as he's made himself certain to us in Jesus Christ.

That's our hope.

Now, let's move into a time of communion.

Paul writes in First Corinthians, For I received from you, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The Lord likewise has given us this sign of his broken body and his poured out blood, so that we might participate in the hope that he has shown us in the cross.

So to all you who are Christians, we call you to enjoy this feast together with us.

A feast that we can experience tangibly now as already received, and a feast that points forward to the glorious wedding feast when we finally join together with Christ in the flesh again.

Holy Father, we pray that you would bless this meal, Lord, that you would draw our hearts together and up towards you, that we might find rest in the completed work of the cross, and that this might be the ground of our hope.

And Lord, that you might teach us to celebrate with wonder.

Oh Lord, like Sarah said, who could possibly say that in her old age she would bear a child?

Lord, we can say, who could possibly say that sinners like us might draw close to the Holy Lord?

What a wonderful thing.

Lord, we praise you for that grace.

Lift us up in Jesus' name.

Amen.