The Abrahamic narratives are an outworking of the promises that God made to Abraham in Genesis 12, reaffirmed in a covenant in Genesis 15, and sealed with a covenant sign in Genesis 17. Abraham believed the LORD, and the LORD counted his faith as righteousness. What we have seen in the stories of Abraham’s life is God working in Abraham to bring him to live out his faith in God’s promise.
We are at a point of high tension in the story? God had recently appeared to both Abraham and Sarah and revealed that Sarah would bear Abraham the promised son (17:16; 18:10). Both Sarah and Abraham laughed at the promise of God, so their son’s name was to be “Laughter” (Isaac). Without an heir the promises to Abraham fail. Both Abraham and Sarah had worked hard to bring about God’s promise. In the very moment God promised Abraham a son through Sarah, Abraham replied to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you! (17:18).
While the offspring promise is huge, it is not the ultimate crisis point in the Abraham story. Jesus can turn stones into Isaacs. God is after something deeper in Abraham than simply an heir. The real tension is Abraham’s heart. He is not where he needs to be to walk before God and be blameless (17:1). He must come to love God above all things. He must come to trust rather than resort to the schemes of self-reliance. His heart must be captured by the promise of God to the point that his entire life is controlled by it, and he is willing to risk all for it. I think what we see in this text is God preparing Abraham for Mt. Moriah.
Perhaps you have met disappointment in living out the faith. Things haven’t turned out the way you imagined. Life is harder than you first thought. Every time you launch out in trust, life, literally, falls apart. You never dreamed of the kind of hardship and suffering you have experienced, and you can’t imagine how these can be part of God’s plan.Perhaps, you are a new believer and you are struggling to apply your faith to life. You do fine as long as everything goes well, but when things start to go wrong, you retreat to old sins (scheming, self-reliance).In these two chapters, the writer writes in a way to build sympathy in the reader for Abimelech, a pagan king, and Hagar and Ishmael, the slave woman and her son. He does this to expose Abraham’s heart and our own.
What are some lessons a maturing faith must learn?
One of the problems we face is learning how to apply gospel truth to every area of life. We have to learn how to move from holding the gospel as a thought in our minds to living it out in our lives every day. A mature faith develops skill in seeing life through the lens of the gospel.
Tracing the history of the early Christian missionary movement, one can see how missionary orders sought to thoroughly Christianize pagan cultures. Pagan holidays and celebrations were replaced with Christian holidays and celebrations. Pagan heroes were replaced with Christian heroes (Saints). The reason for this was to help them apply the Christian faith to every area of life because in a time of crisis, immature believers will revert to what is most familiar to help them deal with the crisis. When tribal Christians get sick, they go to the witchdoctor.
To move from darkness to light means that the believer must learn to apply gospel promise to every situation and area of life. For example, perhaps you have a lifelong habit of dealing with conflict within the family by unbridled anger, blow ups, and harsh words. What would be a way to slay sinful responses and apply gospel truth in the family? Can you not bend justification out horizontally to your family and extend grace to start to build a new way of family behavior? The point I want to make from this text is that we must strive to apply gospel-centered promise to every area and circumstance of life. Abraham’s heart at this point was not captured by gospel promise.
Chapter 20 is shocking, especially after the two divine appearances of chapters 17 and 18, promising a son in a year’s time (17:21; 18:10). Why would Abraham at this critical time hand Sarah over to a pagan king’s harem? We saw how disastrous this ruse was in earlier (12:10ff). You would think, would you not, that Abraham learned his lesson. Abraham’s own explanation to Abimelech gives us some insight into this deception (20:11-13). When God caused him to begin his life of sojourning, Abraham made a covenant with Sarah to claim Abraham was her brother (20:13), which he was in a sense (20:12).Abraham assumed that the Philistines did not fear God, that is, they had no sense of morality. He reasoned that they would kill him and take Sarah. The truth turned out to be that Abimelech was more righteous in his behavior than Abraham.
In the self-justification that Abraham offers, the most important person to him is himself. He demonstrated no regard for Sarah. He could have offered Hagar to Abimelech or any number of the women in household. Here’s a thought, he could have told the undiluted truth! What is worse is Abraham showed no regard for the promise!What would the reasoning of faith looked like in this situation? How would gospel promise apply? Abraham could have reasoned, God promised Sarah and I a son through which the covenant line would run, therefore, we are invincible until God fulfills his word. I know that kind of thinking is easier said than done. But God had told Abraham to sojourn in the land, so there was no power there big and bad enough to keep him from sojourning there. God promised a son, so there was no set of circumstances that could keep God’s promise from being fulfilled.
God intervened in behalf of the promise. If God intervened in these circumstances (20:3-7), it is safe to assume God would have protected Abraham if he looked Abimelech in the eye and said, No. If God would not have intervened in that event, it is safe to assume, He would not have intervened in this event.I love God’s approach to Abimelech, Behold, you are a dead man… (20:3). Abimelech argued his innocence and God’s righteousness (20:4). God pointed out to Abimelech that he was not quite as noble as he let on, because it was God who kept him from sinning (20:6).
The kicker here is God instructs Abimelech to return Sarah and ask Abraham to pray for him for Abraham was a prophet. He, then, gave him a Genesis 2:17 threat, if you don’t you shall surely die (20:7). I think God is doing something in Abimelech and Abraham here. He is exalting Abraham in Abimelech’s eyes, and He is redirecting Abraham’s heart to the promise. God is going to make Abraham a blessing to nations. One way this is accomplished is by Abraham praying for Abimelech (20:17-18). On the hills of Abraham’s prayer for Abimelech, the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised (21:1).
We must apply gospel centered thinking to every area and circumstance of life. If we don’t, we will section off areas of life that are not under the influence of the gospel. For example, when a Christian couple decides to call it quits in their marriage, you have to see that this is incompatible with gospel truth. Your marriage is an analogy of the gospel. When a Christian single starts to date an unbeliever, you have to see that relationship as incompatible with the gospel. When you engage in pre-marital sex or adultery, you have to see that activity as incompatible with gospel truth. When you indulge in pornography, you have to see that behavior as incompatible with the gospel.
Here is what I have seen. People who engage is consistent sinful behaviors have cordoned off an area of life that is held separate from their lives as Christians. They assuage their conscience with every kind of self-justifying argument. They are unwilling to take drastic measures to cut off the source of sin. If your phone causes you to sin, throw it against the wall. That you paid $600 dollars for it is not worth your soul. If Twitter and Facebook are causing you to sin, delete your accounts. #Deal with sin drastically or you will die.
In this section of text, we have the accounts of the birth of Isaac (21:1-7) and the expulsion of Ishmael (21:8-21). The story of Isaac’s birth is lackluster, and the story of Ishmael’s expulsion leaves us feeling compassion for Hagar, Ishmael, and Abraham while thinking God and Sarah are a bit harsh. Again, I think the writer wants to expose Abraham’s heart and ours.
Like Abraham, we get attached to the works of hands, the plans we make for ourselves, and the life we have decided we want. We are prone to create a world we want and then pursue it. We even get angry with God when he does not give us that world. The world we want is perfect in an unrealistic kind of way in that everything goes smoothly. We experience no friction or disappointment in our fantasy world. We get to be center of it, and it meets all of our needs.
God is taking us to a perfect world, but it is not the world of your imagination. Perhaps, you imagine if I could just find a mate, all would be well, and you would be happy and content. Or you may fantasize of having married someone else, and how life would be perfect, but now you have to put up with his or her annoying habits. Our fantasies are not the way to a perfect world. The world to come is a world bought by the blood of the Son of God. We will not be the center of it. He is. It is not a world of fantasy but of reality. It is a perfect world of love.God will remove all rivals to His promise. Sometimes this work of God in us is very painful. I think this is what we see in this text.
One would have expected the angels to sing when the long-awaited son of promise finally arrived. Has this not been the apex to which the Abrahamic narratives have been driving? No. I don’t want to minimize the birth of Isaac in any way, but Mt. Moriah is the high point in the story. Isaac’s birth is huge in the history of redemption. Yet, the point in the verses 1-7 that is emphasized most is that God kept His word (21:1-2). Three times in two verses we read, As He had said…as He had promised…of which God had spoken to him. The angels are not singing and confetti is not being shot out of cannons. The text simply says, God keeps His promises. Why are you so surprised that God keeps His Word?
Sarah is elated (21:6-7). We don’t see much emotion from Abraham. When Isaac was weaned, probably at around 3 years of age, Abraham made a feast, as would anybody who weaned a child at 3. We always have to have a party-pooper. Ishmael began to mock Isaac. He was probably near 17 years of age. Paul read this as Ishmael persecuting Isaac (Gal. 4:29). Paul interprets this event as the seed of the woman under attack by the seed of the Serpent as is always the case in redemptive history.Ishmael looked with disdain on the son of promise. No doubt, he had enjoyed his position as the heir. Now, that the promised son is on the scene what does that mean for Ishmael? He should have loved the son and embraced the son.Sarah saw Ishmael behavior toward Isaac and its future potential. She told Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son if this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac (21:10).
The text tellingly says, And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son (21:11). Abraham was irate (very displeased cf. 19:7; 38:10) at Sarah’s word on account of his son. But there is more. God confronted Abraham and told him not to be angry because of the boy and because of your slave woman (21:12). Abraham demonstrated more affection toward Ishmael and Hagar in this text, than we ever see him demonstrate toward Sarah. He has treated Sarah as if she is non-essential personnel. Does he think he can displace the promise of God with the Son of his own hands?
Notice how the writer subtly removes Ishmael and Hagar as rivals by not mentioning Ishmael’s name throughout the narrative and only God using Hagar’s name when He calls out to her in her distress (21:17). Ishmael is the boy and the child, and Hagar is the slave woman. God told Abraham to do what Sarah told him to do. God rebuked Adam saying, Because you listened to the voice of your wife (3:17), and, here, He tells Abraham, Listen to the voice of your wife (21:12b). There a subtle but far-reaching difference in God’s promise and Sarah’s purpose. Sarah wanted Ishmael cast out because she did not want him to be heir with her son Isaac (21:10). God said to cast Ishmael out for through Isaac shall your offspring be named (21:12). Sarah has her son in mind; God has His Son in mind.
Great blessing would come to the nations through Abraham because of God’s Son. God would make Ishmael a great nation, not simply because of Abraham, but because of the implications of the promise to Abraham (21:13). The making of Ishmael into a nation can only happen when Abraham’s affection is turned from the works of his own hands to embrace the promise of God. Like Abraham and Sarah, we are too easily satisfied with the immediate pleasures of life. God wants to capture our hearts and our affections with His greatness and the glory of His son. What He will do in your life now, not even considering ultimately in His eternal Kingdom, is more satisfying, more pleasure filled, more pleasing than any world you can imagine.
Let compare. So you are out partying it up, showing all your best moves, living for the attention of some other person, receiving affectionless love, and you call that living? You call that better than “crying with the saints?” Once again you find yourself in a compromising situation where you are being used sexually by some person or some internet site, and you call that pleasure, satisfaction, and pleasing? You are left feeling empty, used, depressed, and sick? Friday comes, and it starts all over again. Really? You get to the place where you don’t enjoy anything. Is this all there is?
The answer is, NO! There is more much more. There is the Son who alone can bring blessing, enviable blessing, on the Ishmaels of the world. The Son has brought me laughter. I set can set and ponder my life with the Son and deep-seated pleasure and satisfaction fills my life and overflows to praise and thanksgiving.
Consider John Paton missionary to the New Hebrides in the mid-1800s. He spent the night in a tree while Savages searched for him to kill him. Hiding among the branches he could hear their yells and the discharge of their muskets. Yet, he said, I sat there among the branches, as safe in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. … I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. …in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then? (Piper, Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ, 82). You can’t have both worlds. You can’t live in this world as if God and the gospel are of no consequence and come to the place of joy. What are the rivals of your affection for Christ? Get rid of them. Cast them out. They are bondage.
In this last section of text, Abimelech approached Abraham to enter into a covenant with Abraham that would extend to future generations (21:22-23). The most obvious thing to Abimelech about Abraham was God was with him in all that he did (21:22), and this in spite of the fact that Abimelech experienced Abraham at Abraham’s lowest point! You can see Abimelech watching Abraham as Abraham sojourned in his territory and marveling at God’s blessing in Abraham’s life. Here again we see Abraham in his role of blessing the nations.
What is odd is Abimelech knew Abraham had the potential to be deceitful (21:23), yet he wanted a covenant relationship with Abraham based honesty and integrity. When he looked at Abraham’s life, he wanted what Abraham had, not in the sense of wanting Abraham’s stuff but in the sense of wanting a relationship with a man who was, obviously, blessed of God in everything he did. Abraham took the opportunity to settle a dispute over a well (21:25-32a), which secured Abraham’s ownership of the well which foreshadows possession of the land.
God brought Abraham from a position of deceiving Abimelech to entering a covenant with Abimelech of truth telling and kind dealing (21:23). Abimelech perceived that the only way he would know divine blessing was to be in a covenant relationship with Abraham. Abraham called on the Name of the Everlasting God (21:33 cf. 12:8; 13:4). He is the God who is from everlasting, so His purpose of blessing cannot be thwarted. He is the One who established Abraham in the eyes of this pagan king, provoking the king to want to share in the blessing of Abraham.
The most obvious thing about the people of God should be the blessing and benediction of God upon their lives. Blessing, first and foremost, is being in a covenant relationship with the God through the finished work of the Son of God on the cross. In Christ, we have every spiritual blessing. I understand that through the benevolence and common grace of God, many nations and people live enriched lives. That reality is, however, the overflow of the living in a world where God has his people. The people of God are the epicenter of the blessing of God. And the best and first blessing is to be in a covenant of love with God through His Son, so that, you know wherever you are, whatever your circumstance, God loves you, and He will care for you. You don’t have to turn to this world in the day of crisis. You will get no sympathy there. You don’t have to plot and plan and scheme, but simply trust God to meet your needs.
Second, for blessing to characterize your life, you must apply Gospel promise to every area and circumstance of life. You have to decide to live like this today, before you hit crisis. You must hold tenaciously to this truth and preach the gospel to yourself. You have to decide today that you are going to trust God if it kills you. Radically rid your life, your thinking, your options of any rivals to living out the gospel in your life. If your car breaks down, your tooth falls out, your dog runs away, your kids won’t obey, or if you are having the best time of your life, everyone of these things is an opportunity to live out gospel blessing or to retreat to plots, plans, and schemes.The most obvious thing about the people of God should be the blessing and benediction of God upon their lives.
Blessing is something we cannot fake. But it is the benediction of God that clothes our lives, colors our decisions, calms our fears, fulfills our desires, and enriches our presence in the world.