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Sermon preached on Genesis 21:1-21 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 10/15/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We resume our study through Genesis and especially the life of Abraham with a joyous milestone. Finally, the long-awaited child has been born. God was indeed faithful to his promise. And yet, while Isaac is joyfully born, we see right afterwards that Ishmael is cast out to Abraham’s displeasure. It is amazing to see these two things so contrasted. After so long of waiting for Isaac’s arrival, this chapter’s announcement of it seems to almost get overshadowed by Ishmael’s exclusion. And yet, Isaac and Ishmael do stand in contrast, and this chapter helps us to consider that important theme. As we study this chapter then, this theme is still important for us today, contrasting works versus grace, and reminding us of the inheritance we posses through faith in Jesus Christ. Let’s dig in.
Let us begin in our first point to consider the birth of Isaac in verses 1-7. The quote of Sarah in verse 6 that “God has made laughter for me,” summarizes this section nicely. Remember the background. Not only did Abraham and Sarah have to wait so very long to have this promised child, but they had to wait until it was physically impossible. Not only was Sarah barren all her life, but by now she is well into menopause. Abraham himself was a hundred years old. Yet, a year earlier in chapter 17, God had promised to give Abraham a son through Sarah in a year. It seemed so impossible that it caused Abraham to laugh, Genesis 17:17. Then, in chapter 18, God told Sarah the same thing and it caused her to also laugh, Genesis 18:12. On the one hand, we can understand their laughing, because such a thing was humanly impossible. On the other hand, we know God was right to admonish such laughter, because nothing is too difficult for the LORD.
And yet, we observe here that God kept his promise, and thus Isaac was born to Sarah and Abraham. We often speak about this as God’s promise to Abraham, but this passage especially emphasizes how God kept his promise to Sarah. We see this in the first three verses. Verse 1, “The Lord visited Sarah, as he said.” “The Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken.” And what did that entail? Verses 2 and 3, Sarah conceived and bore a son for Abraham. And when did this happen? Verse 2 says this happened at the set time God had spoken. That refers to the specific timeline God set in chapter 18. So these first three verses really highlight God’s faithfulness. God had spoken. He made it come to pass. And specifically with Sarah, he had spoken about her. And so, God was faithful of his promise to bring a son, and that through Sarah.
Let us then observe Sarah’s response in verses 6-7. She speaks in terms of laughter. How fitting and full circle for her to talk about laughter. Before, when she and Abraham had laughed, it was a negative thing. They laughed at the impossibility of it, an expression of doubt in otherwise people of faith. But now, Sarah brings up the idea of laughter and turns it into a positive thing. Actually, this was God’s doing first, because when Abraham had first laughed about this, God assured him that it would happen, and that when it did they were to name the child “Isaac”. The name Isaac translates as, “He laughs.” In other words, God intended to use their laughing as a way to highlight his miracle. God turns around the laughing from a negative to now a positive. When Sarah brings up the idea of laughter in verses 6-7, she is putting words to God’s amazing reversal. God essentially redeems their laughter by using it now as a way to glorify God.
And so look at verses 6-7. After Isaac is born, she exclaims, “God has made me laugh!” She connects her laughing with Isaac’s name of laughter. This is a positive laugh, a laughing of joy. It’s the laughing of something so good yet had seemed so impossible. It makes you laugh because it was so unbelievable, so seemingly impossible, that when it does happen you are just overwhelmed with glee. You might exclaim, “I can’t believe it!” But of course, you do believe it, because you just witnessed whatever impossible thing that just happened to you. That seems to be what Sarah is expressing here. In verse 7, she says, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have born him a son in his old age.” The impossible has happened, and so she laughs in joy and amazement and awe at this miracle!
Sarah clearly gives God the credit in this in verse 6, saying, “God has made me to laugh.” God waited until it was laughable to think there was any natural way for Sarah and Abraham to have a child. He did that, so that it would become clear that God was at work here in a mighty way. That then they would laugh in joy when God does the impossible. This then again dispels man’s efforts to save himself. What God does to save us, we can’t accomplish by our own efforts. It’s laughable to think we can. But when God does the impossible, it makes us laugh for joy! This Sarah recognizes here and gives glory to God in her laughter.
And as Sarah says, others will laugh with her. Verse 6 says that not only has God made her laugh, but all who hear about what God had done through Sarah would laugh with her as well. Sarah recognizes how amazing this is and that her joy won’t stay just with her. All else who hear it will have this same laughter of joy! As we look forward to the greater significance of this birth, we laugh with her as well. Isaac’s miraculous birth ultimately led to Jesus’s miraculous birth. With Jesus again we find the impossible happening. God saved us wayward sinners through the impossibility of Jesus rising from the dead. We laugh today, knowing that death could not hold Jesus, and that means it won’t be able to hold us either who are in Christ. And so we laugh together today with Sarah. We rejoice with her celebrating God’s visiting her to bring forth Isaac. Even as we rejoice in how God visited Mary via the Holy Spirit and brought forth Jesus. Praise be to God!
And yet even though Sarah says this laughter is something for all to join in with her, this laughter is actually not for all. I’ll explain what I mean by that by turning now to our second point for today to consider verses 8-12. Isaac grew and was weaned, and in verse 8 they have a big feast celebrating his weaning. That’s when in verse 9 we see Sarah observe Ishmael laughing. She then demands he and his mom be cast out of their family. We could imagine various kinds of laughing here by Ishmael, but Scripture interprets Scripture, and Galatians 4:29 says that Ishmael was somehow persecuting Isaac here. So, this was some sort of negative laughing. Maybe he had been laughing at Isaac or at Sarah in a mocking way. Regardless, the idea of laughter is still very thematic here. Put this all together. In the past, Sarah and Abraham had laughed in doubt at God’s promise for a son through them. Because of this, God says the son is to be named Isaac, “he laughs”. Then when Isaac is born, Sarah is ecstatic and laughs for joy. She says God has caused her to laugh, and everyone else will also laugh for joy with her. But then she sees some kind of laughing in Ishmael, Hagar’s son, and she says, but not them. They aren’t going to laugh with us. They aren’t going to experience this joy with us. Cast them out, she says to Abraham! And notice her reasoning according to verse 10. She won’t have Ishmael be an heir along with Isaac.
It may be helpful here to note that when historians study ancient practices and legal code, these things weren’t that uncommon at that time. Ancient practices legislated the idea that a barren wife could have her maidservant raise up legal heirs on her behalf. There was also ancient legal code that gave the wife some rights to be able to send the maidservant away afterwards. There was also ancient legal code that invested rights of inheritance to the sons born to such maidservants on behalf of the wife. Knowing about these ancient practices help us understand the dynamics here. It seems there is a legitimate concern from Sarah that if Ishmael sticks around in the family, that he will end up sharing the inheritance with Isaac. In other words, Isaac might get substantially less inheritance if Ishmael remains with the family.
In verse 11 we see Abraham is displeased with Sarah’s request to cast out Ishmael and Hagar. Ishmael was still his son, and he surely had concerns for him and Hagar. God then weighs in on the matter. We might have assumed God would take Abraham’s side on this, but amazingly, God takes Sarah’s side! Verse 12, God says to him, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” The “do as she tells you” is literally, “listen to her voice” and that is surprising due to that language being thematic so far in Genesis. Adam was faulted for listening to Eve’s voice to eat the forbidden fruit. Earlier Abraham was said to have listened to Sarah’s voice in bearing a child through Hagar, and we noted that was not the right thing there either. Genesis has set us up that too often men haven’t shown leadership by submitting to their wives even when their wives have bad ideas. But here, in a sort of redemptive twist, God tells Abraham he should listen to the voice of his wife here. God’s reason is essentially the same as Sarah’s. Ishmael is not to share in the inheritance with Isaac., “For in Isaac, your seed shall be called.”
In other words, God is affirming that all his many promises that he has made to Abraham about his offspring, would be fulfilled through Isaac, not Ishmael. Sarah’s concern about the inheritance lines up with this. God’s long affirmed promises were to come through Isaac’s lineage. She wanted to protect that for Isaac, and God affirms her perspective on that. This is an ongoing truth. It’s God’s chosen people of promise alone that share in God’s blessed inheritance he has in store. Those outside of God’s chosen people do not share in this inheritance, but are in fact cast off from the family of God.
We might wonder why God would choose Isaac to fulfill his promises and exclude Ishmael. Yet, let us remember that Ishmael represents man’s attempt to save himself. God had promised Abraham an heir. When it looked like that was impossible to have with Sarah, they decide for Abraham to accomplish this Hagar the maidservant. They figured that was the only way humanly possible for Abraham to have an heir. But we’ve seen God was going to do it the impossible way, so everyone knew it was about God’s power and God’s grace. Paul expands on this in Galatians 4 by speaking of how the question of Ishmael versus Isaac typifies salvation in general. Paul says that Ishmael was the fruit of both a slave woman and of man’s natural efforts. Paul likens that to man’s efforts to keep the law of God to save ourselves, but we can’t do it, so we find ourselves in slavery. In contrast, Isaac was the fruit of both a free woman and of God’s miraculous power, fulfilling his promise. Paul likens that to how we can’t do anything to save ourselves, we rather need to people of the promise. Instead of doing something to make ourselves to be right before God, we need God’s Spirit to do a miracle within us, to make us born again, that we would trust not in ourselves but in the promise of God who gives us life. So then, we see Isaac and Ishmael represent these two incompatible approaches. So, God chose Isaac and excluded Ishmael, so we all know that we need God to save us.
Yet while God excluded Ishmael to establish a line through Isaac, God’s saving blessings would not be exclusive to that family line. Remember, God promised in Genesis 12 that through Abraham’s promised offspring, all the families on the earth could find blessing. As Scripture continues to unpack what that mean, we ultimately learn that even those who have been outside the family of God’s people, can be received into it. This we have through faith in Isaac’s greater son, Jesus Christ. And that means we share in the inheritance with Isaac and all the natural sons who are part of God’s family. As Romans 8:17 says, we now are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
We’ll find that truth hinted at even in our third point for today. Let us turn to verses 13-21. Here, our passage turns to focus on Ishmael after he and Hagar are cast out. This has a familiar ring to it, because we remember back to Genesis 16, when Hagar had first gotten pregnant with Ishmael and ran away after Sarah’s harsh treatment in light of Hagar’s contemptuous attitude toward Sarah. There she found herself alone in the wilderness with child. Though, there she had found a spring of water. Here, she is back out in the wilderness, now with an older Ishmael, but she can’t find any water, and that sets us the scare that they might die. Yet, in both instances, God affirms he has good plans for Ishmael. As we read here, God tells Abraham that he will make a nation out of him. That’s essentially what God had told Hagar as well back in Genesis 16. Today’s passage especially emphasizes that God would bless Ishamel like that for Abraham’s sake.
Nonetheless, despite such promise of God, they are out in the wilderness with the threat of dehydration. Hagar fears Ishmael will die. Because of that she sits him down in one place and goes a little way away so she won’t have to see him die up close. Hagar begins to lift up her voice and weep loudly. But then God speaks to her, verse 17. Verse 17, “And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar.” Did you notice the interesting switch there? The text said that Hagar lifted up her voice, but then God appears to her and says that he heard her son’s voice. The text doesn’t narrate what Ishmael had said, but we see that he had said something after Hagar left him alone. Again, verse 17, the Angel of God goes on to say to Hagar, “Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.” So, God heard and answered Ishmael. God in turn opened the eyes of Hagar so she could see the well of water that was nearby. So, they drink and survive. Ultimately, the boy grows up, lives in the wilderness, learns how to use the bow, and gets married. As we’ll see later in Genesis, he will have twelve sons who become princes, and Ishmael will live to the ripe old age of 137. And even though he moves out of the home here, to clarify, that does not mean that he has cut off all ties with the family. Indeed, we’ll see Ishamel again when Abraham dies, that he and Isaac will together bury him. And we’ll see that Isaac’s son Jacob will marry one of Ishmael’s daughters. Let us then credit why Ishmael had the blessings in his life that he did. It’s there in verse 20, that it says God cared for him in this way.
But I digress. For, what I want us to notice is the emphasis here on God hearing Ishamel. Remember, we learned back in Genesis 16 that the name Ishmael means God hears. You might remember that I titled that sermon, “The God Who Sees and Hears”. Hagar rejoiced that God saw her plight and heard her cries and came to them with help and hope. We see that theme of hearing and seeing return here in this echo of that chapter. Think of the contrast here. Our passage began by helping us to see the importance of why Isaac was named Isaac. But it ends here by helping us to see the importance of why Ishmael was named Ishmael. God hears. Even with being cast out of the family of promise, he and Hagar are reminded of this important truth. That God hears and sees. Ishmael cries out here and God hears him and comes to help him. This again teaches the point I made a moment ago. While God secures blessing through the line of Isaac in Jesus, it is blessing that would be held out to the world to take hold of. Even outcast Ishmael learns that there is physical blessing to those who would call upon the name of the LORD. What we see with Ishmael shows the principle in general, that the nations ought to call out to God for help. We find this reiterated in the New Testament, in Romans 10:9, saying, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And Romans 9:12, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.” Today he offers to outcasts and outsiders to call upon him, to look to Jesus, and become a part of his God’s family and household of promise.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, we’ve learned several truths today as we’ve contrasted Isaac and Ishmael. We don’t save ourselves, God saves us. God has a chosen people of promise who will receive an eternal inheritance, while the outside world will not. Yet, God holds out promise even to the world, to all who would turn in faith to call upon him, that they would be received in Christ into the family of God.
As we conclude our message for today, let me remind you that the events of today’s chapter were many years in the making for Abraham and Sarah. In our day, we yet have been waiting many years for the fulfillment of God’s promises, for Jesus to return and usher us into that eternal inheritance. To the flesh, these promises seem laughable. But God is faithful, and he will come to us at the appointed time. Let us not think we will usher in his kingdom by some work of our own flesh. But let us keep looking in faith to the promise. Yes, we live out such faith by looking to serve our God here and now. We bear witness to the coming of his kingdom here and now. The world yet persecutes us as we declare this truth. But we who, “sow in tears will reap in joy.” For on that final day, when Jesus does return, we will laugh with joy inexpressible.
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
