“The Joys and Pains of a Life of Faith” Genesis 21:1-21 August 9, 2009

SI: We are studying the life of Abraham, Genesis chapters 12-25.

He’s called the father of those who believe in Jesus Christ.

His life demonstrates the fundamental truths of the Christian life.

All your experiences as a believer, good and bad, joyful and painful,

were experienced by Abraham first.

Knowing that helps keep you steady and balanced and able to see

more clearly the Lord’s hand in all you are going through.

INTRO: The story is told of a woman who was expecting her first child.

She went to the doctor for an ultrasound and he asked her if she wanted to know

if it was a boy or a girl. She said: Don’t tell me now. Mail me the results.

That way my husband and I can share the moment together.

A few days later she got an envelope from the doctor’s office.

So she and her husband made a special evening of it.

They went to their favorite restaurant.

And when they could stand it no longer they opened the letter.

And there inside was the bill for her office visit.

All of you experienced parents would say to that young couple: Get used to it!

That’s parenting. There are joys in parenting.

In fact, the greatest joys this side of heaven come through your children.

But if you think that’s all it will be, perfectly planned moments of joy,

you will be disappointed. Because there are also pains in parenting.

And the financial pains are just one of many.

I will never forget that on the day I bought a used minivan for my growing family,

our single neighbor drove up in a brand new red Miata. That hurt.

I wouldn’t trade parenthood for anything, but there are pains along with the joys.

And that’s the way it is in the life of faith.

There are great joys. We’ve sung of some of those joys this morning.

We sang: My chains are gone, I’ve been set free.

We sang: He’s my Rock, He’s my Fortress, He’s my Deliverer.

Experiencing those spiritual realities is tremendous.

The life of faith is full of joys.

But there are also pains. That surprises some Christians.

Because when they came to faith in Jesus, thought he would solve their problems.

Might not have put it that way, but thought, if I believe and live right—

things will be fine—but their problems got worse. Or they got new problems.

They heard that following Jesus would give them peace—

but they started to have inner conflicts they never knew before.

Those experiences sometimes throw people into confusion.

Sometimes they respond by drifting away.

Maybe you have found yourself in that position.

Angry at God, or maybe just perplexed.

You have to admit that there have been joys in your walk with Christ,

but right now, they are overshadowed in your mind by the pains.

And that wasn’t what you expected. But you should have.

Because that’s exactly what Abraham went through.

He was the first great man of faith, the father of the faithful.

But if ever there was a believer who experienced joys and pains, it was him.

And here it is, all in one story.

The first part of the story is pure joy. The promised son was born.

The birth of this child was a foreshadowing of the birth of Christ.

And as Paul says in Galatians, it was also symbolic of salvation.

When a barren 90 year old woman has a child, that’s all grace. That’s all God.

Abraham named him Isaac, which means laughter.

Sarah had once laughed in unbelief at God’s promise, but now she laughs

with God, and laughs at this incredible baby boy and at herself nursing him.

They had a great party, a feast on the day of his weaning.

God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham’s descendants

was shining brightly on that day as everyone rejoiced in that little boy.

It seemed that nothing at all could cloud that joy.

Then, the second part of the story unfolds and it’s pure pain.

There was such turmoil and discord that Abraham had to banish his

teenage son Ishmael, along with his concubine Hagar.

He loved Ishmael. He had once even asked God to make him the child of promise,

and to fulfill the blessing of the nations through him.

But there was a spiritual component to this as well. Ishmael symbolizes salvation

by works. Trying to earn salvation through our own efforts.

God had chosen Isaac for his salvation plan, so in great distress and deep pain,

Abraham had to turn his son away and tell him never to return.

Both the joy and the pain were part of the life of faith.

That’s the way it was with Abraham, and the way it is with all his children.

You must know that, and accept it as God’s will,

and not turn away, but continue to believe and walk by faith.

Let’s look at this story under three points.

For each point I want us to see, a joy and a pain that are often mingled

in our experience of the Christian life.

I’ll give you these points as we go.

MP#1 The Lord keeps his promises,

but he does so in his time and his way.

The Lord keeps his promises—that’s the joy.

But he does so in his time and his way—that’s the pain.

In the first two verses, one point is driven home three times:

“The Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said.”

“The Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.”

“Sarah bore a son to Abraham at the very time God had promised him.”

God did it. He did it exactly how he said he would do it.

And he did it exactly when he said he would do it.

He was completely faithful in keeping his promise.

God’s Word is true. It can be trusted. God always keeps his promises.

There are many different ways to describe the Christian life—

one way is to see it as a process of discovering, unwrapping, and enjoying

the many promises of God that are scattered throughout the Bible.

It’s like looking for hidden treasures. When you find them,

they make you rich and open to you a life of bigger possibilities.

2 Peter 1 says that through God’s “very great and precious promises . . .

you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption

of the world caused by evil desires.”

In other words, God’s promises are conduits of divine power that enable

you to face and overcome every obstacle and challenge.

Do you fear death and judgment? God promises eternal life through Christ.

Do you struggle with guilt? God promises forgiveness of all your sins in Christ.

Are you anxious about a situation? He invites you to cast all your anxieties on him.

Are you fearful? He promises protection.

You can find promises in the Bible that address every situation in life.

All Christians have experienced this joy at certain points in the life of faith.

You’ve read of promise in the Bible, and God has kept that promise.

And you worship him and laugh and are full of joy.

But before you get to that point, you often go through some pain.

And that’s because even though God keeps all his promises,

he does so in his time and way. His timetable is not our timetable.

His way of working things out, is not the way we would do it.

It’s not a problem with God or his promises.

And every Christian would say that in theory, at least,

God’s timing and way of doing things is best.

But when you are waiting, and when things seem to get more and more impossible,

and the likelihood of it working out the way you want it to seems farther

and farther away—that can be very painful.

And it’s your faith itself that makes it so painful.

Because you have this promise you believe in, but it’s not happening.

How many years was it from the time God gave the promise of a son to

Abraham and Sarah and the time they had Isaac? Do you know? 25 years.

It was a painful 25 years for both of them. There even came a point in which

it seemed that the promise of God was just there to frustrate them.

That’s the pain of a life of faith.

A few weeks ago we were out of town, I struck up a conversation with a stranger

As we talked, we realized that we were both Christians.

She said: I’m struggling with God. Why won’t he keep his promise?

Psalm 103 “He forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”

When I became a Christian five years ago I had terrible depression.

I found that promise and claimed it and God healed me overnight.

Haven’t been depressed for years. But came back six months ago.

I’ve reminded God over and over of his promise to heal me but he hasn’t.

What’s wrong? Why won’t he keep his promise?

I said: Nothing is wrong. God will keep his promise.

He has forgiven all your sins and will heal all your diseases, including depression.

But he’s going to do so in his time and his way.

He did it overnight the first time. This time he’s waiting. Might wait till heaven.

I also told her that sometimes when a person is young, or a new Christian,

God answers their prayers quickly and obviously to build their faith.

But then, when they have been a Christian for a time, the Lord deals with

them differently, makes them wait. That’s also to build faith.

I know it’s hard, but the Lord wants you to believe his promise and walk by faith.

She was just like Sarah and Abraham. The joys and pains of a life of faith.

What are the promises you are claiming? I hope you have one or two favorites.

Hold on to them. Press on through the pain. And in the Lord’s time and way,

those promises will be answered, and you will laugh for joy.

MP#2 The Lord forgives all your sins

but he doesn’t erase all the consequences.

The Lord forgives all your sins—that’s the joy.

But he doesn’t erase all the consequences—that’s the pain.

Abraham and Sarah were full of joy because God had given them a son in spite of

themselves. He had overruled their failures that could have ruined everything. .

Two times Abraham lied out of fear, said Sarah was just his sister, not his wife.

He let her be taken to the harems of other men—once in Egypt by Pharaoh,

and then once by Abimelech, a Canaanite king.

If God had not intervened, Abraham would have lost his wife forever.

If he had lost her he would not have had the promised son.

With no promised son he would never become a great nation.

With no Hebrew nation Jesus would not have been born.

And so the hope of salvation was threatened by Abraham’s sin—

but God intervened and overruled, and that was cause for joy.

In spite of our sins and failures, the Lord is determined to save us and bless us.

He forgives the sins we commit that could destroy us forever.

But he doesn’t take away all of the consequences of our sins.

Seventeen years earlier Sarah had a failure of faith.

She was convinced God wasn’t going to come through for her.

She was sure she would never have a son of her own.

So she said to Abraham: Take my young Egyptian slave girl, and sleep with her,

and then when she has a son, I’ll claim him as my own.

Instead of saying: No, we’re going to trust God to give us the son he promised,

Abraham looked at this cute little Egyptian and said, OK, I’ll do it for the

good of the family—and he slept with her and she got pregnant.

Then things got crazy. Hagar began to despise and disrespect Sarah.

Sarah became furious at Abraham for doing what she told him to do.

Abraham retreated, let Sarah mistreat Hagar so that she ran away to certain death.

Things calmed down outwardly but it was always brewing beneath the surface.

God had said Ishmael would be a wild donkey of a man, hostility toward brothers.

Hagar probably told Ishmael over and over:

The old woman’s never going to have this so called promised son.

You will be your father’s heir. You will inherit his wealth and name.

And so when Abraham and Sarah had this grand party to celebrate

Isaac’s weaning—he was probably three years old—

all the simmering resentment and frustrated hopes boiled over.

Ishmael began to mock Isaac. He began to scoff at the promised son.

In doing that he was really scoffing at God.

All of that led to Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael away.

God assured Abraham that he would bless Ishmael and make him a great nation.

The Angel of the Lord reaffirmed that promise to Hagar at the well.

The Angel of the Lord is an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ.

But the consequences of Abraham’s sin did damage to Ishmael’s soul.

Ishmael got an Egyptian wife. That’s a very significant detail.

Because it means he turned away from the people of God.

He knew about the true God from his growing up years.

But he decided to mix the true faith with the paganism of his Egyptian wife.

And it didn’t end with Ishmael. Who was he the father of? What great nation?

He is the father of the Arabs. And they are a great people—to this day.

But from Bible times up to the present time, they have been in conflict

with the natural descendants of Isaac. The conflict in the news today between the

Jews and the Arabs started when Ishmael mocked Isaac and was sent away.

But it actually started before that, when Abraham went to bed with a woman who

was not his wife. It’s the consequence of Abraham’s sin.

There’s even more to this story: A few thousand years after Ishmael, one of

his descendants named Mohammed did exactly what Ishmael did.

He took some knowledge of the true God—took some Judaism, some Christianity,

and he mixed it with paganism and founded the religion of Islam.

And today, millions of people, mostly Arabs, are Muslims. And at the very

center of Islam is hostility toward the promised Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Seven times a day Muslims recite this creed:

“There is not God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

The first line: “There is no God but Allah” is a denial and challenge to the

Trinity and therefore the existence of the eternal Son of God.

The second line: “And Mohammed is his prophet” is a denial and challenge to

the person and work of Jesus Christ. That too, is a consequence of Abe’s sin.

What a huge example of this truth: God overruling but allowing consequences.

Nothing could be bigger than the salvation of some nations

and the spiritual blindness of others. We experience it on a smaller scale.

All the more reason for us to praise God for his grace,

and plead with him for mercy in our sins.

Trust him to help us as we live in a fallen world.

(I can’t finish this point without saying one more thing:

There is an amazing prophecy in Isaiah 19 that one day the Arab peoples will,

along with the people of Israel, turn back to the true God and worship together.

Let’s pray for that day. That’s the only hope for these two ancient peoples

of Abraham—that they embrace the promised Son together—Jesus Christ.)

And that brings us to the third point.

MP#3 The Lord gives you grace

but he opposes your legalism.

The Lord gives you grace—that’s the joy (obviously)

but he opposes your legalism—that’s the pain (but what does that mean).

And what does this have to do with the story?

I want to take you to the New Testament, to Galatians 4.

Because in that chapter is a fascinating commentary by Paul on this story.

Paul says that this story can be taken figuratively.

It literally happened, but it can be interpreted in a figurative way.

Paul says that these two women and these two sons

stand for two different ways of life, two different ways of relating to God,

an old way and a new way, a natural way and a supernatural way.

How was Ishmael born? Abraham said, if I’m going to have a son,

it’s not going to be with Sarah. She’s old and barren.

But Hagar, she’s young and fertile.

I’m old but I’ve still got it in me. I can make this happen. I can get a son.

I can secure God’s promised blessings through my efforts.

That’s one way of relating to God.

By my efforts, by doing my best, I’m going to get God’s blessing.

Paul calls this being under the law or the works of the law. Legalism.

Legalism doesn’t simply mean going to a church that says

you’re going to hell if you play cards or wear makeup.

It’s a direction of the heart and a way of relating to God.

I present God with my good record, and he owes me.

It’s the way we all naturally think.

So much for Ishmael. How was Isaac born?

Abraham said, it’s impossible. She’s old and barren.

Sarah said, it’s impossible. I’m old and worn out and useless.

But God gave them Isaac and through him all his blessings.

That’s the other way of relating to God, the new way, the supernatural way.

Isaac was a picture of Jesus Christ.

Because in his birth you see that it is God’s work that saves and not your own.

You don’t present God with a good record and then he owes you.

He gives you Jesus and heaven and eternal life, and then you owe him.

That’s living by grace. That’s believing the Gospel.

When you get grace, it brings you tremendous joy.

Because it starts to sink in that it’s all God’s work.

You are accepted by him, not because of what you’ve done,

but because of what Jesus has done.

He lived the life you should have lived, died the death you should have died.

When you relate to God that way, it brings freedom and joy.

But there is also pain, because Ishmael and Isaac can’t live together.

Sarah said to Abraham—Get rid of that slave woman and her son.

He will not share in the inheritance with my son.

Abraham loved Ishmael. He was the sign of his strength.

He had hoped for years that he would be the heir of his estate.

Maybe there would be some way to keep Ishmael and Hagar around.

But God said: Listen to Sarah, send Ishmael away.

In my sovereign grace I’ve chosen Isaac, not Ishmael.

So in great distress, in great pain, Abraham sent him away.

Now, what does all that mean? It means that the Lord opposes your legalism,

because it is incompatible with grace. He wants you to get rid of it.

And that is extremely painful, because these are things you are proud of.

These are things you count on to make you right in the eyes of God and people.

But the Lord is in the business of teaching you grace.

I’ve mentioned before a Christian businessman I knew in Florida.

He started a Christian radio station.

But his partner stole from the company, and he lost everything.

For a while he was angry at God because he said: I was honest, I deserved better.

He was a Christian. He trusted Jesus for salvation.

But he also thought that God owed him because of what he had done.

Those two things are incompatible. Like Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael.

As time passed, this man was able to let go of his legalism and enjoy God’s grace.

Able to say: I deserve nothing. He owes me nothing.

But he has given me Jesus and eternal life and I owe him everything.

What’s your Ishmael? What’s your works righteousness?

Your record as a parent? Your hard work? Your honesty? Your religion?

The Lord has a way of bringing those thing down—painfully sometimes—

so that you trust completely in Jesus.

CONC: Listen to the way one minister put it:

This is a story about the freedom that comes when we trust God to be in control and the loss of freedom that results when we attempt to take control ourselves . . . One son was born because God promised, the other son was born because Abraham and Sarah doubted. Ishmael was a product of human impatience, the human trying to do God’s work for him; Isaac was the result of God doing his own work in his own time. Ishmael caused nothing but trouble; Isaac continued in the faithful covenant of the freely loving God.

The great disaster of Abraham’s life was that he used Hagar to get what he thought God wanted for him; the great achievement of his life was what God did for him apart from any programs or plans that he put into action . . . The moment we begin manipulating lives in order to get control of circumstances, we become enslaved in our own plans, tangled up in our own red tape, and have to live with grievous, unintended consequences.

It couldn’t be said better. That’s the life of faith. It’s a life of joys and pains.

And it will be that way till we get to heaven and see Jesus fact to face.

So don’t be surprised when God does things in his time,

when he lets you suffer consequences

and breaks down your self-righteousness.

He did those things to Abraham. The man he called his friend.

Trust him: He keeps all his promises, he forgives all your sins,

and he gives you his grace every day.