Genesis 21:8-14 Bible Study | Episode #284

November 10, 2022

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 21:8-14  Bible Study | Episode #284

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to.

And allow you to see him and to know him, and to know his will, that you might glorify him, and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus' name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's Morning Bible study. We are g in Genesis chapter 21. We're coming across a very it's a difficult passage.

You can look at it from a physical sense and you can look at it from a spiritual sense, and it is, it does require some discernment. It is the passage where Where Ishmail and Hagar finally lead for good the House of Abraham. And it is a the best way for me to describe it.

It's just it's difficult. Because there is a brewing problem in Abraham's house now that Isaac is born because Ishmail is no longer going to be the son who gains the inheritance of the father because he is the son of a maid servant. He's not son of I of Abraham's wife.

Sarah. So there's an issue there. There's a big issue there. And that is an important issue. But I wanna more look at it from a spiritual sense this morning just because I think the spiritual understanding of things is Is very important. Mainly because a, as Christians, as believers, we oftentimes choose the best way for me to say it is we choose poorly.

In our deciding what God is pointing us toward and walking us toward. And many times we compromise. We just straight compromise. God's God's decision for something that seems a little bit more palatable, or it might be se seem a little bit more comfortable, something that we want rather than what God wants.

And we miss out on God's best. And we do that regularly and it's not a. The issue's, not an issue of one where where God is offering to give us it all. He's offering, He's telling us what is the most important thing and choosing what is the most important thing, is a it's an important task.

It's what we need to do. It said It says here in verse eight. So the child grew and was weaned, and he's talking about Isaac. The child grew and was winged, and Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was winged. That is he was Probably in his terrible twos or threes.

His older brother is now getting to the age of being an older child to a young teenager. And when he is weaned and now is on his own so to speak no longer niche, his mother for sustenance. They have a feast. They have a big feast, they have a celebration, and they're going to celebrate a lot about Isaac.

And the reason they're gonna celebrate a lot about Isaac is he's the fulfillment of the promise of God. He is. He is the one that was promised. Back long ago before before Abraham was who he was God had told him in Irv the calians, which is a long way away in Abraham's homeland.

Go to a people you do not know, a place you do not know and live among the people you do not know. And I'll make you a great nation and and you'll be a, you'll be a source of hope in life to the world really, is what the promise was. And Isaac is the fulfillment of that promise. Ishmail is a child of someone who is anointed.

Someone who is called by God, someone who's walking by faith. He is important, but he's not the child of promise. He's just not. And that causes issues probably and most likely all the time. And Abraham was going to celebrate the different stages of Isaac's. Because Isaac is the fulfillment of the promise of God.

And that seems so. Call. It seems so difficult but it is important to understand that's what is going on here. That's what's happening. You have the promises of God and you have what God wants to do, and then you have the different voices around you who have people who want you to do what they want you to do and.

He's always been a man who chose the promises of God. He's always been that and he's not going to change that. Now Sarah saw while they were having this feast, obviously Isaac has nothing to do with it. He's still a young child. He saw that Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had born to.

The son of Hagar, the Egyptian scoffing meaning she saw that that Ishmail was upset. He was upset that they were celebrating his brothers weaning. They were, he was upset that they were making a big deal about this. Now I don't know if that's born of jealousy. I don't know.

Ishmail knows. I know. I don't know. I don't know what caused this, whether Hagar is upset and Ishmail is just expressing what Hagar is feeling. That's not, none of that is said in scripture. None of that is mentioned in this passage. Nowhere does it tell us. Why the scoffing is happening.

It doesn't tell us why the why there is a there's a division. We already know that there were going to be a division. We already know that there's going to be a problem. And the reason we know it's gonna be a problem is cause way back when Abraham went into Hagar and had each. They were trying to make the promises of God happen on their own rather than trusting God, obeying God and doing what God asked him to do, and allowing God to fulfill his promises because he's a promise keeping God.

He's a God who keeps his promises. They didn't do that. And they cause this problem. Now remember situations are problems. People aren't problems. And you need to understand that situations are problems. People not, are not always necessarily the problem. It's the it's the circumstances that surround the situation.

Obviously, and you're gonna see in just a little bit Ishmail is gonna be a great nation. He's gonna be a fulfillment of the promises of Abraham. In his own life. He's going to be that but, Jealousies, but desires to be in the first position. Desires to have your way or have your will be done, desires for things to work out your own way, can many times keep you from having god's very best.

It just does. And I'm not immune to that and really tell you the truth. I've never met a human being who is immune to that. We all. The things that we want. And then many times those things are not necessarily clearly in line with what God wants. And so we struggle with that and we struggle with jealousy and we struggle with so and so's getting something that I'm not getting.

Remember. We're equal as far as value to God before the cross. We have great value, but we're not saying the same. God's not gonna cheat, not God. God's not gonna treat us the same. We're not the same. He's gonna treat us differently because he has di he has a different plan for each one of our lives.

We are different in our giftings. We're different in the way we think that we're gifting in our environment and the things that we've grown in and known. And the things that we struggle with we're all different and we're all different in very unique and wonderful ways. And God's use of us to glorify himself is going to be different.

We are equal in that he spent the same thing for each one of us, and that's the blood of Jesus Christ, but we're not the same. And equality and sameness are not the, are that, that they're not equivalent. That you don't, they don't go together. You can be. And not the same. And Hagar's son Ishmail and Sarah's son, Isaac.

Are equal in that they're both the son of Abraham, but they're not the same. And one of them has the promise of God wrapped up in who he's going to be and the other one is going to walk in and gonna walk in the anointing and the blessing of his father. And he's going to be a great nation himself.

But he's not going to be the nation of promise. And that's just the way it goes. Not every time in life are we going to be the preeminent one? And that's difficult to take sometimes, especially when you grow up and you're told you're special. You're gonna be this, you're gonna be that, you're gonna be the other.

And those things don't work out in every situation. They work out in a lot of situations, but they're not gonna work out in every situ. And the reason they're not gonna work out in every situation is because God hadn't planned it. So he says, Therefore she said to Abraham, Cast out this bond woman and her son for the son of this bond.

Woman shall not be an he with my son, namely with Isaac. And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham site because of his son. Notice Abraham did not want to cast. Hagar and Ismail he wanted to keep Hagar and Ismail and Sarah understood that if Hagar and Ishmail remained the promise of God that was going to be fulfilled through Isaac was gonna be limited.

It was gonna be, it was gonna be an issue from then on that, that idea, and it's an important spiritual idea, that idea is the effort to try to hold on to the good, at the expense of the best. And you as a believer get to sometimes choose this God. God gets to gives you the opportunity to choose sometimes.

Which one, which of the things you're gonna hang onto. And, when you spiritually step back and look at things you'll see what God's best is. But oftentimes, we're so tied to some of the good things that God has provided us. Ancillary things, not the most important thing. We we look around and we see the good that God has done in our life and we choose to be we choose to settle for the good things that are going on because it's comfortable, because it, we know more about it because it feels good, it feels safe. And we fail to grab hold of God's best because it is a new world. It's a new step out there. It's a constantly chasing after the the big things that God is doing around us and often.

We, we we, we settle for the good things that may not even be the direct hand of God at work. In it, it may just be that they are the product of God's work in our life from the past, and we love the past. We love to hold on the things that have happened before. We love to we love to keep hold of the.

That made us feel good in the past. The the events, the things that that were the blessing of God 20 years ago. But see, God's always pressing us forward. He's always growing us. He's always maturing us, and you can't grab hold of the past so much that you fail to seize upon the goodness of the future.

My lifestyle has to change as I grow older. When I'm a when I'm a young man and a or you're a young woman and you're maybe dating or you're first married and you have all the things that go on with that and the wonderful things that happen with that those are great.

But you can't hold on and continue to act like you were a like you're a single person or like you're still living in your mother's household where she's taking care of all the business. Because if you hold on to that and keep acting that way, your marriage is not gonna flourish, or your relationship's not gonna flourish, and you're not gonna come together as one.

That's why the Bible says husbands leave your father and mother and clinging to your. And then when you have a child and you have all the freedom of youth and the young young marriage and all the things that you can do, and then you've got this child and this child to tell you the truth, the child requires a lot of effort and a lot of investment in your life, and you can't just keep doing the things you were doing when y.

It was just the two of you. Now it's the three of you, and you've gotta invest in that child. You can't hold on to the past. Even though, a lot of that stuff was good. It was special for that time. You've gotta invest in that child and that child might turn into two or three children and or maybe even four or five, and then you spend a long many years investing into those children.

But you can't hold onto that because when the grandchildren come, that's a new experience and a new life. And you. You have to continue to reinvest and re-energize the promises of God. You can't remain the same. You've got to, you've got to, you've got to allow God to mature you and to grow you.

You've got to allow God to show you the new the mercies that are new in the morning and every morning. And you've got to, you've gotta allow those changes to take place and allow the opportunity for God to move and not hold on to the. So many times ago. I remember when you were little. No. No teenager wants to hear that.

They don't, they, Have you ever seen a teenager when their parents says, I remember when old Johnny, he was little. He used to do this and that, and the teenagers over there rolling his eyes wanting to throw up in the trash can. They just can't stand it. They don't even want to hear about it. Why?

Because it's a holding onto the past and that child's trying to move on to the future. You know what my thoughts with my children, I loved the past. I enjoyed every moment them growing up, and I recognized the importance of them growing up, but, I ha I also knew that there was gonna be gray imports for them and them being mature adults, not lacking anything so that they could handle their own business when they got to be older so that my grandchildren would have mature adults raising them.

And so I couldn't afford to just keep hanging on to the bassinet of the past when I've got to put on the grad, I, I. I gotta make sure my, my child is getting ready to put on the graduation gown of tomorrow. I need 'em to, I need 'em to be able to quit making little notes for me to hang on the refrigerator so they can sign the mortgage for their own house down the road later.

And if I keep dwelling in the past, good things that God has done, I won't have the best that God has for me tomorrow. And that is true of every area of our life. Life. And this world is never, ever the same. The days are changing and your time and your season is changing and you can hold on to the good things of the past.

And. Does not want to not have ishmail in his household. Not David Abraham. He wants to have ishmail in his household and he doesn't want but the promise of the future is born in Isaac. And so we see that in, in verse 12, it said, But God said to Abraham, Do not let it be displeasing in your site because of the, Or because of your bond woman.

Notice what he's saying. You can't let, you can't let you can't let the goodness of the past cause you to be in distress. He says, Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice. Now, that's God again, saying to a man listen to your wife. She's helping you here.

And so many times we don't do it. I just sometimes. Why? Then I'm not listening. And then before you know it, I'm running off in a ditch somewhere and then I'm definitely getting a white why? And God's saying to Abraham, Listen to Sarah. She's right about this.

Isaac is the vessel of my promises for you. And you're gonna have to focus on that. Now, that's tough, spiritually physically speaking to say that's a tough message right there. But in a spiritual sense, it is a real message. He says, Whatever Sarah said to you, listen to her voice for Isaac.

Your seat shall be called Notice what he's saying is, your promises are embodied in Isaac and they're not in, in they're not in Ismail. Ishmail is going to walk in your promises. He's gonna walk in your anointing, he's gonna walk in your power. But he's not the embodiment of the promises.

What he's saying is, Ismail's good. He says, Isaac's the best. And you're gonna have to choose the best. And in, in our spiritual journeys, The mark of maturity is a person who's able to, who's able to break free of the good things of the past and move forward to the great and the best of the future.

And the good things are the ancillary things that that remain. From where God moved in your past. They are, they're the things that are, the results of that. They're the things that remain that you can hold on and see and be a part of. But what was really the best is the movement of God.

What you received from the movement of God is what you hold onto. You really want to. In the middle of God's will and that's what was the best was God's will. God's will is what was the best, and then you received all these blessings that came from it, and you keep trying to hold onto those blessing.

Rather than continue to walk in God's best and let me tell you something, it takes some maturity and it takes some strength to walk in the best of God and lay aside the good things that came from God's will in the past. So that you can have God's best today and God's best is always his will and his way for you.

And so what Sarah has said to you, said, Listen to her voice for Isaac. For in Isaac, your seed shall be called. And it said, Yet, I will also make a nation of your son and the bond woman because he is your sea. And what he's saying is, Look, I'm gonna continue to bless. Your what your faithfulness to me in the past is going to result in continued over and over blessings that are behind you.

But for you, those blessings are gonna be need. You need to put those blessings in the bank of my kingdom and allow me to continue to be producing fruit from them in the past and in the future. I need you to choose my will. So that you can so that you can create another field for for growth.

You need, you can create another opportunity for kingdom building so that you can have a investment today that is as valuable as the investment is of tomorrow. And and it is important that you do that. He's just basically saying to Abraham, You've got to do what Sarah has said. You gotta do this.

You gotta, you've got to make the investment of today. Is as, as important as the good things of the past that you've already had. And then, so Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water. Notice he gives him word Jesus, and he gives him the water, the Holy Spirit, and he put it on her shoulder put it on Hagar Shoulder and he gave it and the boy to Ha and the boy to Hagar and sent her away and it says, then she departed and wandered in the wilderness of be Sheba.

And, that was good for her son too, by the way. It doesn't seem like it is, but Ishmail is going to become a great man out there in that wilderness. And that wilderness experience of. Is an important experience to have for everyone. I can say this. If Jesus had to spend 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness fasting so that he could be prepared for God's ministry for him in the future, then I can promise you this.

You were going to have a wilderness experience also, and you can't keep yourself from having a wilderness experience and you can't keep you can't keep your children from having a wilderness experience if they're gonna walk with. They're gonna go through the wilderness too. If Jesus if it was necessary for his ministry, then it's gonna be necessary for you.

And there's no way get way to get around it. You've got to continue to see it that way, and you've got to allow people to go through the troubles of today so that they can have God's will for tomorrow because that homes their senses. It allows their ears to be open in their eyes, to see God's will.

It teaches them to seek after God's will and God's best. It teaches them to be prepared. To hear from God and to do what God says because that wilderness is a place where you don't wanna remain, but is also a place where you do wanna learn to hear God's voice. And that's what's gonna happen for Hagar and that's what's gonna especially happen for Ishmail.

And God's gonna use that to make Ismail a great nation. We'll talk about a little bit about that tomorrow. The wilderness experience of ish. We'll talk about how God moves in your wilderness experiences. While we think about that though, we will always choose the best for today and we definitely want to choose it over anything else, but we also wanna choose it over the goodness that we've have.

From the past. We wanna choose the best for today. God's mercies today. We wanna choose them over the past because God is doing a new work each and every day in our lives, and we wanna be a part of that.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope. And peace today in Jesus' name.