Big idea: God is keeping His promises, so you must keep calling on Him.
Today’s promises for confident faith
Today’s promises for confident prayer
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Good morning, brothers and sisters, and if you're visiting with us, good morning and welcome. I want to add my welcome. My name is Dan, one of the one of the pastors here also at Faith, Bible Church, we love meeting newcomers. I had about a 15 to 20 minute talk in between the hours with a set of young people who are new to our church. It's just a joy to have people visiting us when I pray. I'm going to pray for dot Syme, who is getting ready to enter glory. Dave was an elder with us for 35 years, and.is in her home going so we want to pray for the Syme family and everybody involved there as well. Stand with me for the reading of God's Word. Stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We are back in Genesis. We have been doing a trust in God series. And the team, as we were preparing to go through this passage, thought of how many illustrations Old Testament gives to New Testament, principles about trusting God and biblical principles. We're going to read all of chapter 21 just 34 verses long. And as always, if you can't stand during the reading, sit and listen to the reading. It's fine. When we get to the end, what we do at Faith Bible Church is we say, this is the word of the Lord, and you say, Thanks be to God. Why do we say that? Because we're thankful God speaks to us. But you're gonna see a lot of things happening here, and especially when we reach the end, you're going to notice the takeaway for us, and we'll talk about that in the sermon. 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 laughter. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born, 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, and the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned, but Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian whom she had borne, to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the Son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, 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, and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water and the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about the distance of a bow shot for she said, let me not look on the death of a child as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar, Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is up. Lift up the boy. Hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink, and God was with the boy. And he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Perron, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. At that time, Abimelech and fi call the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear when Abraham reproved Abimelech, a. About a well, about a well of water that Abimelech servants had seized. Abimelech said, I do not know what. Who has done this thing? You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen, gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, what is the meaning of the seven ewe lambs that you have set apart? He said, These seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Therefore the place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and phichol, the commander of the army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines. This is the word of the Lord God. Thank you our father, our Father of our Lord Jesus, Christ, Lord Jesus. We, thank you that you are the answer to the great promise to Abraham. You are the heir that comes through the line of Isaac, Holy Spirit, we thank you this morning for inspiring this word. Moses penned, and you inspired, and we can read it 1500 years after Jesus, or 2000 years after Jesus, 1500 years before that. This has been in Jewish and Christian history for 3500 years, it's an amazing thing that you're keeping your promises. You are eternal, and that's why we give you thanks. I pray that You would help us as there's a lot going on and people 3500 years after this puzzle a bit we puzzle a little bit about what's happening in a passage like this. We have lots of questions. Help clear up the ones that are most important for us this morning. And I pray that You would help us develop a great and deep faith, a faith that can handle many different seasons of life. We do. Pray for our our dear sister, her husband, Dave, all their family, Stephanie and the rest of the kids and their spouses and grandkids, as.is soon to enter glory, I pray that you would comfort them, give dot peace and joy, and as we sang some hymns with her just last week, I pray that those great hymns that she sung for her whole life would sustain her until her Until she crosses, give her faithfulness and then give Dave clarity about next steps of life without his beloved bride of 50 some years, Father, I pray that you would be at work in UGM camp this week through the 30 people who are going to help through the 45 kids, be at work bringing whole families to yourself. We pray for the startup of seminary this Tuesday and and we have five of our own going through classes. Pray for Caleb effinger for Ray Hannah for Brian Alkire for Josh Gilchrist, starting here at TMS, Troy caselles picking back up his classes for Southern Seminary. Pray that You would help them, help their marriages, be using these classes in their lives to make them more fruitful and effective in their knowledge of the word and shepherding those around them. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, imagine a high school girl texted her friends for a mid summer hangout tonight at Sonic and at Sonic, the thing is, fries and a slushie. I would personally pick zips because it's tots and a burger, but the girls want to hang out. I bet if they caught up with each other mid summer, I wouldn't be surprising if the group was big enough, all these things were happening. One girl has a huge unexpected success, hooray. Another has major drama with siblings. Normal. One nearly escaped death and had a story to tell. They're teenagers. Another had a dramatic realization she needed God in her life, yay. Another was needing courage to deal with legal trouble after somebody hit her car and it was a hit and run accident. You know, that's life in a fallen world, isn't it? All those kinds of things. If you have teenagers, I bet growth group leaders are sitting here listening now going, that's a pretty typical night for prayer requests in my group. That is life in a fallen world, there always seems to be drama. Drama. What does stable faith look like when there is drama in your life? What does stable faith look. Look like
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you can make the situation bigger than life. You can do that with your successes. You can do that with your failures. Or you can call on God, who is bigger than life. You can get over excited about successes. You can get crushed under the waves of depression and anger and hopelessness, or you can confidently face tomorrow, trusting God in a parallel way, the things that I described happened in one family in Genesis 21 you have an unexpected success with Sarah, she has a baby at 90, you have family strife which drives one of the sons out. You have a near death experience for that same son. You have a nation coming to this newly birthed nation of eventually going to be called Israel of the Jews, and there's legal dispute about a well, all these things are happening in this chapter. And really you're asking yourself, when life happens, drama happens. What does it look like to have confident faith and confident prayer. What would you want those girls to do as they shared with each other? What would you want your growth group to do as they shared life and prayer requests? Well, the end of chapter 21 says that Abraham called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. That's what you would want to do, all seasons of life, all things. Here's the big idea for us this morning, the everlasting God is keeping his promises, and we should call on him. That's the bookends of the chapter. It opens with a answered promise to Sarah. It ends with Abraham calling on God, recommitting himself, so to speak, to being a follower of Yahweh. Genesis. 21 is a milestone in the story of Abraham and Sarah. So if you're new with us, there's a little catching up. We'll do that as we go through but in one chapter, the significant promises to Abraham are unfolding. They're coming true. God is a faithful promise. Keeping God, Abraham and Sarah have been waiting for the fulfillment of promises for 25 years. And if we're tracking their life, if you're new with us, this might be new to you, but they have not been stable in their faith, right? They are not the picture of stable faith, great ups and downs. Chapter 20 was a near catastrophic failure after Jesus shows up, before the Incarnation with a couple of angels after he shows up and promises that within a year, the angels are going to come back to visit them, and they're going to have a baby. And in chapter 20, Abraham goes to the land of the Philistines and gives his wife away to Abimelech harem for fear of his own death, it was near catastrophic. But as God faithfully and mercifully keeps his promises, we finally see Abraham's faith stabilize. I picked young and old. I would love you teenage girls to start confident faith and confident prayer when you're young, instead of finding it when you're old, after having made all kinds of of rash and terrible decisions. I would love those of us who are aging to settle into a confident, stable faith. How does this sound? Does swirling around in your drama? Does that sound fun? You love that I love that. I love being anxious. I enjoy the drama. No, it doesn't sound good, does it? How does peace and hope, regardless of circumstances, sound would you like that? I bet, I bet you're all saying yes, that's what I would like. We're going to look at Four Seasons Abraham and his family endure. Each season presents particular challenges, and the key in each is a confident trust in God who keeps His promises. It's not so much the promises that we have faith in. It's the God who keeps His promises, the everlasting God is keeping. Promises. We need to call on him. I take the idea of seasons. I've been reading John Flavel book keeping the hearts written in about 1680 I'm on my fourth read this summer, and he goes through 13 seasons, which tend to destabilize our faith and remedies for them. We're going to use that motif this morning. We're going to look at the various seasons that happened in just one chapter, just over a couple of years in Abraham's life, and we're going to look at what God does as the anchor for our confident faith and our prayer life. So first, let's look at the season of blessing. It's finally arrived the season of blessing. It's a season of blessing and prosperity for Sarah and Abraham, they finally have a baby. Now, how could a season of success or prosperity destabilize our faith, like, why are we talking about success as a problem? Well, I'm a pastor, everything's a problem. You know what can happen with prosperity and success, don't you? You can become proud. You can become reliant on your own skills and abilities, your own resources, or the people who got you there, and you can take your eyes off the God who graciously brought you to the point in flavels book, The first season of difficulty is a season of prosperity, because of all the problems that we have with loving money, our security, our stability and ourselves. We see something stabilized here in Abraham and Sarah. Look at verse one. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, And the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. I mean circle, the word visit. Circle, the word promised, the word visit is used in the Old Testament very often for the idea of God drawing near to deliver. What does Sarah need to be delivered from infertility, she was never able to have a baby. God visited her and brought deliverance to her by giving her the child, just as he had promised. This kind of word is used in the Ruth story. In Ruth chapter one, after Ahimelech and Malon and Killian died and Naomi needs to go back home, she heard that the Lord had visited Israel, and crops were growing again, God showed up to deliver. That's what's happening here. Just as God had promised, the promise specifically to Sarah was in chapter 18, she was going to have a baby in her very old age. Verse two, Sarah conceived and bore Abraham, a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him, both had received promises. Now let me give a sidebar right away, because those of you who are just joining us new in the last month or so, we last left Genesis in early June, and we're back. And I want to give a side bar, because this promise is linked some really big promises that have happened three particular and one thing above all else that helps us remain filled with faith and trust in God, not ourselves, is remembering that all God's great promises come after great failures and rebellions starting the Bible. God makes the world good, gives Adam and Eve a charge. They rebel, they eat the forbidden fruit because they were deceived by Satan. God judges them. God judges the world. But God gives a promise to Eve that from her offspring, from her, a descendant would come who would crush Satan's head as Satan bit his heel through the seeds death, Satan would be deceit, be defeated
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after the worldwide rebellion in chapter six, God flooded the world in judgment, but God preserved Noah, and then he gave Noah and creation a promise that he would never utterly destroy the world again by a flood. The earth was going to be stable. God was going to restart with Noah and his family, and out of Noah and his family he would make a multitude of nations. That's Genesis 10. But that multitude did not spread out. They again rebelled, and God judged them at Babel, and out of after that judgment comes a promise to the idol worshiper Abraham, to leave his idolatry go to the land of promise. Earth and to serve Him, all of God's promises come after human sin and rebellion, and they are done by His grace. What did Abraham and Sarah do to deserve the baby Isaac? Not one thing they had been far more unfaithful than they had been faithful. And this happens. This helps any of us in a time of great blessing. It is by God's grace and kindness, not by what we deserve. This promise is significant because the boy is the chosen offspring in the line from Eve to Mary that gives us the Lord Jesus. When God blesses us, we need to remember that God's faithfulness, forgiveness, His grace and His mercy have produced it not our ability or nobility. How did Abraham respond? Abraham responded with settled obedience. Watch this. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. Just to be clear, this is the miracle baby comes through Sarah. Isaac means laughter. What does Sarah and Abraham do? They rejoice in their old age. Here is the son of promise. Abraham is obedient to the command. Verse four, Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, which was the command out of chapter 17, circumcised his son Isaac to form this covenant community when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. It doesn't look euphoric, does? It just looks like obedience. Looks like obedience. Every father should know that a child, a birth, is a gift. Every father should urge his children toward a committed relationship with the one true God. Circumcision was the Jewish expression of doing that I want my boys to follow in the faith of the one true God. This is what steady faith looks like. Look at Sarah. Sarah is now realizing how great of a thing God had given her. Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. The laughter theme is evident here. Sarah was the doubter in chapter 18. Now she's the delighter, delighter in God's goodness. God had been so merciful to her. She just marvels. She wonders. She said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age, it would have been impossible. This is impossible. This is the impossible baby. And she is overjoyed. Only God could say it, only God could do it. God is keeping his promise for a couple that has been unstable in their faith to demonstrate how he, alone delivers these great stories of an infertile woman who has a baby. When you see them in the Bible, it's always the sign that God is going to carry the next stage of a saving work forward, so that God alone is praised. God is doing the work the everlasting. God is mercifully keeping his promises. Call on him. He's keeping his promises. There's a season of success, season of prosperity. Second, there's a season of family strife. I bet, if we had a few minutes and we were sharing so is there any family drama going on? Everybody would be, yep. It may not be the family that you're right. Part of it could be with extended family. Everybody knows what family strife is like, and everybody knows how destabilizing family strife can be. If you have trouble between siblings, if the siblings are fighting, or for the siblings, if the parents are fighting, it's destabilizing to our faith, because our families mean so much to us, and suddenly it looks like Does God care and know everybody has it. No sooner does the first milestone for Isaac happen than we have family strife. Does. The story unfolds at the weaning of Isaac three, age three to some ancient customs, Abraham throws a special birthday party. I don't know. I remember. I think it was my son, Evan. It was three or four. I think it was three. We said, okay, Evan, it's time to give up your binky, go throw it in the garbage. And so, you know, walks over and he throws it in the garbage. All right, you're a big boy now. You don't need a binky anymore. It's like, can I get that back out of the garbage? Abraham throws a huge party at the party, Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham, laughing. And you've got to notice the ironic turn in the passage was Sarah overly excited when she said, everyone will laugh over me, Sarah, not everyone will laugh over you, particularly Ishmael now has a rival. Ishmael is somewhere around 15 or 16. He's a he's a nearly grown man. The commentary given it from Galatians, 428, the apostle Paul says Ishmael was persecuting little Isaac, whatever the laughter was, was mocking and threatening. And you could imagine how Mama Bear responds. This is a total Mama Bear response. She sees 15 year old, 16 year old, Isaac, mocking and scorning three year old, or sorry, Ishmael, mocking and scorning three year old Isaac, and she says, that is a no go. She said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the Son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son, Isaac. There's no approval in her manner or in her reasoning, but God has a separate plan for Ishmael. Abraham was naturally displeased, which is okay, the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son, but God said to Abraham, not because he was disobedient, but because he has a different plan that Abraham needs to submit to. God said to Abraham, 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? I know it's hard for you, Abraham, but I want it clear for all history that the promise goes through the miracle child. Isaac, there are I want no natural explanations for my supernatural work. I know this will be hard for you, but this is my plan. No confusion in carrying the line. He comforts him by answering part of the promise, whoever is associated with Abraham will get a blessing from Genesis 12. Two and Three says, I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman, also, because he is your offspring, Ishmael would be blessed. He's going to become a nation according to Genesis 17, which says that God said to Abraham, you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. And so here we have the first miracle baby. Here we have the first of the nations coming from Abraham. When you have family strife, what do you do? Well, in Scripture, New Testament, words of Jesus, Blessed are the peacemakers.
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The Blessed are the peacemakers. You might have a role at peacemaking a mother or a father between siblings, siblings toward siblings, siblings toward mother and father. That might be the case, but there's going to be come a time where that's all you can do is offer solutions for peace. You can't make the peace, especially with parents toward children, and the children make their own choices. At some point, you have to recognize that God might have a different plan than the plan you have for your children. Abraham had to trust God for the future of both sons. I imagine that was a very heavy day, the day that he loaded up the bread, loaded up the skin of water, and sent them out into the wilderness. God, but he submitted to God's plans. This is what confident faith looks like, obedience to God's will that's revealed. Remember, you're not being asked right now to send any of your children out, unless, of course, there's some gross and terrible danger and then get wisdom and get help. But you notice that Abraham's got this has to have this confident faith. He has to obey. He gets up early, loads their supplies, sends them out. One of the things you can tell about confident faith, in some ways, is about how level it is. Isaac's born. Sarah's jubilant. She's beside herself. She can imagine that everybody in the world is going to be happy for me, except Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham is steady again. Abraham is steady in a season of family strife, it is the everlasting God who is keeping his promises that have to anchor you. Keep believing, keep obeying, keep praying. Third season, there's a season of blessing answered promises. There's a season of family strife, followed immediately by a season of suffering for Hagar and for Ishmael. And you have to know, in a season of suffering, the everlasting God keeps the same promises at that time as he does in the prosperous times. Hagar is now a single mother in the wilderness. And while God's plan means initial hardship for Hagar and Ishmael, God has not abandoned them. They wander hopelessly in the wilderness until the water runs out. Look down at verse 16. Hagar cries out to God, let me not look on the death of my child as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. The water ran out. She sets young Isaac under the shade of a tree. She gets a bow shot away. I can't watch him die. And she lifts up her voice and cries out to God. She is pleading, don't let my boy die. God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you? Hagar, I love how God asks questions like she like she doesn't he doesn't know. Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Uplift the boy. Hold him fast with your hand, I will make him into a great nation. What's happening? God is answering his promise to Abraham to rescue Ishmael. God is comforting. Hagar God is comforting. Ishmael God has a plan for the boy. He will become his own nation. God opened her eyes. She saw a well filled the skins the boy drank. And notice this line, God was with the boy. God was with the boy, blessed the boy, cared for the boy. Earlier promises we find out that Ishmael was to grow up to be a hunter, a traveler of sorts. But the word about him is he's going to be a wild donkey of a man. Yeah, that's a great my son the wild donkey of a man. But he becomes pretty good at archery. He founds a nation God's fulfilling his promise to Abraham. Here's the near death experience, and God hears I asked my team this week about some of their famous, favorite, famous, they are famous, favorite promises about God's care. Psalm 8411 says, For the Lord, God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly, for those who seek to please the Lord and honor him. God promises care doesn't mean that you will never die. Doesn't mean you'll never go through life without difficulty, illness, threat to life, but God promises to care, ultimately, for those who call on the name of the Lord through Jesus Christ, God walks through death into eternal life and eternal care. Another one that I wouldn't have thought of came from Hebrews 13, five through six, and it's about money. I don't know how much money Hagar had when she was sent out, but a lot of us are nervous about. Money. The writer of Hebrews says, Keep your life free from the love of money. Money is a tool, not something to love. Keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. There's five negatives, never, never, never, never. I'll always be with you. I'll never forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear What can man do to me? From Hagar perspective, a man could send me out into the wilderness alone, but God supplied all her needs. The everlasting God is keeping his promise. Hagar calls on the Lord, and he answers, season of suffering. What's your season of suffering? Everybody's got anything from physical, financial, relational suffering. We've just gone through a whole series looking at all of who God is, so that we could confidently trust him. Fourth, there's a season of national strife. It's a little bit hard to label. We have the Abimelech and fi call story. And I've read this just just like you're reading it, and I bet after I finished it, you probably said, I wonder what Dan is going to get out of all of these together, which I did, too. But what we have is Abraham and the newly forming nation of the Hebrews interacting with Abimelech and fi call his commanding general the nation of the Philistines. What's going to happen? It's not gone well for Abraham with other nations. What's going to happen here? How do, how do seasons of national strife affect our faith? They can destabilize us, governments, foreign states, their ambitions are often so much bigger than we are so much bigger than individuals and families, we can easily get destabilized or threatened. This happened twice now, to to Abraham chapter 13 and chapter 20, he lied, he sinned in order to save his skin. So here come Abimelech and fichal. I wonder what Abraham thought as they approached him. Something's changed, probably in Abraham and definitely in Abimelech and Phil. That time, Abimelech and Phil, the commander of the army, paid Abraham a visit, King of the Philistines, Commanding General, they said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Abimelech and phichol could see God was doing something through Abraham. I mean, there are reasons from chapter 20 Abraham could pray to God for all of the women in the land of the Philistines, that they would all be able to get pregnant again, and the season of infertility suddenly ended. There is something about the God of Abraham, and he seems to be with you Abraham. Abraham's 90 year old wife had just given birth. Probably the livestock in the village that traveled with him was also prosperous. They could see God at work, and they could see God at work in Abraham and Abimelech and fi call are no fools. If God works with him, we should be associated with Abraham and his God,
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the top general, is here with him. They essentially say, make a treaty with us. Make a covenant. Treat us honestly. We will deal kindly with you. And Abraham agrees. But there's a problem, and it looks interesting when you read the passage when Abraham reproved Abimelech. Sounds like there's two things going on, but this is all all the same situation. Make a covenant with us. Abraham agrees, and he says, But I have a problem with you. I dug a well, and your servants came and chased us off of it. You have an army, and I don't. I've got a problem with you. Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water, and Abimelech servants that. Abimelech servants these. Abimelech said, I do not know what is who has done this thing. You did not tell me. I have not heard of it until today. He's backpedaling. The last thing he wants is to be on the wrong side of the God of Abraham. For the first time, Abraham. Abraham shows courage and strength against an enemy or a foreign king. God, the true power and the true king is fulfilling a really important promise. Genesis, 12, two and three. It says, those who bless you, I will bless those who treat you lightly, I will curse and in you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Here is the first nation that recognizes the God of Abraham and wants a treaty with Abraham and a relationship with Abraham's God might only be a business relationship, but they could see something was going on. Something strange happens here for us. Abraham takes out seven ewe goats, ewe lambs from the flock, sets them aside Abimelech and Abraham say, what's going on? And Abimelech. Abimelech said, what's going on? What's the meaning of these and he says, These seven lambs, you will take from my from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well, therefore the place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. Now, before you fall asleep, because I'm explaining to you ancient rites that are 3800 years old, and you have no we don't do this today. What is going on? They're making a covenant, and Abraham wants to secure a well in the wilderness. He calls the name of the well Beersheba, which means well of seven or well of an oath. Whenever you get a name and whenever you get a declaration of prayer in a passage, it shapes everything that's going on. Why is this important? Why would he name it? Why would it matter 450, years later, when Israel comes to the land to take it that that is named Beersheba, because this is the first place where a foreign nation has recognized the true and living God and wanted a covenant with God's people. The promise to Abraham is that he is going to be a father of a multitude of nations. Now he has Isaac at the beginning of the chapter. Now he has a relationship with the nations at the end of the chapter. Now God is at work. There is an oath and a covenant, and Israel can remember forever, here God made peace with the First Nation outside of Israel that wanted to worship. It's a significant and momentous occasion. How does Abraham respond? Circle it because these shade the meaning of the whole chapter. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God, the place where a foreign nation made a covenant with Israel for peace. There he calls in the name of the everlasting God. Why the everlasting God? Why would that matter when we think of God's promises? Because God's promises, he's fulfilling them today. He'll fulfill them tomorrow, and he's going to fill them and fulfill them in 450 years. God is the God to call on, because he always answers his promises. What's going on for Abraham as the chapter ends, he's in a desert with a very practical need, a well, he has peace with a nation that's a potential threat. He has a child to raise. He has a child to pray for in Ishmael and God's promises of grace are coming true. He is settling down. This is stable faith. One of these promises is is especially important to us. It's at the beginning of the chapter, the birth of Isaac. Isaac is the first miracle child. There's a lot of miracle child children in the Bible where a woman is infertile and in her old age, or by prayer, God suddenly gives a child, and that always continues on God's delivering path, to show that God alone is acting. But the greatest fulfillment of this comes in the greatest miracle child. What's more difficult than a 90 year old woman getting pregnant and having a baby, a virgin, a. Getting pregnant and having a baby. The greatest miracle child is Jesus, Christ, born of a virgin, impossible by man's standards, easy for God. And here's the question, Abimelech chose a relationship with Abraham right at the time that the miracle child was born. Here's the real question for you today, what's your relationship to Jesus, Christ, the greatest miracle child, fully God, fully man. Listen to how the apostle Paul pulls together this, this idea of calling on the name of the Lord. It says those, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. You will be saved, saved from what? Saved from the just wrath of God, the tyranny of sin, to everlasting and increasing holiness and to eternal life, with God saved from and to so here's the question, Have you Have you repented? Have you called on him? Or, as it says in Romans, 1013, all who call on the name will be saved. All who call on the Lord will be saved. Have you called on the Lord? If you're here and you have not called on the Lord, you're visiting church, you're checking out church, we're urging you call on the name of the Lord. What does that mean? What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? It means two things, to have singular worship of the one true God, turning from all other worship to that worship alone, and living a life of prayer, worship and prayer. Have you done that? Remember, we don't gather here to worship Isaac, do we? That'd be silly. We gather here to worship Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the promise that runs through Isaac. We don't even worship promises. We stand on promises, but we don't worship promises. We worship the God who gives promises. What are we most excited about? Not a not a miracle baby in Isaac, but in Jesus Christ, He stands above all earthly blessings. None of our children will become a great nation, but through Jesus Christ, we have been grafted in to his inheritance. Do you know sons of Ishmael are becoming Christians, even as we speak today, throughout the Middle East, throughout the Arab speaking world, the sons of Ishmael are becoming Christians. It's a marvel to see Abimelech feikol are the first rulers in the Bible who seek peace with Abraham and his people. There is a future day that we sang about when every tribe and tongue and nation and language will bow before the Lamb and pray in praise and honor and glory. This is the first here's the first nation to recognize the true and living God. So much so they wanted peace with his people. Are you still in your suffering as God was with Ishmael, Jesus promises to be with us. He tells us to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And he says, Behold, I will be with you. I will be with you to the end of the age, just as God is with Ishmael, taking care of Ishmael. God is with us. Through Jesus Christ.
48:48
Are you still in your suffering? God is with you. Romans 828, applies. God works all things for good, for those who love him and are called according to His purposes. I Yes, and Jesus promised that he would return for us. You know, I think of the small group of girls. They'll meet on Wednesday nights, they'll meet at other nights, they might meet for slushies. And they all go through the same kinds of things as teenagers that you go through as adults. What would you want for your teenage girls in the middle of catching up and recognizing that each person has got challenges and successes that one would say, Can we pray for just a minute? We need God to work that would produce confident faith. And I talked to the high school girls so that you don't have to learn the lessons after successive blow after blow later in life. Wouldn't it? Can you imagine the kind of faith that those girls would develop if they kept turning to God over. And over all the way into their old age, you can choose fear, anxiety, depression, anger, trusting in yourself or the circumstances around you, or you can choose a path of confident faith and confident prayer. I mean, I think of the old hymn line that says, oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Why? Because we do not carry everything to the Lord in prayer. When the confidence and prayer travel through seasons of life, it produces strong, enduring faith. What are promises of prayer today? John 1413, whatever you ask in my name, according to my will, I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. It is by his authority and by His will. This is the confidence that you have. God will work. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for these illustrations of growing faith. Everybody here in the room is in a season that is potentially destabilizing, and I pray that you would reveal yourself as faithful and gracious having kept the promise in Jesus, Christ, keeping your promise even to this very moment. Provide the wisdom, the resources, the presence of comfort to everybody in their season of difficulty sitting here right now Christ's name, we pray. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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