This transcript was autogenerated.

To sum up Ch 21 and I want to make what I think are some interesting concluding points. I think when all is said and done the point of this passage is to tell us that when God fulfilled his promise Abraham’s response was to obey and as a result he was blessed. The lesson here hinges on God fulfilling his promise and the response we should make to it when that happens. But that main point overarching truth has three aspects to it, I believe.

Firstly, God fulfils his promise, he may delay it, but he always fulfils it. God also made a promise that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ would be given the gift of eternal life. We can rely on that promise, absolutely, God is as good as his word.

Secondly, He also promises to answer our prayers, but this promise needs qualifying. Under certain conditions, if we ask according to his will and if we're trusting in him, he will answer our prayers. God again is as good as his promise, but this is where the delay might come in. The delay may be that you might have prayed for something for years and years and years and not seen it answered, but keep praying and I think that's part of the purpose of what this passage is meant to teach us. God may delay but when he gets around to answering he will do exactly what he said he would do.

Let me give you a third possible learning opportunity here. The one it probably is the hardest of the three to take on board, practically anyway. It is true God said He keeps his promises, and he answers prayers. But he also says “that all things work together for good to those that love God to those who are called according to his purpose” That's the tough part. Does it really mean all things work together for good. All of us have situations in your lives that we don't understand why God has allowed them to happen? Yet the Bible tells us in Romans that, “all things would work together for good”, , but look closely, it didn't say all things are good. He said, “all things would work together for good” and the point I wish to make is you may not see that immediately; it may take 25 years, like it did in this story. The problem is we are usually in a hurry to see God act, we often don't have the patience to wait. However, God is still doing something especially when he makes us wait, because is he developing endurance in us. If God gave us everything we wanted immediately, what would happen is we would become spoilt, we would remain emotional babies and we would remain spiritually immature. This is super important, God fulfils his promises, but when you bump up against something tough and God doesn’t seem to respond what you tend to do is think he's not going to fulfil this promise. That's the point, he'll will fulfil his promises in your life but it may take a long time, maybe 25 years, maybe a lifetime, you just have to trust in Him. Then when he fulfils the promise remember to rejoice.

Genesis Ch 21 should be an encouragement to further obedience and rejoicing when God does finally answer our prayers, no matter how long it takes. How about when we've gone through a difficult trial in your family and God finally comes through. I shouldn’t even have to tell you that you should rejoice. The Lord has done great things for Abram, Sarah, even Ishmael and Hagar and the Lord has done great things for you and me. When we see the Lord work the appropriate response should be joy and praise and it should also be an encouragement to share the experience of God blessing with other  people. Suppose  we’ve been praying and haven't got an answer yet, or we are going through a trial, and it doesn’t feel like that situation has produced anything good.  This passage reminds us that God will fulfil his promises, he is going to do it, and when he does it ought to encourage us to have even more faith in the meantime  Be faithful because God will do all he said he would do.