Genesis 21 - What Does Answered Prayer Look Like? (A Short Bible Study)

What does an answered prayer look like?  After the waiting is done and God said “yes” to your request, was it what you expected?  I believe the LORD keeps His promises and hears us when we pray.  I also believe that it rarely looks the same as how we imagined it when we asked.

We’re in Genesis 21, the part of the story when God fulfills his promise to Abraham and Sarah and then ... more drama unfolds.

Transcript

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What does it look like when a prayer gets answered? I mean, after all of the waiting, and when God does give you that green light, that yes. Does it look like how you imagined when you made your request? You see, I believe that God really does answer prayer and that he keeps his promises. But I've also experienced and believe that it rarely looks the way that we imagined it when we first came to the Lord with what was on our hearts. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you've joined us today. We're in Genesis chapter 21. It's the part of the story where God does keep his promise to Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac is born. After that, more drama unfolds. Go ahead and turn your copy of Genesis chapter 21 over there and we'll read through it together. Just so you know, we're going to focus our time today on verses 1 through 21. The rest of the chapters are also important to read, but there's just a breadth of different narratives that are happening, and I really wanted to just focus on those first 21 verses. Before we get into things, I really wanted to say thank you. Thank you to those who have stepped up and are supporting financially. If you'd like to be a part of that team, please jump in on that. But more than that, thank you to all of you who are praying for Meet Me in the Word and just the way that God will continue to lead us. All right, let's actually go ahead and do that now. Join me as we pray. Jesus, thank you that you do answer prayer. Lord, that even now, as we're coming before you, we recognize that you are the one who causes the world to turn. You are the one who holds our lives, and uh in you we find hope and peace and trust. God, would you be with us now? We ask this in your name. Amen. All right. Genesis chapter twenty-one and we're going to read twenty-one verses, starting at verse one. Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him, and when his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circus circumcised him as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. And she added, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in this old age. The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar, the Egyptian, had borne to Abraham, was mocking. And she said to Abraham, Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac. The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, Do not be distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring. Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bow shot away, for she thought I cannot watch the boy die. And as she sat there she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid. God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, so she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. Let's go ahead and pause for just a moment and listen to what God has for us. Once again, if you'd like to pause this podcast to take that moment, go ahead and do that. Alright, let's make a few observations. There are really almost kind of two distinct movements here in our passage today, but they're certainly all linked together. Let's start with verses one through seven. And I love that a promise kept brought about joyful laughter for Sarah. I think that's so cool. God did keep his promise nine chapters and twenty five later. Yeah. If anybody's been uh asking God or the the Lord spoke something into their lives and you've been waiting a while, just remember that for this family, for for Sarah and for Abraham, yeah, 25 years. And uh that encourages me only because I I know that I do get to be patient with God because He is patient with me and to recognize that God's timing is the best timing. Uh, you know, that's a very distinct promise made to the birth of a nation, and and yet it took it took time. And we don't always know kind of why God takes his time with certain things and why other things he seems to respond in a in a quicker fashion, but we can always come back and recognize God really is faithful. He is just doing things uh in his own way, in his own time, but he brings about the miraculous uh as well as the goodness in our lives. The other bits about this that I think are really neat is that for Sarah, it brings about uh dignity and honor for her. And it's not just about the promise kept, like that's the main thing, and I don't want to take away from that too much, but culturally speaking, her barrenness was was a source of shame for her. And now and now things have have shifted. They've become much better for her and for uh and for her family. Uh, she's now a woman of honor. She doesn't have to look over at Hagar with with any kind of envy and go, well, she gave my husband a son, but I haven't, and how is this all gonna work out? Uh and so all of that is there. And then finally, just uh about these first seven verses, again, recognizing that they do all the things that God wanted them to do, right? Uh they named the boy Isaac, right, which is the name that God told him to give, and they circumcise him on the eighth day. Um, and and the all of that happens again, just the way that the Lord commanded. This is all before the law of Moses, but it is a precursor to it in the pattern that they're that they're going in. And then we move into verses 8 through 13, and we see that jealousy enters in. And I do want to differentiate a little bit between jealousy and envy. I'm at least using those words distinctly and differently. Um, jealousy is, I think, the thing that that Sarah feels. Uh, she feels jealous for her son and for her husband. And she says, I want this all to myself. So it's something that does, I guess, in a certain sense, belong to her, rightfully so. And so she wants Hagar pushed away. Uh, and and then maybe there's also a little bit of envy that enters into the conversation, but it's not Sarah's envy. Uh, it may be Hagar's a little bit, but certainly it was Ishmael's. He's uh a young man at this point, probably about 13, 14 years old, uh, and and this little tyke has come along, this little Isaac has come along, and he's you know, successfully weaned from uh from his mother and Abraham, his dad throws a big party, and I I kind of imagine that that might have grated at him, and it says that he was mocking uh and and all that was that was a difficult thing that was that was taking place. Then I look at this story and I kind of wonder, was it necessary? Was it necessary for Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away? Could there have been another response, another corrected response to the mocking that Ishmael was was displaying? Uh, regardless, those are Sarah's wishes. And the Lord even says to Abraham, don't worry about it, listen to her. Uh and and again, for whatever reason, we don't fully understand all of that, but that's what the Lord says is good, and he reassures, he reassures Abraham that Ishmael too will have a good life and that there will be a legacy there, that he also will become uh this nation. Abraham's distress is pretty understandable. Uh, and I it's not just about the complexity of the kind of family that was present in the home, but the uh the the tension, the relationships that that were strained uh ongoing. And and if you've been in a home, uh, or if you live in a home where the tensions are are present, uh it's just it's hard uh because you want that to be a place of sanctuary. By the way, if that's you, I just want you to know that you really can turn to the Lord, who is the very best parent that we could possibly have. He sees you and he knows you, and he cares about the situation that you find yourself in. All right, let's keep going. Uh we move into verses 14 through 16, and we hear we see Hagar and Ishmael's their their distress. And it's interesting to me because Abraham does send them out with water and food, but apparently not all that much. It was a small enough amount that she was able to carry it on her shoulders. Uh, and so it wasn't like he sent them off with a huge amount of blessing or anything like that. He doesn't send them off into a place where, like, hey, go see these people, they'll take care of you. He doesn't do that, he just sort of sends them away, uh, I believe, as per Per Sarah's wishes. And so they go out and it says they they wander around in the desert and the supplies run out. The food runs out, the water runs out, and she gets to that place of of deep sorrow where the inevitable seems clear. All that awaits is discouragement, sorrow, and death. So she places her son, whom she obviously loves, and she she leaves. She just can't bear the thought of of seeing him perish. And it's in that moment, that really dark moment, that uh the Lord shows up for Hagar and uh opens her eyes, uh, lets her know that it's gonna be okay. For real, it's gonna be okay, uh, allows her to to gain water again, and uh, and and then they they both make it. And and it's just kind of life uh just sort of goes on. So the God who who sees also heard and stepped into that place there. And we see that in that those last uh four or five verses. She finds him a wife, uh, he becomes an archer, like, and we don't learn tons more about him other than kind of those things. He he carries on with his life, and then we read later on in Genesis 25 about his descendants, and so that story continues. I wanted to reflect and to talk about this story that happened once upon a time, but to consider it for ourselves here and now. And I I know this isn't a direct connection here, but but I was thinking about 25 years, the length of time from uh when the promise was given to when the promise was fulfilled, nine chapters in twenty-five years. What's changed in twenty-five years? Probably quite a bit. That's a long time, and it's a blink of an eye all at once. Some of you might not even be twenty-five years old, I don't know. And God kept his promise in that course of time. And I'm sure it felt like an eternity for Abraham and Sarah, and yet here it was, it was God's timing, it was perfect. I was thinking about my own life. Twenty-five years ago, honestly, right around this time of the year, I'm sure it was in June or early July, I was actively seeking God to lead myself and my family and and to move us from the situation that we were in, which wasn't terrible or bad or anything. It was just sensing God's movement in us. And I had no idea that He would he would physically take us from Calgary, Alberta in Canada, over to here, uh Washington State in the in the United States. But God had a plan. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years, there can be so many different things that take place. Maybe you're looking at your situation, you're thinking, hmm, I hope my situation changes in 25 years from now, or you're reflecting back. Whatever your situation might be, take a moment to just not only thank God, but to continue to ask him for his provision and his leadership in your life. We know that he will see it through to the end, and we can rest in that. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this good day that you have given us. God, thank you for all that you do. Lord, sometimes quickly and sometimes over the course of years. But God, we desire to follow you with all that we are. We love you. Amen.