Gen 21
faith in pain
(genesis 21)
Jason Procopio
I know that we have talked a lot here about what God does and doesn’t promise us—even in this series. We’ve spent time talking about the lie of the “prosperity gospel”, and how God never promised to solve all of our problems or give us the perfect jobs or perfect health or perfect wealth we would all love to have. This is not what the gospel is about.
We’ve talked about this at great length in the church, so I know I don’t need to go over it all once again. I know that many of you here could argue against these lies better than I could; you’ve explained to other people why these things aren’t true, and why what the actual gospel promises us is so much better.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s one thing to know these things and to be able to explain them to others. It’s quite another to hear these things when all of your comfort and support has been removed from you. When you get sick, or when you’re wounded, or when you’re having financial problems, or when someone close to you dies. At that moment, you don’t want to hear someone say, “Well you know, God never promised to heal your mom; that’s not what the gospel is about.”
In those moments of pain, you want to hear that God is good. You want to believe that God is good. You want to trust that he knows what he’s doing, and that he’s good. But in those moments of suffering, it’s not easy to believe that. So most of us just put our heads down and grit our teeth and press on, like people walking against a hurricane, hoping it will all be over soon.
But we don’t often stop to consider that even in those hurricane winds, maybe God is doing something in us.
Over the next two weeks, this is what we’re going to see. It’s how this part of Genesis, this part of Abraham’s story, comes to a close. In chapter 21 of Genesis, we see one predominant thing: we see the process of growing faith in the midst of pain.
Faith in Pain: Waiting (v. 1-7)
Of course, this chapter doesn’t start in pain. The first few verses of chapter 21 are beautiful, because we finally see the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham—the promise he gave him all the way back in chapter 12. Exactly when God said it would happen, “at the time of which God had spoken to him” (v. 2), Sarah conceives and bears a son.
Now anytime you speak about this text, you have to be conscious of the very real possibility that some women, or some couples, who are listening have dealt with infertility, and they haven’t seen the end of it, like Sarah does. Even worse: some churches or church leaders may have even given you the idea that Sarah was healed of her infertility because she believed God—which suggests that somehow, your infertility is your fault, because you don’t believe God enough.
Can I just reassure you, if you’re in this kind of situation? That is not what this text is saying. This text has nothing to do with Sarah’s impeccable faith—we know from the rest of this story that Sarah is far from a model of faith. This text is primarily for the people of Israel, that they might see God’s faithfulness to protect and honor his covenant, like we saw last week. So that is the good news here: not that if you have enough faith, God will give you a child; but rather, that God is faithful to fulfill his promises. Even if your situation doesn’t turn out like Sarah’s.
That being said, these new parents’ joy is palpable. Abraham circumcises him as God commanded, and we see that Abraham calls him Isaac—which is beautifully fitting, because “Isaac” means “laughter.”
It’s easy to understand why. After Jack was born, Loanne and I decided to try for a second when he was two years old. Four years and two miscarriages later, we were still waiting. Thankfully, God was good—when we finally decided to stop trying, just because it was too painful to keep going after forty-eight months of disappointments, Loanne became pregnant with Zadie.
Those four years felt like an eternity; they were incredibly long, and incredibly painful. Anyone who’s been through similar situations understand the pain of that waiting. But if you know Christ, and your main goal in life is not to have a child but to follow him and live for him and be like him, then you’ll also know that the painful experience of waiting and not knowing what will happen causes our faith to grow by leaps and bounds—because during that time, you have nothing else to hold onto but the promise that God is good.
So given that experience, after waiting for a child, not just for years, but for decades, imagine how good this must have felt for Sarah and Abraham—to see God perform this miracle and make good on his promise to them, long after their hopes for a child had been abandoned. We get an idea of how good it felt in v. 6-7:
6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 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.”
So we’ve gone from Sarah’s mocking laughter in chapter 18 to genuinely joyful laughter here in chapter 21—she sees God’s goodness to her, and rejoices, because this awful, almost lifelong period of waiting was over.
But the joy won’t last forever. Starting in v. 8, we see the next test of Abraham’s faith, in the pain of being separated from his other son, Ishmael.
Faith in Pain: separation (v. 8-21)
So a couple of years go by; Isaac is old enough to have been weaned, we see in v. 8, and Abraham throws a big feast to celebrate his weaning. (That might sound like a funny reason to throw a feast, but trust me—any parent who has had breast-fed babies understands why they’re throwing a party.)
But the party doesn’t go as planned.
If you remember, Abraham has another son, Ishmael. Ishmael came a few years earlier, when Sarah despaired of ever having her own children. She gave Abraham her servant Hagar, so that he might sleep with her and get her pregnant, so that she might have a child for Sarah. It happened, but it was a problem from the start. Hagar looked down on Sarah when she had her baby, and Sarah mistreated her; it was only by the grace of God that Hagar is still here with her son.
Now, the tension shows up again. We read in v. 9:
9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.
Now the context (and the wording) suggests that his laughing wasn’t good-natured, but rather mocking. Ishmael’s a young teenager now, and he’s taunting his little brother Isaac. The reason why isn’t important; what’s important is that Sarah, now an overprotective mother herself, won’t stand for it. V. 10:
10 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.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.
Abraham is displeased, because—and it might be easy to forget this—Abraham loves Ishmael. No matter what the circumstances around his birth were, Ishmael is still his son.
And that is where God intervenes—but not how we might expect. V. 12:
12 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. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”
My son Jack helped me prepare this message a little; he read the text and asked me some questions about what he read, and we discussed those questions together. His question about these two verses was a good one: Why does God tell Abraham to do what Sarah says, and cast out Hagar and Ishmael? It seems really cruel.
He’s right. That is the question here. Why would God give Abraham this kind of command, when clearly Sarah is in the wrong here? Sure, Ishmael’s being a brat. But his behavior doesn’t excuse Sarah’s—which, by all reasonable measures, is worse than Ishmael’s. Ishmael’s acting like any bratty 16-year-old; Sarah is 91—plenty old enough to know what she is asking. So why is God okay with it?
A couple of things to note. God doesn’t push Sarah to react this way—he doesn’t tell her to ask Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. In fact, he doesn’t even say that he’s okay with what Sarah is feeling or doing. He doesn’t approve her behavior, and call something righteous that is clearly sinful.
Rather, he takes the sin that she is committing, and he uses it. He says as much in v. 12—as hard as it is to swallow, it is through Isaac that God intended for Abraham’s offspring to be identified, and if Ishmael stuck around, living in his household for the rest of his life, there could have been confusion around who God’s people actually were; Ishmael’s descendants could have laid claim to the covenant, when that was not God’s intent.
So he decides to use Sarah’s bitterness—not only for the sake of his covenant with Abraham, but also for the good of Hagar and Ishmael, as we see in the following verses.
In v. 14, Abraham gives Hagar bread and water and sends her away with Ishmael; the two end up wandering in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water’s gone, she puts him under a bush and walks away, because she can’t bear to watch her son die of thirst.
But an angel comes to her in v. 17 and says,
“What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
It’s one thing to imagine you see an oasis in the desert when you’re dying of thirst; it’s another thing to discover that a well has actually been dug for you, just for this moment.
Hagar and Ishmael are cared for by God, and they continue on; Ishmael, it says, grow up, becomes an expert with a bow, marries an Egyptian woman, and (we presume) lives his life—we only see him one more time in the Bible, very briefly, after this…ironically enough, at Sarah’s burial.
These verses highlight two things in particular, and both should encourage us.
The first thing we see is God’s grace in situations which are not ideal. Obviously Hagar’s situation with Sarah is far from ideal; Sarah’s not a good mistress. But there is another reason why their relationship was so strained—and that is, how Ishmael came to be in the first place. If you remember, in chapter 16, Sarah was despairing about not having any children of her own, so even though God had promised that Abraham would have a son through her, Sarah decides to give God a hand and speed up the process, by suggesting Abraham sleep with Hagar and have a son through her.
It doesn’t go well. Ishmael is born, but the relationship between Sarah and Hagar is horribly strained from that point on. This is a constant source of contention in their family.
Because it’s not what God had intended for them.
This is a consistent message throughout the book of Genesis—we see God showing his people that things would have been so much easier, so much better, if they had only done what God intended. We see it with Adam and Eve; we see it here, with Abraham and Hagar; we see it with Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau; we see it later on with Joseph and his brothers. When we depart from God’s intention for us, there is always pain.
It’s simply staggering, how often we forget this. How often do we talk ourselves into doing what we know God has told not to do? We come up with the best excuses possible as to why, actually, in this case, this is a good idea. But any time we go against God’s revealed will for us—what he says is right and good, what he wants us to do and how he wants us to live—it never goes well. Never. Never. Never.
And yet…in these less-than-ideal situations, which are so often the product of our sin or someone else’s sin, God gives grace. He takes care of us. He uses that pain for us, and not against us.
We see him do it for Hagar and Ishmael, and we see him do it in Abraham as well. This moment, when God tells Abraham to do what Sarah says, is like a miniature version of the test God will put him through next week. Because Abraham is in pain—he’s seeing the situation rightly, and he does not want to do it, we see in v. 11.
And yet, God comes to him and says… “Abraham, do you trust me? Do you trust that when I ask you to do something you don’t want to do—even with good reason—do you trust that I know what I’m doing? Do you trust that I will take care of them? Do you trust that I will never ask anything of you that won’t be for your good and my glory?”
Abraham’s answer is, Yes. And we know his answer is yes, because he obeys.
His faith is put to the test in pain, and his faith is rewarded, because God takes care of Hagar and Ishmael, and he makes sure that there is clearly now one child of the promise—Isaac—just as he had initially intended.
Faith in Pain: uncertainty (v. 22-34)
The last verses of this chapter feel a bit out of place. Abimelech (the same king we saw last week) and his army’s commander come to Abraham to ask him to treat them well, as Abimelech was kind to Abraham, because they recognize God is with him. Abraham agrees. And then in v. 25-34 we have a strange episode with a well: one of Abimelech’s men seized a well that was on Abraham’s land, so Abraham goes to complain about it, and gives him seven ewe lambs of his flock as proof that he, Abraham, dug the well (like Abimelech gave gifts to prove Sarah’s innocence in the previous text).
The two men make a covenant (basically a peace treaty) with one another there in Beersheba, Abraham plants a tree, and there (v. 33) he calls upon the name of the Lord. This phrase usually refers to a prayer of deliverance, usually in a hostile (or cultic) setting—even at the time of Abraham, there were pagan shrines in this area, so Abraham asks for God’s help staking his claim on this territory for God.
On the surface, even though the customs here are strange to us today, it’s not a difficult text to understand; the action is pretty straightforward. What is confusing is, Why is this in here? The prayer of deliverance (calling upon the name of the Lord), isn’t hard to understand; this kind of prayer happens often in the Old Testament. But why are we given all these details around the context? Why should we care about a well that Abraham dug, or a tree he planted, or a treaty he made?
One of my favorite movies is The Godfather. There’s an entire section of the movie, a whole sequence, in which Al Pacino’s character has to hide away in Cicily for a while; he goes back to his father’s hometown, the town after which he is named. He doesn’t rediscover his roots necessarily, but he definitely sinks into them: he’s clearly a foreigner, because he’s grown up in New York, but at the same time he’s not entirely out of place. Even if he doesn’t speak the language that well, even if he doesn’t completely understand things, it’s easy to see that this is home—this is where his family comes from, and it feels like he belongs there.
This final part of chapter 21 is meant to bring that kind of dynamic to mind. This whole section, in which Abraham argues over a well, and makes a treaty with Abimelech, and gives him animals, and plants a tree, would have been significant to the first readers, the people of Israel, because when they read it for the first time, they were about to go to this place. They were about to enter into the land in which we find Abraham in this exchange with Abimelech.
Moses (the author) is describing to the people of Israel unique details of when and how their own story played out. And he’s doing it to help apply what he has been saying all this time to them in particular.
Put yourselves in their shoes—they’ve been miraculously freed from slavery in Egypt by God. They’ve been wandering in the wilderness for some time now, and waiting to go take possession of a place in which they have never set foot. They don’t know exactly what they will find, or what it will be like, when they get there.
But their ancestor Abraham—the father of their people—had a life here. He had a reputation here. He had wealth here. He had treaties with kings here. He had land here. And most importantly, he called upon God’s name here, asking for his help in this hostile and godless territory.
So this reminder, coming just after this first example of Abraham’s faith in the midst of pain, would have brought this clear message home to them: “God was faithful to Abraham, and proved it even through painful situations—waiting and failing and living through the consequences of that failure. God’s faithfulness to Abraham strengthened Abraham’s faith.
“In the same way, he has been faithful to you, people of Israel, in your pain. He saw the pain of your slavery; he heard your cries for rescue. He rescued you…and brought you through more pain. The pain of dependence on him in the desert. The pain of uncertainty about what will happen to you. The pain of your own failure to trust him. But through this pain, he has still proven himself faithful.
“And now you are about to go into the land God promised to give you. This land is a part of you. These people we’re reading about here in this passage are about to be your neighbors. They don’t know you, but they probably still remember Abraham. It will be frightening, it will surely be painful. But God is faithful.
“So don’t be afraid to go where he told you to go. Don’t be afraid to do what he told you to do, no matter how hard it may be. He has always been ahead of you, preparing the way, and he will be faithful.”
The Problem of Pain
So that’s what’s going on in this text. God is encouraging the people of Israel—and, by extension, us—to not be afraid of the pain we endure under his care, because he uses that pain to grow our faith and to glorify his name. That is absolutely true, and we see it again in the text we’re going to see next week.
But I know for a fact that the question most of us are probably asking is: Why is that really necessary? Why not just grow our faith? He is God, after all—he created everything from nothing. He gave us faith and declared us righteous, in an instant. He could easily snap his fingers and immediately give us perfect, mature faith.
So why make us go through all this pain to get us there?
We always want to be really careful about the kinds of questions we ask when we read the Bible, because often we ask questions that come mostly from our modern minds and our modern preoccupations—questions that the Bible has no interest in answering.
C. S. Lewis kept a series of journals after the death of his wife, recording the process of his own grief (these journals are collected in his book A Grief Observed). He writes:
“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that… When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like the silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’”
In other words, there are questions the Bible doesn’t try to answer, because they’re the wrong questions. The Bible will never give us answers to all our questions; the Bible tells us what questions we should be asking.
And while in most cases, it’s those questions I want to focus on, as a pastor I’m well aware that this question, of why God chooses to use our pain instead of take it away, is (or will be) a question of profound importance to a lot of you—because you will suffer, or you are suffering. And in those moments, the question could well be a life-or-death question.
And so I think it’s worth taking a minute to look at this—particularly when we see what’s going to happen in next week’s chapter (consider this a bridge between this chapter and chapter 22).
Why does God choose to use our pain rather than take it away? We need a great deal of humility here, because not only is this question a highly emotional one (and emotion tends to cloud our judgment), we are talking about God. So we need to be humble, and realize that there is a great deal that we simply don’t know.
And that is the point. If you accept that God is God, you accept not only that he is all-powerful and all-holy, but also all-knowing. You accept that he is wise. That he is capable of thinking through every possible scenario, every possible variable and outcome, and choose THE BEST WAY to do whatever it is he’s doing. In other words, if you accept that God is God, you have to accept that he doesn’t make mistakes, and that he knows things we don’t.
Yes, he absolutely could have spared us our pain to accomplish his plan. But he didn’t. Which means that apparently God knows something we don’t. Apparently God sees that there is something in the pain that is worth living through to get where he wants us to be. Apparently bringing us through this pain, and using this pain to grow our faith, is better than taking us out of it.
God knows something we don’t. In his wisdom, he sees that there is something beautiful in the process, that is worth the pain we go through to get there.
In his wisdom, he knows that not sparing us pain—that achieving his will in us in this way—is the best possible thing he could have done. The pain he uses to grow our faith will show us his character and his faithfulness and his glory in a better way than if he had just snapped his fingers and made it all go away.
And it’s not as if he’s simply calculating the best possible means to achieve an end, and then coldly and methodically executing his plan. The ultimate proof that God sees value in the pain he allows his children to endure is that he endured it himself. In the person of Jesus, God felt pain that we cannot imagine. He endured pain we cannot begin to comprehend. So every time we want to imagine that God has removed himself from our pain, we lift our eyes to the cross and see Jesus, arms outstretched, saying, “I understand what you’re feeling, and trust me—my Father’s plan is good.”
When we realize this, and keep it firmly in our minds, we can see the grace in our pain, and in the pain we see in this text. In this text we see God’s faithfulness proving itself amidst incredibly painful situations.
The unanswered questions, and waiting for a miracle which may never come. The consequences of past failure. The uncertain future that lies ahead of God’s people.
Rather than sparing God’s people the pain of these situations, he works in them and through them, to prove his faithfulness. In this chapter, and the chapter we’ll see next week, we can see God slowly and steadily chipping away at Abraham’s self-sufficiency, like a surgeon cutting away cancerous cells in a patient. All of us come to a point in our lives when our supports are removed—when pain after pain after pain crash on us like waves, steadily knocking our crutches out from under us, until we fall to the floor and realize the only thing we have left is God.
And in those moments, if we would only lift our eyes up, we discover that he is actually enough.
So brothers and sisters, in all of your unanswered questions, he is faithful, and he is enough.
In all of your unanswered prayers, he is faithful, and he is enough.
In living with the consequences of your own sin, or the sin someone else has brutally thrown onto your back, he is faithful, and he is enough.
In the face of an uncertain future, he is faithful, and he is enough.
When all the dross is burned away, every support removed, and we have nothing left but him, we will find that having him is better than having our pain removed. He is faithful, and he is enough.
