Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
this morning as we look at genesis chapter 21 we'll see the example of two moms that give us a very clear heart for the way that moms express the love of god and so we will look at genesis 21 and overlay it with the lens of mother's day today and as you've heard throughout this day there's an expression going around today happy mother's day and really that's it's a hard expression to really point and to um to fill with all of what that means for everyone that hears it for a couple reasons there's three words happy mother's day this day is not always happy regardless of how it unfolds in the different varieties of your life children don't always push pause on the drama of childhood because it's mother's day life does not always deliver perfectly sunshine and rainbows because it's mother's day and the journey of motherhood does not always land up perfectly to where it falls on the calendar to celebrate mother's day so it's not always happy and as i preach right now i can see very clearly that it's not a sanctuary full of mothers so that is also a difficult way to look at god's word and express fully who this is for but i realize and i hope you all do that this is for all of us one because we all came from mothers this is something that gives us all a reference point into how we came into the world to know god for such a time as this and as stated and as we'll see today mothers are one of the great expressions of the heart of god to know your mother's love is in many ways god's way to give a first imprint for his love for your life to know the faithfulness of a mother is god's way of showing many of us one of the most the most glorifying examples of faithfulness and the third thing that we say happy mother's day is the word day which is another challenge because not all of motherhood can be squeezed into a 24-hour period in fact motherhood in all of its complexity has so many different days and moms you know this and nights that make it what it is and i want to look at a couple of those because as i study genesis chapter 21 and the two moms that we're going to be looking at this morning there are some ways that you see different days unfolding in our journey with god towards god and also the journey of motherhood and so today we'll look at this really there are three days that we're presented with in genesis chapter 21 first we have the day of joy and isn't that something that we are celebrating today we rejoice in the reality of motherhood but we also have in the second act of this story we have the day of struggle and that's why mother's day can be so complex is because the day of struggle can come at any time in any moment and it can last for a very long time but we also find in this story a third day and this is a day that we should all be mindful of in our pursuit of god and our knowledge of god and our hope for god to continue to move in our life and around the lives of the people that we love and that is the day of salvation so today we look at the day of joy and the day of struggle and the day of salvation all through the lens that god has presented before us of motherhood so the story picks up genesis chapter 21 verse 1 and the lord visited sarah and he has said and the lord did for sarah as he had spoken for sarah conceived and bore abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which god had spoken to him and abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom sarah bore to him isaac as you'll recall through the journey in genesis one of the primary focus of the book is to deliver unto the world a solution for the darkness of the fallen creation that was once good that has now become bad because of the sin of man and the hope delivered in the very beginning of the book the very early stages of the unfolding of god's plan was this promise that there would be a coming one a savior to put all things back to right and he would overcome the enemy that had deceived adam and eve and that savior would come ultimately through the line of one man abraham and abraham we are told would have this child through his wife not by any other means it would not be through uh his offspring pass to his very best servant eliezer and we looked last week that it would not be the solution that maybe it could be half of abraham and half of hagar and maybe god's promise needed some help from abraham and the idea of sarah what we find in this moment is that god has delivered just as he said a child to abraham through his wife and that is a reminder this morning that the gift of motherhood is the design of god it is his timing for your life and it is his call for your life according to his sovereignty over your life and one of the complexities that this happy day can sometimes be a heavy day is in the waiting for what it means to be a mom in all of the different stages as we saw in the presentation of the video some are waiting some are waiting through hardship some are waiting through difficulty some are waiting in the initial revelation that you're going to be a mom and you're waiting for that child to come and what this says is that god in his perfect timing on the perfect day will fulfill the promise that he has for sarah's life and for the lives of all that he has called to be mothers and so we rejoice in that and that is the joy that comes from this story because as this story unfolds this day is a picture of the joy that god has for us in the gift of life it says in verse 4 then abraham circumcised his son isaac when he was eight days old as god had commanded him and abraham was a hundred years old when his son isaac was born to him and sarah said god has made me laugh and all who hear will laugh with me she said who would have said to abraham that sarah would nurse children for i have borne him a son in his old age one of the story lines of sarah that we often find in other motherhood stories of the bible is that it is the miracle of god that the gift of a child would come sarah was well in age in fact she's saying could you believe it that god has given us a child would anyone have imagined that they could say of me and you a couple of old guys a couple old guy an old lady that i was gonna nurse someday she's shocked that she is a mom and this goes back to the story of hagar because she said listen i'm too old there must be a way for us to help god and then it also goes back to genesis 18 when she was visited by the lord and she overheard the promise to abraham that it will be in fact sarah who brings the child and when she heard that overhearing it what did she do it says she laughed her first version of hearing that she would be a mother was to laugh not in a way of excitement but in a way of yeah right i'm going to be a mom some of you who are not yet moms may feel that about this message now but just wait i remember the day when my wife and i met and we were having our first child she says i can't believe it i never thought i would be a mom so motherhood is not something all of us expect or all of you women are all eagerly waiting for but god has an appointed day to deliver to you the plan he has for your life and one of the promises is and one of the reminders of life through motherhood is that it is a miracle of god brings life god chose time and time again through sarah later in hannah through mary i am going to use people that would never be able to do this on their own and i will bring the gift of life through the most unlikely women and it is god who made you mothers today and we are not here celebrating motherhood without celebrating the faithfulness and the sovereignty of god but this is the section of the day of joy and motherhood is one of the greatest joys when a child is born it is one of the greatest joys that you experience and that is why i love what sarah says i once laughed at god and now i laugh with god and people will laugh with me and what i love about this day in a world that seems to be deprived of the reality of joy when you think about the unfolding of the history of world that we the world that we live in now we find more and more cases of people with heavy hearts and heavy minds and suffering from loneliness and anxiety and depression we get one of life's primary examples of where joy comes from and that is the simplicity of newness of life one of the great unifying factors for culture still to this day is that obvious bump on a woman's stomach when you look and you think that's awesome she's going to have a baby it's almost like public domain a mother's baby bump it's like how many of you moms have had the baby bunny experience when you're at the grocery store and someone comes up and says can i just can i feel that it's like and you have to say it's like yeah it's like public domain not that you have to but now people laugh with you and there's joy in this moment that is almost indescribable the miracle of life on display not only when god opens a barren womb but when you have the experience of seeing a child born for all of us there is an undeniable moment where you realize there is something about life that is so beyond science i remember being in the uh in the room the first child born and there was that moment when the child came forth burst forth a glorious day and i just remember weeping how many of us have experienced this moment of absolute worship and you do not have to be a believer to see a moment of worship or joy or indescribable a desire to think of what's greater than just the metaphysics of life when you see the new born baby come and there is so much joy when it arrives and i truly believe that this is this day of joy is a deeper picture of what god wants us to experience as the family of god the joy of the church getting to it be excited about a baby dedication where we all get to see this little baby it's like i feel like baby dedication should happen every sermon because it just completely softens your heart it's like there's a baby i'm going to listen to whatever he says next and so it is jesus says when you see the newness of life and the joy it is a picture of salvation it's a picture of this waiting that we all have for god to deliver unto us life in fact look what jesus says as he describes the moment he's going to the cross and the burden and the weight and the expectation of what comes next and the way he describes how to make sense of it he says to his disciples in john chapter 16 a woman you want to know about the cross you want to know what's about to happen for me to lay down my life so that newness of life could be unlocked for you a woman when she is in labor has sorrow because her hour has come but as soon as she has given birth to the child she no longer remembers anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world therefore you now have sorrow to his disciples as they approach their messiah the christ laying down his life they would be burdened with the sorrow of death you now have sorrow but i will see you again and your heart will rejoice and your joy no one will take from you it says in romans chapter 8 that all of creation is groaning to see who will be the with birth pangs who will be the sons of god and that same groaning exists in our hearts and our minds for the newness of life that comes when we approach the cross when we say lay down our life and pick it up again in christ and we experience the joy of the lord that will never be taken from us that's why jesus says to describe what the joy of newness of life looks like not just in the joy of motherhood bringing forth a child but also in the joy of newness of life for the spiritual rebirth that he has for anyone who calls upon his name he says you know there's this there's this concept when you lose something it's so excited to find it and he gives these parables a parable of a lost coin a parable of lost sheep and when you find that thing and you bring it's like rejoicing for the whole community and he says so it is when one sinner repents there is joy in heaven and one of the great joys that i experience as a pastor is to take part in the newness of life through baptism in fact we'll be doing baptisms in between service if you want a living parable of this service you can see the joy that comes when someone gives their life dead to their sins alive in christ newness of life has come and we get that picture initially through the joy of the example of motherhood given sarah is an example she says now you guys get to laugh with me now you get to take part in the joy and there's a second a second thing that will now transition us into the day of struggle it says in verse eight so the child grew and was weaned and abraham made a great feast on that day that isaac was weaned because it's not just the joy that comes from birth but motherhood represents to us the joy that moms have for every one of these amazing milestones of the life of a child it says in this example isaac was weaned what a joy that process is it's like the struggle and the joy all at one because the intimacy of nursing your child you now can trust that they are going to be eating solid food well done mothers well done to get your child to a place where they're growing and they're strong and it's exciting for the milestone and abraham sees that milestone he says it is time to feast because there's another version of our child graduating into another abundant life moment and there's joy in the milestones mothers fathers we take joy every time our child grows into the next version of life that god has for them i've gotten to experience some of those milestones the milestone of a child weaning a child i guess back it up a child sleeping through the night it's like yes did it then they wake up a little bit more and you kind of regress and then they wean and then they learn how to use the bathroom by themselves they learn how to start feeding themselves and every milestone there is this version of joy that we get to experience where there is a feast in our lives training wheels come off they get to they start to read they start to understand they start to they start to receive the word of god they start to pray and there's a milestone even celebrated this morning with applause which is the joy of seeing a child grow through education trained up in the way that they should go and now they've graduated into the real world a joy for the parents crying when they see their child go through the milestones of life but now we transition into the day of struggle because every milestone comes with a new version of struggle every time you say we finally got to this point they're finally weaned and then what happens now they're about to start to learn how to talk and now they can start talking back they finally know how to ride their bikes great where do they write off to i have no idea and in this version graduates you finally graduated college great now what's going to happen to your lives where you're no longer under the care of the structure of the cultural system and now you're off on your own to find a job or maybe not it's like graduation the joy turns into another version of the struggle of parenthood and isn't that what we see here it says even at the feast it says in verse 9 and sarah saw the son of hagar the egyptian whom she had borne to abraham scoffing so we've got in one sense the joy of a transition to being weaned from milk to solid food a picture of our spiritual life being weaned from the milk of the word to the meat of the word and at the feast we see a version of the struggle and in these days you also see a version of some of the stages because it says that ishmael was with scoffing so we've got a newborn and we've also got by the accounts of the timeline of when ishmael was born and when isaac was born we've got a teenager and the teenager is scoffing and there are different moms that can relate to different parts of this sermon right now because the newborn phase is completely different than the teenage phase and i'm excited for the examples of those of you who have gone before me but i heard it's just as hard in fact i was warned of how hard the different stages can be the struggle continues no matter what stage you're in i'll never forget the wise uh warning that someone once gave me my wife and i were on vacation and uh when we vacation when we get out of town we look like a caravan of people traveling uh you know in ancient times because we've got to carry so much stuff for all of kids ages six and under it's like four car seats two cribs for them to sleep in wherever we go then if we're gonna swim we have uh four versions of life vests and i just remember we're carrying all these things and danielle and i are like packing it in like camels and the kids are running around and we get to this elevator and there's only room for one other person and he sees like the struggle is real and he's like oh you guys this is great you guys are in the stage of parenting that is an absolute physical struggle and i was like yeah it's a physical struggle i mean it's just carrying stuff all the time and he goes just so you know as soon as that ends you're going to be in the mental struggle and i was like well thank you kind sir so as soon as i no longer have to physically carry everything i now have to physically carry the weight of all of the challenges of raising kids in my mind and mothers don't we know it in the example of how you care for every aspect of the details of your children's life from newborn and beyond and this is what we have we have ishmael now in the emotional version of what do we do here and this will begin a real struggle not just for the family dynamic of sarah and abraham who is the father of ishmael but also ishmael and his mom because look what it says therefore she said to abraham cast out the bondwoman and her son for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son namely isaac it's like wow the struggle in the family dynamic is so real and so hard and the she's come to a place where she says we've got to separate he's not going to be air the word scoffing is just one word and we try to understand what happened and we don't know fully what ishmael was doing he might have just been teenage angst just annoyed at the feast and crossing his arms he might have been you know in his heart or even uh even an example of something he was doing causing harm in some way to isaac and so now sarah and abraham are faced with this dilemma a reminder of the complications when you try to help god with the plan that only he can deliver on and she says we've got to get we've got to get rid of ishmael the struggle is so real and the struggle is seen as you see abraham's response he says it says in verse 11 that the matter was very displeasing in abraham's sight because of his son you know there are no simple versions of motherhood and when you go into that stage when it becomes much less of a physical struggle and a mental struggle there are so many forks in the road where you are relying on the wisdom of god and you are hoping for god's sovereignty to prevail in very difficult times and as we think through our own journeys and our family dynamics with our mothers and moms in the in the stages of life you're in there are so many difficult parenting decisions that we have to make and not all of them are cut and dry in fact this one caused a little argument between sarah and abraham but there are times where we have to give over the children that we love to the plans of god i think that might be one of the scariest aspects of parenting moving forward of course i'm in a stage where i can really keep everything within an arm's length under my house in my car and my backyard at all times but there comes a time where we see the example of god played out in the prodigal son where the prodigal son comes up to the father and says i want my inheritance now and what does he say i will never give you inheritance because you are a foolish young man who does not know how to make good decisions the father says here you go he gives him over to the choices that he wants to make and he gives him over to the reality that sometimes the fastest way home is the longest way around as chesterson says in other words you have to really realize what you've left behind to know how important it is the prodigal son goes through a season of life and famine where the money is gone and the food is gone and the job is gone and it says he came to his senses and in some ways we get hope that parenting motherhood when you trust the wisdom of god he will in his sovereignty care for the challenges of parenting and it says in verse 12 god said to abraham do not let it be displeasing your sight because of the latter because of the bondwoman whatever sarah has said to you listen to her voice for an isaac your seed shall be called yet i will also make a nation of the bondwoman because he is your seed in this instance god is with sarah as abraham was against the plan god speaks directly to sarah or directly to abraham and says listen to her she's right there will be times moms where you have to make very difficult decisions there will be times where your family is in a tough spot and there will be times where the husbands don't always do not always agree but what we're looking for is the times where we can say without a doubt god is with us there's a time in another version of motherhood where mary gets word that she's going to be a mom and it says she's greatly afraid an angel of the lord visits her and says god is with you do not be afraid some of you moms in the struggle dads families in the struggle know that in ways that we don't always see immediately living by faith and not by sight we can trust that god in his sovereignty has a way to work things out to work difficult in alarming situations out for good because he says the promise is listen to her i will make him great i will still make him great he is still someone that i will care for on your behalf so trust god in that trust god that he will make our decisions somehow make sense as we love him and are called according to his purposes and before we get on to the day of salvation we get a reminder of something we talked about last week what it says in galatians 4 that this is more than just an immediate story of history this is as paul realizes an allegory of our lives in pursuit of a relationship with god because what paul says is this is a picture of two covenants two ways to make a relationship with god make it till the end to where he would welcome us into his presence and he says the two covenants are actually seen in these two moms one is the covenant of the flesh that you will somehow work your way to the promises of god that is seen in the bond woman or the slave and that is an example of the law that we would somehow fulfill the duties of religion and the law to make right by god and his promises we will meet him halfway with our good works but paul says in galatians chapter 4 the scripture says cast out the bondwoman and her son for the bomb bond woman shall not be the heir with the with the free woman and the free woman represents the promise the promise that there are things in bearing life that only god can do only god could bring life to isaac and only god can bring life to our hearts and our minds in the spiritual rebirth to be born again and that is how we look at now the day of salvation this is a preview into the way that god wants us to know how salvation works for our children this is why motherhood can be such a complex day because motherhood takes on a burden to care for the gift of life that god has put into your hands and we see that burden play out in the
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.