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Jonathan Griffiths: Often the big challenges of faith for us come in the form of the practicalities of life in this world. Isn't that so often the case? Aren't those so often the things that we really fret over and the things that stretch our faith the very most? Will God be with me?

Steve Hiller: This is Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller, glad you're with us as we continue a message looking at the faithfulness of God. Jonathan, I think it's important for us to look at that regularly because, as you point out, sometimes as we go through some of the struggles, the practicalities of life, we do question that. We do wonder sometimes about God's faithfulness.

Jonathan Griffiths: When things in life are not working out well for us or where we struggle to see how God's plans are being worked out for us in the circumstances we face, one of our challenges of faith, one of our temptations really, will be to question the faithfulness of God. Is he true to his word? Has he forgotten me? Does he still love me? Does he still care about me? We all know something of those questions and those struggles if we're followers of Christ.

The stories of scripture, the stories of the lives of the saints of old teach us that even in the ups and the downs of circumstance, God is true to his people and true to his word. We certainly see that in the life of Abraham and in the life of Sarah. We see God's faithfulness to his promises and his faithfulness to his people worked out in a wonderful way in this particular section of the story.

Steve Hiller: That section we're looking at today comes from the book of Genesis. We're in chapter 21 as we continue the message, "The God of Astounding Faithfulness." Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: I don't know the particulars of your circumstances, but I'm sure there are some with us today, some listening who are in that very tough situation of having children or grandchildren who have walked away from the faith that they were once taught. They're off in the wilderness, as it were, and it burdens you. It grieves you. In the midst of that heartache, don't imagine that God doesn't care about them anymore.

The scene in the wilderness is a lovely picture of how God's faithful care follows people even as they are traveling away from the household of faith. He hasn't forgotten them. They're not off his radar. Obviously, we need to pray for salvation to follow such people, and that's a serious matter. The story isn't telling us that God's salvation reaches every wanderer. But in practical terms, what kindness God shows.

Verse 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. 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 Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt." The Lord made a way for this family, this mother and son. He made a future for him, gave him gifts and skills, and in earthly terms, he blessed him. It shows us something of the faithfulness and the kindness of God that seems to almost overflow and spill over from the household of faith and even reach out into the wilderness. It's wonderful to see.

We see another aspect of this, too, God's faithfulness in practical matters, just briefly at the end of the chapter. You'll remember that Abraham got into some really hot water in the previous chapter with Abimelech. He deceived him. He almost caused Abimelech to fall under the full and immediate judgment of God. Abraham got there because he was fearing what Abimelech, this unbelieving Gentile king, would do to him as he traveled through the land under his control. But what happens here is really quite wonderful.

Abimelech notices that this man Abraham enjoys the blessing of God. This man sojourning in his land, as Abimelech would see it, has something special about him. Rather than resent that or want to persecute Abraham and drive him out, Abimelech is actually drawn to Abraham. In fact, he seems to have a kind of fearful respect for him. Notice it with me in verse 22.

"At that time Abimelech and Phicol 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."

So Abraham was shown favor. He and this Gentile king made a covenant together. Just notice how it all ends there in verse 33. "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." The Lord so worked in the situation, in the relationship, and in the heart of this king, that Abraham was given peace and liberty to worship the Lord and to dwell for many days in the land of the Philistines.

The Lord has taken this potentially very ugly situation, a relationship that started off on precisely the wrong foot. He has taken it all and he has made a way for Abraham in this new land among a people who might well have been his enemies, who should have been his enemies. In the details, in the practicalities of life, in the providential provisions, God shows himself faithful.

For you and for me, the big challenges of faith are not always to believe that God will save us in the end, that he will save us when we are knocking on eternity's door, save us from the fires of hell and welcome us into his eternal kingdom. Often the big challenges of faith for us come in the form of the practicalities of life in this world. Aren't those so often the things that we really fret over and the things that stretch our faith the very most? Will God be with me?

Will God go before me as I move to a new place, as I start a new job? Will he watch over my children and my loved ones in these uncertain times? Can I trust him in my new season of uncertainty with health or with finances, with my family situation that just threatens to unravel before my eyes? Will he be faithful in all these things?

There's no promise here that God is going to spare us all grief and all loss and all difficulty. That's not the promise of the passage. But this account shows us the full depth and breadth of the loving care and faithfulness of God. His faithfulness in the practicalities of life in this world. He has his finger on the details. He goes before us. He hears the cry. He sees the distress, even of those who are at present living in the wilderness.

I don't know what other burdens are on your heart today for the practicalities of life, the cares and the worries. Practicalities for your life or the life of those you love. But do you trust him in those things? Will you trust him? And will I?

We see God's faithfulness in the practicalities of life, but we see it not only there. We see his faithfulness in the promise of salvation. There is, of course, something much bigger going on here than the dramas of one man and one family living at one point in ancient history in one particular corner of the world. Right at the start of the Abraham story, you'll remember back in Genesis 12, God made it clear that the story of this family would be painted on the grand canvas of world history, of salvation history.

Abraham's life and Abraham's future would be about the blessing of God coming to a broken world. It's about the bigger drama of the fall and God's grand plan to make all things new. Let me just remind you of the promise of God back in Genesis 12, that famous promise. God comes to Abraham. He taps him on the shoulder, as it were, and says to him in verse 2, "I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." That's the start of the story.

As the story has progressed, the great barrier to this plan of God has been the childlessness of Abraham and of Sarah. That's been the great tension in the narrative, the great crisis at the very heart of this drama. Abraham and Sarah make a variety of missteps in thinking that the burden was upon them to find a solution to the crisis of infertility. In chapter 15, the attempted solution was the naming of an alternative heir. In chapter 16, it was having a child by Hagar, the maidservant.

God continually reaffirms his promise to give this couple a child. That's his plan and his purpose. The mess of chapter 16 doesn't disrupt it. After that, God makes it clear once again that his plan, his purpose, and his promise is unchanged. Genesis 17 and verse 19, God reaffirms it. He says to Abraham, "Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. Abraham, your attempt to find another solution through Hagar is not going to be the way."

The plan has been a long time in coming to fruition, but it's never deviated and never changed. And so we reach chapter 21 and verse 1. "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." As we read that line, we have to pause and recognize how familiar is this motif and this storyline for us as New Testament people.

The plan of God comes to a point of wonderful fruition when the Lord brings a child to a woman in the most unlikely of circumstances. The Lord gives a child to a woman who should not be expecting. He does so by a miraculous intervention and in accordance with his word of promise. We've seen it before. Our minds turn quickly to Mary and Joseph and their startling news all those centuries later.

In this ancient moment of the fulfillment of God's promise, we see a pointer to the greater fulfillment yet to come. God will bring salvation just as he promised through Abraham's son, through his son Isaac, but ultimately he will bring that plan to a greater fruition through the greater son to come, even the Lord Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: This is Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths and a message called "The God of Astounding Faithfulness." We're going to pause right here, but we'll get back to this message in just one moment. By the way, if you ever join us late, you have to leave early, or you miss a broadcast and you want to go back and listen to what you missed on the radio, you can always come and listen at our website. It's EncounterTheTruth.org.

Our message today is part of a series we're calling "The Blessing" as we continue our look at Genesis 21. If you don't have a Bible handy, you can grab one and join us there as we get back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Here in chapter 21, the promised child, the baby of miraculous conception, takes center stage. God's plans and God's purposes do revolve around him. It is actually the central importance of this child, the centrality of this child within the salvation plan of God, that ultimately makes sense of this narrative. There is something a little strange, isn't there? Something a little bit jarring about the fact that Hagar and her young son are sent away into the wilderness.

Doesn't that just seem a little bit harsh? A little bit tough? Don't we have some sympathy with Abraham when he's reluctant to follow through? Don't we wonder just a little why God seems to be for this plan? We will only make sense of it when we see that the promised baby Isaac is at the very heart of all that is going on here. Just keep that in mind as we look again at the details briefly.

There is that great rejoicing at Isaac's birth, a grand celebration. But here's that fly in the ointment in verse 9. "But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing." So she calls for Hagar and Ishmael to be thrown out. Abraham's upset. Verse 11: "And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son." To us, Sarah looks wrong here and Abraham looks right. That's how most of us will essentially read this. But that's not how God seems to see it.

That comes as a bit of a surprise to us. Verse 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.'" But surely that's a little bit tough. Of course the boy shouldn't have been mean-spirited, he shouldn't have been mocking in his tone toward Isaac, but this seems like an overreaction. Abraham doubtless had a real sense of affection for Ishmael in a time where children were perhaps less certain to live through infancy and childhood than they are today.

Perhaps the elderly father thought to himself it wasn't such a bad idea to have two sons in the house. Why is it right for Hagar and Ishmael to go? At the end of verse 12, notice the reason God gives. "Do what Sarah says, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named." The promise, the blessing, the covenant, the salvation plan, it's all going to come through Isaac. You do not need and you should not keep a second son in the household as a backup plan. Ishmael is not the plan and he never will be.

More than that, Ishmael's response and reaction to the promised child actually sets him outside the blessings of the household in an ultimate sense. Isaac is God's miraculous gift to Abraham and Sarah. He is the means by which God will bring his blessing to the world, even salvation blessing. Ishmael has shown even in his youth that his heart is set against this child of promise, and so he is to go.

The coming of Isaac and the departure of Ishmael teach us two vitally important truths. It teaches us on the one hand that God will save in his way, by his appointed means, in accordance with his spoken word, and without the help or scheming of human agents. Ishmael was a backup plan. He came from Abraham and Sarah's scheming. His departure is a sadness, but it is also a confirmation. It's a confirmation that God's salvation will come on his terms and not on our terms.

Added to all that, the departure of Ishmael teaches us that access to salvation blessings is tied to our reaction to the miraculous child of promise. Ishmael and Hagar were sent away, and that was a costly thing for this young mother, this single mother and her son. They were sent away because Ishmael despised the promised child, the child who would be the means of God's salvation. This was the trigger for everything.

As you and I stand back from all this and consider it, it does leave us with a question and a challenge. Will we take God at his word? Will we trust his promised salvation? Will we delight in the child of his promise? The default mode of the human heart is a works-based religion, a do-it-yourself approach to salvation. Thanks to YouTube, we're all becoming do-it-yourself home renovation experts, mechanics, or plumbers. But we need to admit that there are certain things that we cannot do, cannot figure out, and cannot achieve on our own.

Salvation is chief among those things. Ishmael represented Abraham and Sarah's attempt to do God's work for him. It was a very human endeavor. His dramatic exit from the story is a stark reminder, even a warning, that the spiritual do-it-yourself approach will never work and can never work. God's plan is to save us in his own way through his own purpose and plan, through Jesus. It's through his coming, his life, his death, and his resurrection.

God's plan and his purpose is to save us through the promised child and to make us his very own. All that is ours as we simply trust in the promise and receive the son. We receive the inheritance with him and the welcome and the place within the family of promise. But we need to see how seriously God takes our response to the child. We cannot have a home with God, we cannot be part of the family, and we cannot enjoy his blessings if we will not welcome and receive the son.

So many in our world scorn him and despise him and reject him. They mock him. The casting out of Hagar and Ishmael is a warning that God will not welcome those who do not accept his plan and his provision, who do not welcome his son. A question comes up a lot: what about people around the world who are devout in their own religion, committed to God in their own way? What does the God of the Bible make of that commitment? How will he respond to devout people who are not Christian believers?

The answer the Bible gives us is this. God has made his way of salvation. He has worked out his promises in accordance with what he has spoken. Having done that, the key issue is this: how will you and I respond to what God has spoken, to what God has promised, and to what God has done? How will we respond to his son? For some who are with us today, that's the key issue that you need to grapple with personally.

God has worked out his plan of salvation. The offer to accept it by faith is there. What will you make of it? What will you make of him? God is the God of total faithfulness. Faithfulness in his care and provision in the practicalities of life. He's faithful in working out his plan of salvation as promised even through his son. Will we be a people who take him at his word? Will we trust him today and for all the days that are to come?

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths with a look at the faithfulness of God today. Seeing his faithfulness at work in the practicalities of life and at work in the promise of salvation. Our message is called "The God of Astounding Faithfulness." If you've missed any part of this broadcast or any previous broadcast in our series called "The Blessing," you can come to our website and listen online. Just stop by EncounterTheTruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported program. We depend on your generosity to keep Jonathan's teaching on this station. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a book that's based on this current series that we have on the radio right now, the life and the story of Abraham. Jonathan, who did you write this book, Strangers and Exiles, for?

Jonathan Griffiths: I really had two sorts of reader in mind as I was putting this book together, Steve. On the one hand, I think this is for any disciple who wants to grow in their trust and develop their walk with Christ. The story of Abraham is the story of a believer in the promises of God who kept trusting through the ups and downs of life, through challenges of faith, through being an outsider really in the society and culture of his day. He was a believer who stumbled in sin and failed, but who knew the grace of God and the forgiveness of God.

I think it's a wonderful story to learn and to study for the sake of our own discipleship and I trust it will be an encouragement to many on that level. I had in mind, as well, anyone who has the privilege of handling and teaching the word of God and who would really like some help in thinking through how to teach and apply this section of the book of Genesis. I wanted to help them do so as Christian scripture, to see how this section of the word of God from the Old Testament speaks to Christian believers and points us to Christ.

I hope there will be some helpful pointers and some guidance for the Bible teacher within this book as well. I had that dual readership in mind.

Steve Hiller: The name of the book is Strangers and Exiles. It's about pursuing faithfulness as pilgrims in a faithless world. We'd love to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for your financial support. You can give a gift over the phone when you call us at 1-833-99-TRUTH. Or come to our website, EncounterTheTruth.org. Again, the phone number is 1-833-998-7884 or EncounterTheTruth.org.

You can also write us at Encounter the Truth, 2176 Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2E 0A1. Or in the US, at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, number 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Brudda, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.