Turn to Genesis chapter 1 now, if you will. Genesis chapter 1. Chapter 21, that is. We could start at chapter 21 and work our way to 21, but that would take a little while. Chapter 21. Remain seated and we'll begin at 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. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. 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. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham. on account of his son. 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. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.' So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water and the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about the distance of a bow shot. For she said, let me not look on the death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. 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." Lord, the redemption of or I should say the history of redemption is so rich and we so enjoy seeing and hearing preached and reading about at home with our families the wonder of your dealings with men. What is man that you are mindful of him? And so this morning, Lord, through your servant, speak. And may we hear only your voice, for your servant is inadequate in every way. I pray it in Jesus' name, amen. A good laugh is really something, isn't it? We've had a lot of good laughs with family in the last few days. It feels so good to laugh hard. It almost makes you feel like you've added a couple of minutes to your life. Can you identify with that? It's no wonder that Proverbs 17 says a joyful heart is good medicine. Well, most of you have seen the movie Mary Poppins, I would imagine. There's a funny scene, if you have seen it, that you'll remember where Mary and Bert and the children go to visit Uncle Albert. Well, it's sort of a magical scene because when they start laughing really hard, they all float to the ceiling together. It's so hilarious. One of the things that they find funny, for example, that I remember from my boyhood is when Bert says, speaking of names, I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith. And Uncle Albert says, oh really, what's the name of his other leg? And they all float to the top of the ceiling in hilarious laughter. And I think that that's a good illustration of the beauty and power of laughter, to lift the spirit even for a brief moment in time. But as you probably know, there are several different kinds of laughter. And in Genesis chapter 21, there are two kinds of laughter that we find. One is a God honoring, And the other opposes God's purposes in Christ. Well, I want to contrast these two types of laughter in their redemptive context. And by doing this, I believe the Holy Spirit can help us to better see what the Lord has faithfully done in the covenant of grace to save us and all His people. We'll call the first kind of laughter covenant laughter, which is a response of praise and wonder to the God of promise. And we can call the other kind of laughter mocking laughter, which is laughter that rejects the gospel and is in opposition to the God of the covenant. Now, as you know, last Lord's Day, we already focused on Sarah's covenant laughter in this chapter, specifically in verses one through seven. And this morning, what I wanna do is review Sarah's covenant laughter, but in greater depth, and then as I mentioned, contrast it with Ishmael's mocking laughter. I believe that by going at it this way, we can receive all that God has for us. By His grace, we will receive it and love Him more, and as a result, love one another more. After Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, the chapter says, at just the time that God had spoken to him, Abraham named the boy Isaac. And as you know, Isaac means laughter. And in verse 6, Sarah says this, God has made laughter for me. God has made Isaac for me. and everyone who hears will Isaac over me." Well, I like saying it like this, everyone who hears will laugh because of me. Now I warn you, that at the very least a sanctified smile could come across your face this morning when you as a believer in Jesus Christ understand the significance of Sarah's story and apply it to your own life. No matter what your current worries are, no matter what your current trials are, I would encourage you to let her story bring joy to your heart and thus be good medicine Because her story, what it can do for you is this, confirm the wonder of God's commitment to your salvation. Confirm the wonder of God's commitment to your salvation. It can confirm in your heart that you ultimately belong to God through faith in Christ because you are a child of God's promise. What we read earlier in Galatians 4.28 speaks to this. Paul says there in Galatians 4. Now, keep in mind, he's speaking to New Testament Christians in Galatia 2,000 years after Isaac's birth. He says to these New Testament Christians, you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. And again, I like emphasizing it like this, you brothers and sisters, you brothers and sisters in Christ, like Isaac, are children of God's promise. Based on God's promise to Abraham, he brought you to saving faith in rebirth. You are not the product of human effort. You are like Isaac whose birth came about supernaturally and was based on God's promise and God's commitment to keep that promise. You are not like Ishmael whose birth to Hagar was merely a natural birth and done by human effort. Paul helps us with this in Galatians 4 because these events in Genesis 21, although they are real historical events, he says they may be taken allegorically in this way. The spiritual children of Abraham who are heirs of God's promised blessings are born supernaturally through the life-imparting power of God's Spirit, not through human effort. If today, you, and I don't care what age you are, I don't care what your gender is, if you today are resting in the sufficiency of Christ alone, you are not like Ishmael, who was the fruit of human effort. In Romans 9, verses 6-9, the Apostle Paul is heartbroken. He's heartbroken because so many of his fellow Jews were not embracing the truth of Jesus Christ by faith, and they were perishing. He knew that they were perishing, and it broke his heart. But he comes back and he says, but I recognize that the promises of God have not failed. They have not failed. My heart is broken that so many are going down this broad road, but I know the promises of God have not failed. And he says in Romans 9, verse 6b, For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his physical offspring, but through Isaac will your offspring be named. What Paul is saying about the Jews is that each one of them became the physical offspring of Abraham through human effort and natural birth. But spiritual children only come into being through the sovereign outworking of God's promise. It's not a natural work, it's a supernatural work. And this applies not only to Jews, it applies to Jews and Gentiles alike. Again, Paul speaking to Gentile Christians in Galatians 4, 2,000 years after these events, you brothers and sisters in Christ, like Isaac, are children of promise. You are not the product of a natural work. You're the product of the supernatural work of God. Isaac's birth was a supernatural work of God, and it was God's intention from the beginning to keep it a supernatural work. It was God who providentially saw to it that Sarah was barren. He made sure of that. It was God who would not accept Abraham's efforts to secure the promise naturally through Hagar. It was God who intentionally waited until Sarah was so old and way beyond the ability to have children before he made his move. Isaac's birth was supernatural and God called the time that he would be born. In the same way, the birth of God's spiritual children is a supernatural work. It was while we were dead in trespasses and sins, Paul says to the Ephesians, that God made us alive in Christ Jesus. There's no natural human effort about that. You did not contribute one thing to your salvation, not one. It is all of God. And it's no wonder that this story that we are involved in is not our story. It's not ours. It's God's story. And He receives all the glory and He will not share His glory with another. It's not primarily our testimony. Although we praise God for that. It's the testimony that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. You know, we laugh over some of the stupidest things, don't we? I do. Laurie and I, after Doug and I came back from Cape Girardeau this week, Laurie and I laughed for five straight minutes. So hard. It felt so good. And not only were we laughing at some silly comment that I made, which I'm very prone to do, but then our laughter just made the other laugh even more, and it felt so good. But it was over something so small and so stupid. And people can even laugh over the tabloids, can't they? 90-year-old woman gives birth to 100-pound giraffe boy. And we get a laugh out of that. I don't think there's anything wrong that we get a laugh out of that. But it's not a sanctified laugh. It's not a covenant laugh. It's not a laugh that links itself with eternity and then the individual who's laughing personally applies him or herself to that covenant grace that God has given. Those types of laughs don't issue forth the joyful praise like when you realize that when Isaac was miraculously, supernaturally born, God had you in mind. Sarah is not saying, I know that when everybody hears and understands this story they're going to laugh is just because she had a baby when otherwise she couldn't have had a baby. They're going to laugh with the fuller understanding that God is moving and bringing about through this event the redemption of His people for from Isaac Christ will come. And in Isaac's birth, it is a miraculous birth. And only through a miraculous birth do we come to faith in Jesus Christ. And that's through the power of the Holy Spirit. You must be born again. That's covenant laughter. That's laughter, finding ourselves that we're here now, able to worship the Lord God Almighty, Creator of all things, and that we have been brought into union with Him through Christ. That's amazing. And I want to ask you, is covenant laughter I'm not talking about your current worries, I'm not talking about your current trials, God's using those in your life also. But I'm asking you, is your covenant joy there? Is it starting to percolate? is it beginning to fill your heart because you're understanding what it means to be a child of promise. That's covenant laughter. But there's also mocking laughter. And this mocking laughter in our chapter, although the events in our chapter are historical, This laughter also, Paul is saying, can be taken allegorically. But the time frame of this mocking laughter is three years after the birth of Christ. It's sandwiched right up against it. But it's three years after the birth of Christ because it happened when Isaac was being weaned And the weaning process in those days occurred later than it does in our culture. And it was a big deal. It was a big occasion. We make a big deal out of what? We make a big deal out of birthdays. But in a time period when the mortality rate was higher than it is today, parties were hosted when a child made it past the baby stage. So here's Abraham holding a great feast. Everybody's having a fantastic time. Everybody's happy for Abraham and Sarah and Isaac, except one person, Ishmael, the son of Hagar. Ishmael did not like Isaac being God's choice as the son of promise. And if you don't like Isaac, then you don't like the gospel. If you laugh at Isaac, you're laughing at the miracle working power of God to produce life when otherwise it's impossible to produce life. Ultimately, you're laughing at Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. And you're laughing at Jesus being the first fruits of a great harvest of people who are sons and daughters of God's promise. Well, we can all identify with Ishmael's disappointment. He was air. And Isaac was the son of promise. And he was bitter. He was prideful. And he was mad. There's no excuse for it. And we find a similar scenario, I think, in the lives of Jonathan and David, because Jonathan, like Ishmael, would have normally been the natural heir. Jonathan would have inherited Saul's throne. But by humbly exalting God's choice of David, Jonathan was showing himself to be a child of promise. He was revealing the fact that he was trusting in God's promise to provide the promised Savior who would save him from his sins. Ishmael, however, did not embrace the promise, but instead mockingly laughed at Isaac. And when Sarah saw Ishmael laughing at Isaac, She said to Abraham, cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. And Moses lets us know right away, doesn't he, that Abraham is very displeased because of this word from Sarah. But the Lord said to Abraham, do not be displeased, Sarah is right. Send them away. Send them away. God is not condoning Sarah's motive. We don't know her motive, but Sarah is right. Send them away, because in my redemptive purposes, your offspring will be named through Isaac." Now I want to come back to this separation. I want to come back to why this separation of the slave woman and her son was so important for the sake of the gospel. But let me just quickly comment. that in God's providence He assured Abraham that He would make a great nation of Ishmael, and therefore we see the Lord caring for Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. But I want you to know that God's blessing of Ishmael in this way falls under what we call non-redemptive blessings. In other words, in God's providence and in His sovereignty, He can bless sinners who are opposed to Him in any way He pleases in order to bring about His greater purposes for His beloved church. Well, the reason that the separation of the slave woman and her son was so vitally important to the gospel is because God wanted every vestige of human effort extracted. God wanted every vestige of human effort extracted because salvation never, never comes about by human effort. It always comes about by the gracious, miracle-working God of promise. This is exactly what Galatians 4 is teaching. Paul says that Hagar represents those who trust in their own efforts to gain God's approval. She represents the law. She represents the covenant of works. Sarah, on the other hand, represents those who trust in the promise of God to save them. And how? Through the righteous work of God's Son, she represents the covenant of grace. There are two ways to approach God. Either you come freely through God's promise and embrace Jesus Christ with all your heart or you come striving to please God with your own efforts. Only one of these ways is pleasing to God and He will not share His glory with another. My question to you is this. It's a vital question. Are you resting? in Jesus Christ alone for salvation? Are you resting in Jesus Christ, God's son, for the forgiveness of your sins? Are you resting in Jesus Christ for the righteousness that he gives to those who rest in him? Is that you? Is that you? Really, is that you? Because we're talking about eternal things. We're talking about God's story. And every human being that you meet is either in that story or they are outside of that story. And they are breaking, and they should be breaking our hearts. Because they are perishing. But my question to you, I want to make sure, are you trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? Or are you trying to recommend yourself to God in some way? Because if you're trying to recommend yourself to God in any way, shape, or form, then thus saith the Lord, cast out the bondwoman with her son, and enter with Sarah into the joy of covenant laughter, the laughter that is freely given in Jesus Christ and received through faith alone. Well, allow me to close with just a few thoughts that I believe are very important. First, covenant laughter does not come apart from difficult trials. Ishmael and Isaac were both part of the visible church. They had both received the sign of the covenant, circumcision. They were both Abraham's children. I'm sure they both participated in worship with Abraham. And it's been true down through the ages, it will always be true, you often have conflicts in the church that center on disagreements between law and grace. Pharisaical legalism can pop up in the church sometimes at at times when you would least expect it. And it often comes with an agenda that undermines the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it so puts that pharisaical agenda as the engine that it gets people off track. because it gives them the impression, well, if I'm not doing that, well, then I'm not anybody. When verisical legalism pops up in the church, the session has been commissioned by God to deal with it, and they're commissioned to deal with it lovingly and firmly. so that repentance may be made by all. But if it's not resolved, and effort is made, and effort is made, and more effort is made, then that church will have to put that person out. And that's with the goal of that church person coming back in. Trusting Christ, loving Christ, embracing the gospel for everything that it is. So covenant laughter does not come apart from difficult trials. It never does. And you and I know that God has promised certain things for our lives, and one of them is trials. And He uses those, not only in our individual lives, but in our churches. And like the family, our covenant families have problems, they have trials sometimes. Well, the church is going to as well, and sometimes it can get a little bit disconcerting just like it can at home. Well, second, hurtful wounds and even persecution often happens in the context of the church. I think it's enlightening that the Lord gives us the example of these two half-brothers to let us know that these things have always happened. This was 2,000 years ago. And speaking of Ishmael, Paul says in Galatians chapter 4, and this is really what Paul is driving at in Galatians chapter 4, he who is born of the flesh persecuted him who was born of the Spirit. It's naive to think that the church will be devoid of persecution from within. We're often more hurt within the church than we are from those outside the church. And we have to do our best to work through those, and God help our session here. And last, maybe not last, although salvation is the work of God alone, there is room for human effort. But that human effort is the result of salvation. It does not contribute to salvation. Once a person has been born again and through faith comes into union with God in Christ, God has called that person to be his ambassador for Christ. We were challenged this morning to share the gospel in terms of missions and to actually be in slavery to God now that He has done this. It's sovereign grace, it's supernatural grace that is totally undeserving. The fact of the matter is, Isaac in and of himself was no better than Ishmael. But as Romans teaches, according to God's good pleasure, we don't delve into those things. It was this way. And so worms like you and me, who have been showered with amazing grace, are called by God to participate, to pray, to stay close to the Bible. to find Christ in it, and to give glory to God that we're a part of Him. We're called to be faithful, come what may. And that's not always easy to do. And so He calls the church to prod one another along, and all the more as The coming of Christ draws near. And so, good works has a place, but not in our redemption, not in our salvation. Once we become saved, well, God has works for us to do that He's planned from all eternity. And so, we can get on board, and we can rest in the fact that we are saved to the uttermost because salvation is all of God, and that's not going away. And we can rest in that fact, and knowing that, we can serve the Lord our God. But last, and I don't have this written down, it's so easy for Christians, once they're saved by grace, to think that they can now recommend themselves to God for His approval. It's what we tend to fall back on. I'm okay with the Lord today because I'm done with that sin from six months ago. No, we're okay with God because we're clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And we're okay with God because we're children of God's promise. And that's why we're trusting in Christ alone. But it's so easy for me to let a negative word slip out of my mouth and It's easy to fall back into a pattern of legalism. Let grace be the engine and let our love for Christ be reflected all the way to the caboose. And along the way, He forgives us. He forgives us in Christ Jesus. The reason He forgives us is because at Calvary He put our sins away. The sins I committed in the past, the sins I committed today, and the sins that I'll commit in the future, all of them are put away because that is the status of a son and daughter of God's promise. Let's pray. Lord, as you continue to teach us these things as we make our way through Genesis, bless our hearts and our minds and help us, Father, to apply these things to our lives, not being naive to the fact that we will not be perfected in holiness until you come again and we are received unto yourself. Our sin, although we hate it, does not trip us up so much that it derails us and sends us into despair. For You are the God of promise. On the positive end, Lord, I pray that our members at SGRC and my relatives, who now join with us, would love You more, serve You more, and be a reflection of God and your amazing commitment to keep your promises, to save your people, to take them, their sins, on the cross with you and bring them out of the grave with you and forevermore to live eternally. And we just praise you for that. And it's in Jesus' name. Amen.