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For the Week of September 21
Scripture Intro
This morning we’re looking back much farther through history as we continue our September sermon series on times God showed up unexpectedly to change bad situations for the better. The last two weeks we’ve looked at stories from Daniel, during the time of the Babylonian exile, but this week we’re going all the way back to the book of Genesis, before Israel was ever a nation at all.
Abraham and Sarah were thrilled when their son Isaac was born, in fulfillment of God’s promise to them, but this led to fears that Ishmael, Abraham’s son with Sarah’s maid Hagar, would become a rival for Isaac. In this morning’s reading we hear how Abraham responded to these fears.
This is Genesis chapter 21, verses 14 through 21.
Scripture Reading
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 about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Do not let me 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? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
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 got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.