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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions, hi this is Pastor Tom and we are in week
5 of our look together to the book of Genesis beginning in chapter 21 going
through chapter 25 and this is it today, Genesis chapter 21. This is what you've
been waiting for, it's a boy. The baby comes into Abraham's life and Sarah's
life.

Listen to Genesis 21 beginning in verse 1 and down through verse 8. "Now the
Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said and the Lord did for Sarah what he had
promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age.

At the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son
Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old Abraham circumcised him as
God had commanded him.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said,
'God has brought me laughter and everyone who hears, everyone who hears about
this will laugh with me. ' And she added, 'Who would have said to Abraham that
Sarah would nurse children?

Yet I have borne him a son in his old age. ' The child grew and was weaned and
on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast and he should have. "
What a promise to celebrate.

God did it in their old age. Abraham's old age, Sarah's old age. God did it.

This is a promise fulfilled. You do not feel like Abraham worked things out so
this could happen or Sarah planned things just right. You just look at this and
say, "Wow, God did this.

" This incredible miracle of God is a miracle of God's promise and it's a
miracle that teaches you and I about how God's promise works in our lives. Four
things about God's promise in your life and in my life based on these verses.
Number one, promises always come by grace.

The Bible says, "The Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said. " I don't
deserve, you don't deserve any of God's promises. The promise of salvation, the
promise of growth, the promise of God's blessings, the promise of what he's
doing in your daily life.

You don't deserve those promises. They come by grace. The grace of God's gift.

In the New Testament the word grace and the word gift, they're the same word. It
is the gift of God. It is the grace of God that he gives to us.

So don't try to earn or deserve one of God's promises because they always come
by grace. The Lord is gracious to Sarah but he's also gracious to me. He's
gracious to you.

How does he want to be gracious to you today? Through his promise revealed in
your life, his promise of your own growth, his promise of the fruit of the
Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control revealed in your life. How does God's promise want to
show itself by grace in your life today?

Promises always come by grace. Second thing you and I learn about promises is
that they always come on time. This promise came in their old age but then the
Bible says just as God had promised.

It's interesting for all they're worrying, Abraham and Sarah have been worrying
for chapter after chapter now about whether the promise is going to come true.
For all of their worrying, God had told them in advance exactly when it was
going to happen in their old age and that's exactly when it does happen in their
old age. For all my worrying, for all your worrying, for all the plans that we
have that are sometimes in opposite direction to God's promise because we want
to work it out more quickly, the truth is promises always come on time.

Now not my timing. I always want them more quickly but God's timing. God knows
exactly the right time and this was exactly the right time for Isaac to be born.

Promises always come by grace. They always come on time and a third thing about
promises, promises always come with joy. Of course they do.

It's a promise. It's a promise fulfilled in our lives so it brings about
incredible joy in our lives and Abraham and Sarah, they named him Isaac.
Laughter, a constant reminder of how ridiculous this reality of God's promise
revealing himself in their lives really was.

They moved, last week remember we looked at Abraham and Sarah and they were
laughing at God, not expecting that this promise could ever become true. They
moved from laughing at God to laughing with God. That's not a bad movement in
faith.

Maybe a faith goal in your own life could move from laughing at God that he
would do something so great in your life to beginning to laugh with God, the
incredible joy that he has done this. And I love what Sarah says about this.
"Everyone who hears will laugh with me.

" It wasn't just her laughter. It was everyone. Everyone's going to rejoice in
this.

The joy is spread even to today, even now. You and I read this and we have a
smile on our faces because of what God did and that's what God wants to do
through your life. He wants to work in your life to bring joy into other
people's lives because of what he is doing.

That is how God spreads joy. Promises, they always come by grace. They always
come on time.

They always come with joy and there's a fourth thing you and I need to remember
about promises. They always come with instructions. The promise came into
Abraham and Sarah's life but there were some difficult instructions to follow
immediately.

Here's what the Bible says in Genesis chapter 21 verses 9 to 13. "But Sarah saw
that the son whom Haggar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, mocking
Isaac. And she said to Abraham, 'Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for
that slave woman's son will never, never share in the inheritance with my son
Isaac.

' The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God
said to him, 'Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen
to whatever Sarah tells you because it is through Isaac that your offspring will
be reckoned.

I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also because he is your
offspring. '" We're going to talk tomorrow about how God blessed Ishmael but
today focus on the fact that some difficult decisions had to be made. There was
battling going on in the household because now Abraham had two sons who seemed
to be the heir and so one had to move out and it distressed Abraham greatly.

There is great joy when God's promises come into our lives but there is also
sometimes, there's also sometimes a measure of distress. The distress that comes
when I have to let things go in my life that have nothing to do with that
promise. Maybe even good things.

I'm not talking about sinful things. Maybe even good things in your life but
there's not room for everything in your life that you want to fit and so
sometimes some things have to be let go of. Sometimes some decisions have to be
made that are difficult in order for that promise to be lived out in your life.

You might have to move somewhere else. You don't really want to move but you
have to in order to fulfill that promise. You may have to let go of some
material possession.

You don't want to but you have to in order to fulfill that promise. You may have
to in your own life let go of some hobby, some thing that you enjoy doing but
there's no room for it anymore in your life because you're living out that
promise and that can be distressing but on the other side of that distress there
is there's the joy. There's the Isaac.

There's the laughter. Remember promises always come with instructions but they
also always come by grace. They always come on time and they always come with
joy.

So what do you focus on? You don't focus on what you might have to let go of.
You focus on what you have now in your life and I want to end with that
question.

You look at your life right now. Are there any little little Isaacs in your life
right now? I asked that question earlier as we studied through this incredible
book of Genesis.

Some Isaacs in your life where you look and you just smile you almost laugh that
God could do that. God could do that in one of your relationships. God could do
that in your ministry.

God could do that in a business in your life. God could do that through a growth
in your character. Are there any places in your life, little Isaacs, promises
that you are living that you felt impossible?

Just the fact that you and I know Jesus Christ as Savior. That's a little Isaac.
That's an impossible promise that I could get to know God but through the cross
through the resurrection you and I are invited into a relationship with Christ
and we enjoy it and there should be days when I just smile at that and those
little Isaacs in your life as you watch them grow they should be living
reminders of the graciousness, the faithfulness, the power of God.

Those little Isaacs you get out the photo album and you look at them and you
don't say awe like A-W-W-W the little cute awe instead it's the word awe A-W-E
an awe filled heart that God would do something like that in your life and God
fulfilled his promise to Abraham and to Sarah. Now you want one more thing to
smile at before we end today's look at chapter 21? Feel free to laugh as I read
Hebrews 6 15.

The Bible says in Hebrews 6 15 Abraham waited patiently for this to happen and
he received what God had promised. Patiently you've walked through this
together. We've walked through it together these last few weeks.

He was anything but patient. He was pushing ahead. He had his own plans.

This is a great reminder to me of what real patience is. Patience is not
perfection. Patience is not being something not human.

Eastern mysticism. Patience is enduring. Patience is not never failing.

Patience means even when I fail I get up and I finish the race. I endure. That's
God's kind of patience.

So let's take a minute today to pray together and as we pray let's pray about
God's promise in your life and I encourage you to pray God thank you for this
little Isaac. This thing you've done in my life that only you could do. Help me
to see your grace.

Help me to see your timing. Help me to rejoice with you. And Lord for those
things where I am waiting, where it hasn't happened as yet, give me patience.

Not perfection but patience. Help me to get up again and to endure in hoping and
trusting and counting on you. I ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. Join us tomorrow right after in chapter 21 Abraham has his greatest
victory. In chapter 22 he faces his greatest test.