God Gets the Last Laugh

Genesis 21:1–7 ESV

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 borne him a son in his old age.”

14 - Introduction: During the first few months of COVID, our family was all at home, as we all did our work from home. But we also had time to do things together, and one of those things was to work on puzzles. One puzzle seemed impossible, ridiculously so. God’s plan of redemption is like a puzzle that gets clearer as time goes on

but some of the things God promises to do are quite well puzzling.

15 - God’s Promises Can Seem Ridiculous.

This story begins by saying that God visited Sarah just as he promised.

Chapter 18 in Genesis - The Angel of the Lord visited Abram and Sarah

God had promised before to Abraham, that through his seed all the nations would be blessed - Problem they had aged to sarah 90, and Abram 100 and not child.

He said that he would visit them again, and would enable Sarah to be able to give birth to a son.

Again two problems - she had been barren her whole life, and 2 she is way past menapause.

Sarah’s response was to laugh at the impossible, and quite ridiculous promise. God, was not too happy that she laughed.

For humans this is a puzzle, but God is awesome at solving puzzles.

New Spring Church - God is a funny God sometimes.

Elijah mocked the prophets of baal when their gods could not set the altar on fire.

God made a Donkey talk to warn Balaam from being killed by an Angel.

God pranked the Philistines god Dagon, when they captured the ark of the Covenant, and put it in the presence of their statue of Dagon.

The Patron Saint of Poop.

What about the donation of the trenching company for our sign.

God always gets the last laugh though, because...

16 - What God Promises, God Does.

Genesis Bridging Contexts

With Isaac finally born, we must take a moment to marvel at the miracle of a child being born from a woman who was barren during her childbearing years and has passed through menopause. In that sense, Sarah’s womb is twice dead in terms of fertility. It is almost as if it is not enough to restore fertility to a woman who was barren; God also waits to do so until after her ovaries have shut down. We become so used to reading about miracles in the pages of the Bible that it is easy to lose an appreciation for how startling they are. In an attempt to recover the wonder, let’s take a moment to observe the responses to such an occurrence in a modern medical context. The details of the following account were reported in the Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1981.

A woman whose ovaries ceased to function almost three years ago has given birth to a healthy 9-pound baby girl, baffling doctors at three hospitals. “It is impossible, impossible,” the 35-year-old woman quoted one of the doctors as saying when he detected a fetal heartbeat. In effect, the birth took place after the woman … had gone through menopause, her doctors said.

The woman had been diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and was told she did not have to worry about getting pregnant. A further complication was that the woman was on hormone medications to ease the symptoms of menopause. These medications typically serve as effective contraceptives. Dr. Jerry Rakoff, director of the Scripps Clinic Medical Group’s Fertility Center had confirmed the diagnosis of another physician but was also the one who eventually discovered that the patient was pregnant.

Rakoff said neither he nor Dr. John Willens, the University Hospital physician who delivered the baby on August 18, had ever heard of birth by a woman with a well-documented case of premature ovarian failure.… Rakoff said that there is no medical therapy to reverse premature ovarian failure. He said that he and Willens believe an egg may have been left after the ovaries shut down.

We can see that even in today’s world of medical sophistication, this is a remarkable obstacle for God to overcome.

John Walton

Abraham and Sarah rightfully recognize that God got the last laugh by naming their child Isaac which means, “He Laughs.” - Isaaq

The Lexham English Bible Chapter 18

12 So Sarah laughed to herself saying, “After I am worn out and my husband is old, shall this pleasure be to me?”

- tisaaq - She laughed

We are preaching on Isaac’s birth during Advent because it points to the Promise of the Messiah… in two ways.

First....

The birth of Isaac is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ Birth. Both Isaac’s and Jesus’s births came with great anticipation; an angelic being (or beings) brought the announcement of the coming births to the parents (Genesis 18:10; Luke 1:30–33); and both births were miraculous, in that Isaac was born when his barren mother was too old to have children (Gen. 18:11), and Jesus’s mother was a virgin (Luke 1:34) (Dugan, “Case for the Old Testament”).

The story of Isaac can be considered a “type” of Jesus within the biblical narrative, as Isaac directly foreshadows key features of who Jesus is, particularly in the picture of death and resurrection (“Isaac Is a Type,” http://m.biblestudyguide.org/articles/resurrection/isaac-is-a-type.htm).

2. A “type” in this sense, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, is “A person or thing (as in the Old Testament) believed to foreshadow another (as in the New Testament)” (Merriam-Webster, s.v. “type [n.],” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/type).

Second....

1. Nicholas T. Batzig writes, “Isaac was a type of Christ in that he was the promised ‘son of Abraham.’ The promises of God were given directly to Abraham with respect to His son (offspring). … The birth and life of Isaac also typify the Redeemer. Just as Isaac’s birth was the result of the supernatural power of God so too was it true of Jesus” (Nicholas T. Batzig, “Old Testament Personal Types and Shadows of Christ,” Feeding on Christ[blog], July 24, 2013, https://feedingonchrist.org/old-testament-personal-types-and-shadows-of-christ/).

- In other words, God does what he promises. If God can miraculously bring about Isaac’s birth, and If on this side of Jesus we know God brought about all of the promises of Jesus - His birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his Kingship, his pouring out the Holy Spirit. - Then God has a good track record of Doing what he promises.

How is God asking for Sarah, Abraham, and Us to respond to his promises?

17 - Faith is Expecting God to Do What He Promises.

1. We are reminded in the opening verses of Genesis 21 that the birth of Isaac came by God alone. Genesis 21:1 reads, “The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised.” Again, this shows how Isaac is a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of the miracle of the virgin birth. Bob Deffinbaugh writes, “Isaac was an ‘act of God’ in a very different sense. He was the result of divine intervention in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, both of whom were too old to bear children. It was the fulfillment of a promise made long before the birth of the child” (Bob Deffinbaugh, “What Happens When Christians Mess Up? (Genesis 21:1–34),” Bible.org, May 12, 2004, https://bible.org/seriespage/22-what-happens-when-christians-mess-genesis-211-34).

This brings us to the word “Hope.” Hope in the Bible is not a wish like we often speak of hope. The word in the Bible is better translated Expect.

In other words, We expect Jesus to be with us to the very end of the age, Why, because he promised it.

We expect Jesus to send us the Holy Spirit - Not as a standard, but out of being expectant.

We expect that Jesus is listening to our prayer. - And we can expectantly receive these general answers.

Yes, Not yet, or No, I have something better in mind.

We can expect him to give us words to say when it is time to give witness.

We can expect him to come again and make all things right.

Why? Because What God promises, God does

Even if it seems ridiculous - God will get the last laugh.

Conclusion: