Delayed Does Not Mean Denied
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Genesis 21
Context
Context
Last week, we looked at how Abraham made some questionable decisions as him and Sarah went into Gerar. He purposefully misled them into believing that Sarah was his sister instead of his wife, which almost led to a disaster on several fronts.
What was amazing to see though, was that God was faithful, even when Abraham wasn’t. God intervened and did not allow Abimelech to do anything that could not be undone.
Tonight, we will see that God is always faithful, especially when it comes to Him doing what He said He would do.
Let’s read Chapter 21 together.
****Read Genesis 21.
Content
Content
1 And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.
The Hebrew word for “visited” doesn’t mean God just checked in on Sarah like a friend stopping by. It carries the sense of God actively intervening, taking decisive action on someone’s behalf. God didn’t just show up, He did exactly what He promised He would do.
Look at that phrasing:
“as He had said,”
“as He had spoken.”
Think about the placement of that verse. By this point, Sarah had waited decades for a child. She'd laughed in disbelief when told she'd bear a son (Genesis 18:12). She and Abraham had tried to manufacture the promise themselves through Hagar. Abraham had even wondered aloud if Ishmael might be the one God meant all along. Chapter after chapter, the promise seemed stalled, maybe even forgotten. And then Genesis 21:1 functions like the narrative's exhale: after all that waiting, all that doubting, all that human maneuvering — God did exactly what He said He would do. This is the anchor for our whole study tonight: delayed is not denied. God's faithfulness isn't measured by our timeline; it's proven in His follow-through.
Sarah gives birth to Isaac just as God had proclaimed. Abraham was 100 years old when he finally got to see this promised fulfilled, but it came nonetheless.
These first 7 verses are full of joy. Abraham and Sarah get their promised son; God’s plan seems to be moving forward as planned; this nation of descendants that God promised unto Abraham is now underway.
But the chapter doesn’t stay joyful for long. Once Isaac is born and weaned, Sarah sees Ishmael “scoffing” at during a great feast that Abraham had thrown for his newborn baby boy.
8 So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.
9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing.
And as a result, Sarah tells Abraham:
10 Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.”
Vs 11 tells us that “was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son.”
Could you imagine? Though this is not Sarah’s son, it is Abraham’s son. He loved Ishmael. That phrase literally means that it physically hurt him. It troubled him deeply that Sarah wanted Ishmael to go.
But once again, we see God intervening. He comes to Abraham and says:
12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called.
Well that’s not what he wanted to hear from the Lord.
We often want God to make hard decisions easier. Sometimes, instead, He makes them clearer — while leaving the weight of them fully intact. Obedience doesn't always feel resolved. Sometimes it just feels heavy and right at the same time.
Now notice that Ishmael hadn’t done anything wrong. This was not his fault. This was not Hagar’s fault. If anything, this was the work of Sarah and Abraham. She dreamed it up, and he followed through with it. But regardless of who is to blame, there can be no confusion that the son who will be heir to God’s plan will be Isaac, not Ishmael. For this reason, it has come time for Hagar and Ishmael to part ways from the rest.
That’s just hard to swallow isn’t it? It almost seems as if Ishmael is just viewed here as collateral damage, or some loose end that needs to be tied up so that the “real” story with Isaac can continue. But God pushes back hard on that understanding of this. That is not the case at all. His sovereign choice to carry His covenant through Isaac doesn't mean He abandons or discards Ishmael.
Notice what God says about Ishmael. In the very same breath that He tells Abraham Ishmael has to go, He also says that Ishmael will be taken care of.
13 Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman, because he is your seed.”
This reveals something important about how God operates: His "yes" to one plan doesn't require a "no" to everyone else. God's capacity to bless is bigger than our either/or categories, and we see that promise proven out immediately in the wilderness scene that follows.
Hagar and Ishmael leave as instructed, but at some point in their wilderness journey they run out of water. It is to the point that Hagar truly believes Ishmael is going to die, so she places him under a bush, no doubt to get him out of the sun, and the she goes a decent ways off so that she does not have to sit there and watch her son die. In the process of this, God intervenes yet again.
17 And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.
Not where he should be. Not back in Abraham's household where he "belonged." Right there — dying of thirst under a bush, an outsider by every measure of the covenant story. God doesn't wait for Hagar and Ishmael to get back on track before He pays attention to their cries; He meets them exactly in the mess they're actually in.
Yet again, we see the Lord reassuring us that He always does what He says He will do. He told Hagar back in Chapter 16 that she would make Ishmael into a great nation, but here she is worrying in this moment that he is going to die. Like Sarah and Abraham had to wait for some time to see the promise fulfilled in their lives, Hagar is now in the same boat. God’s Word will come to pass, but it will take some time. He reassures Hagar of this promise that He made to her in vs 18, and then something amazing happens:
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 lad a drink.
Now let me ask you a question, do you think God just made this well appear out of nowhere, or do you think that well had been there for years?
I believe it has been there all along. God knew that at this moment Hagar and Ishmael would be out here in the middle of the desert and that they would need some water. All of a sudden, God opens Hagar’s eyes to see what was there all along.
Isn’t that amazing? The provision wasn't created in that moment — her ability to perceive it was. Grief and panic had narrowed her vision until she could see nothing but the crisis in front of her. Sometimes what we need isn't a miracle of new creation, but a miracle of clarified sight.
From there, the chapter shifts gears back to Abraham.
We know from Chapter 20 that Abraham is dwelling in Abimelech’s land right now. Notice it says in vs. 22:
22 And it came to pass at that time that Abimelech and Phichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do.
It seems as if that at the very same moment Hagar and Ishmael are blessed with a well of water, that Abraham and Abimelech are also sitting down having a conversation about a well of water.
25 Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had seized.
26 And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, nor had I heard of it until today.”
Abimelech can tell that the hand of the Lord is upon Abraham, so he is there to make sure that if Abraham continues to grow larger as a people, that he won’t at some point turn against him, seeing that he has been kind and gracious to him.
Abraham agrees to this, but there is one thing that does need to be cleared up. Abraham and his people dug a well. This is a massive endeavor for them. They did not have the machinery and tools that we have at our disposal today. Furthermore, they are in the middle of the desert. As we have already seen with Hagar, without water, one could easily die. If Abimelech wants Abraham to be faithful to him, then Abraham has to know that he is going to be able to continue to dwell there without any more complications over these wells.
Once they have had a moment to talk this through, they both agree that moving forward, this well will be Abraham’s well.
It is striking that on both sides of this account, we are dealing with wells. Throughout scripture, water often symbolizes the Holy Spirit of God. In this particular chapter, we see both those within the covenant and those without who are restored by the wells.
I think this shores up the love of God beautifully. It does not matter whether you were raised in church or not; it doesn’t matter what skin color you have; it doesn’t matter where you are from. Anyone can be saved by the grace of God. Anyone who is willing to call of the name of the Lord can and will be saved.
Commitment
Commitment
There's a well-known story about a particular species of Chinese bamboo that farmers plant, water, and fertilize faithfully — and for the first year, nothing happens. No stem, no shoot, not even a crack in the soil. The second year, they keep watering and fertilizing it. Still nothing visible. The third year, the same. The fourth year, the same. To anyone watching, it looks like a wasted seed, or worse, like the farmer is a fool for continuing to invest in something that shows zero signs of life.
Then, in the fifth year, something remarkable happens: the bamboo shoots up as much as 80 feet in just five or six weeks.
Here's the part that matters most: the bamboo didn't grow 80 feet in five weeks. It grew 80 feet in five years. For those first four years, while nothing was visible above the ground, an enormous root system was quietly forming underground — strong enough and deep enough to support the explosive growth that everyone eventually sees and admires. If the farmer had dug it up in year two or three to check on it, convinced it was dead or that he'd been forgotten, he would have killed the very thing that was about to prove him faithful for waiting.
That's Sarah's story in Genesis 21. For decades, it looked like nothing was happening. No child, no visible sign that God's promise was doing anything at all — just years of waiting, a laugh of disbelief, and a detour through Hagar that made things messier, not clearer. But God wasn't absent during those quiet years; He was still at work, right on schedule by a timeline nobody else could see. And then, in one verse — "the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken" — the promise broke the surface all at once.
It's the same picture with Hagar and the well in the wilderness. The water wasn't created the moment Hagar needed it — it's likely it had been there all along, hidden until God opened her eyes to see it. The provision was already growing, already present, long before it was visible to the person who needed it most.
So if you're in a season right now where you've been faithfully praying, faithfully waiting, and there's nothing to show for it — no visible shoot breaking the surface — that doesn't mean nothing is happening. It might mean God is doing the unseen work first: the deep root system of a promise that will, in His timing, break through all at once. Delayed is not denied. Sometimes it's just still underground
Prayer points to guide your time:
Thank God for His follow-through.
Bring your current waiting to Him.
Ask for open eyes.
"Pray for someone who feels "outside."
Ask for courage like Abraham's.
