“All in the Family” Summer Sermon Series — As the Desert Turns: The Rescue of Hagar and Ishmael

Our Summer Sermon Series “All in the Family” continues this Sunday with an episode called As the Desert Turns: The Rescue of Hagar and Ishmael.

Genesis 21:8-21 — In a desolate desert, a new nation is born.

Sarah demands Hagar and Ishmael be sent away, fearing for Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham hesitates, but God reassures him: Isaac carries the covenant, yet Ishmael won’t be abandoned. Cast into the wilderness with dwindling supplies, Hagar fears her son will die of thirst—until a divine intervention reveals a hidden well and renews God’s promise. Ishmael survives, growing up under God’s protection to forge his own destiny in the desert.

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, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him 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 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.

Genesis chapter 21, verses 8:21

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