Genesis - Isaac

 Genesis

Isaac (Genesis 21:1 – 28)
● The Child of Promise
 Isaac must have known his entire life that he was the child of promise, not simply of human will. While the other children around him had younger mothers who would bear many children his mother would look at him every time she picked him up and say, “I never would have dreamed that the Lord would give me a child so late in life. I am so blessed!”
 Isaac's conception and birth were natural (not divinely conceived like Christ) but it was the Lord, in His power and as a result of his promise, who made the miracle of these two old barren bodies to create this wonderful child that he had promised them. The Lord's power even went so far as to enable the aging Sarah to nurse Isaac just as a younger woman could. (Genesis 21:7)
 How powerful would it be, what kind of direction would you have in life, if you knew that you were chosen from birth? Specially designed to do God's will. That God has a special and unique plan to you, for which he specifically created you? How would that change your view of yourself and the day to day life you lead?
■ “But God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles...” Galatians 1:15
■ “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One his loves.” Ephesians 1:4-6
● The Living Sacrifice (Genesis 22:1-19)
 Isaac was a young man when his father led him to the top of a mountain, faithfully following his father to make a sacrifice to God. He was old enough to ask questions, and old enough to help with the work.
 We know that this area where Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed is very near the area, if not the exact same place, that Christ would be sacrificed years later. So here again we see God foreshadowing what he was yet going to do. Things may be mysterious or surprising to us, but they are not mysterious or surprising to our God!
 After Isaac built the alter, his own father tied him up and bound him to it. Abraham may have been crying, he may have told Isaac why he was doing this, we don't know. But we know this, Isaac learned that His life belonged to the Lord. 
 What an effect that would have on someone, when they are still young to learn that he is to be faithful to God regardless of the inconvenience, regardless of the pain. He should look faithfully to the Lord saying, “My life is yours. If you want it, take it, use it, set me aside or kill me, not my will but yours be done!”
■ “'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'” Mark 14:36
■ “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1
● A wife for Isaac (Genesis 24)
 Abraham sends his servant back to his relatives to get a wife for Isaac because he is currently living among the Canaanites.
 Why would Abraham do that? Is he a racist? What would inspire that decision.
■ The Canaanites had already defiled themselves with idols and had adopted strange religious practices that were against the ways of God.
■ Abraham did not want his son to be tempted to take on their strange practices, or worshiping the silly little statues that they made, rather than praising the God who made them.
■ There is great wisdom in this for us as believers. We are not to be “evangelically dating.” When choosing a spouse for ourselves we don't want to be caught in a situation where we are raising our kids to know the Lord, and meanwhile, the other parent trying to teach them to live as worldly, fleshly people.
■ “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14
 God provided a wife for Isaac. A faithful and kind woman who was not polluted by idolatry. The temptation may have been great for Isaac to choose his own wife from among the Canaanites because it was “right now,” but he didn't settle for what was right before him. Rather he waited for the Lord's provision and listened to his father's wisdom. As a result Isaac was richly blessed by his marriage to Rebekah.
● Two Baby Boys (Genesis 25:19-34)
 Rebekah was unable to get pregnant and so Isaac made the right choice and started praying to the Lord, rather than trying to fix the problem himself.
■ Genesis 25:21b says: “The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.” The Lord answers prayer! He hears us and listens and in his wisdom he answers prayer. He does not always answer “Yes” and give us what we want, but in His wisdom answers every prayer and question that we ask of Him, in His time!
■ “And my God will meet all of your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
 God will never cease to surprise us! His plan is always amazing and wonderful. He granted them their wish but surprises Isaac and Rebekah in a new way:
■ As long as we know the first son was the recipient of the largest inheritance when the father died. There was great blessing and responsibility in store for the first born son of any family. 
■ However, God repeatedly informs us that “His ways are not our ways.” And God chooses the younger son (Jacob) to rule over the older son (Esau) before they are even born! God makes his choices and they are very rarely the choices that we would make, but God can take ordinary, or even less than ordinary people, and make them great because He is God, and the misfit and the underdog seem to have a special place in his plan. 
■ “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so tha tno one may boast before him.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-29
● Successful Isaac
 Isaac trusted in the Lord and the Lord gave him everything that was promised to him.
 He became so powerful that people began to be afraid of him and even Abimelech asked him to leave the region because he felt like he posed too great a threat.
 Isaac continued to obey God and continued to live in the place of blessing overcoming all obstacles. 
 It would be easy to think that Isaac did not serve as large and magnificent a purpose in God's great plan. His life may not have seemed as exciting as the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, or Paul. But he faithfully completed the task that God had for him and obeyed the Lord, trusting him for everything that He had promised. And he was richely blessed.

Take Home
Isaac was the child of the promise of God. Through what seemed to be impossible circumstances the Lord brought Isaac out of Sarah's womb. That was the identity that followed him throughout his entire life. He is never shown in Scripture as trying to “prove” that he is the chosen one. He seems to just accept it and act in it, obeying God's will and doing what he knows best. What a wonderful picture of resting in our faith in the Lord.

“Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”
Galatians 4:31