This is 25 verses 1 through 18. Abraham took another wife whose name was Ketorah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asherim, Ledashim, and Lemumin. The sons of Midian were Ephur, Henoch, Abida, and Eldah. All these were the children of Keturah. Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts. And while he was still living, he sent them away from his son Isaac eastwards to the east country. These are the days of the years of Abraham's life. 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zoar, the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife. After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac, his son, and Isaac settled at Bir Lahairoi. These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth. Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, and Adbel, Nibshem, Mishma, Aduma, Massa, Hadad, Tima, Dator, Nafish, and Kedema. These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names by their villages and by their encampments, 12 princes according to their tribes. These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years. He breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria. He settled over against all his kinsmen. Amen. Let's ask the Lord's help and blessing upon his word. Let's pray. Lord, again, we seek your face. We look to you to help us as we consider these words, which are words you've provided to strengthen us, to build us up in the faith, to remind us of your steadfast faithfulness that culminates in Jesus, your son. So help us, Lord, to be reminded of that this morning and, Lord, to rest in your son's work for us, safe and secure as your people. Remind us, Lord, of your goodness, which we have not earned and which we can never lose. We thank you for your grace. for Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. I've heard it said that for every man there comes a time in life when he begins to contemplate World War II history. And becomes fascinated with a bit of like how that war began and then how each of the countries like gathered together on their respective sides and then how it was fought and how it ended. I'm nearing middle age, you could say, and so I feel that tug already. And actually recently, many of you know, I went on a field trip with my daughter where we were able to spend the night for two nights aboard a World War II aircraft carrier. And so it's a museum as well as an aircraft carrier, and so you're constantly plastered. about on all the walls are all the faithful men who served on the ship, the pilots of the airplanes that are still there, that have been restored. There's a constant reminder of that great conflict, but even more so of the great men and even women who served and who fought and who secured freedom and who cared for what was good and right and true, that generation that is rightfully called the greatest generation. Actually, in this current cultural moment, Many of that generation have departed, or if not most of them. And it's a bit sad in a way, because they are, as those who served, those who gave, those who sacrificed, are models of inspiration, models of Or examples of what it looks like to sacrifice, to care about something more than just entertainment, more than what's right in front of our face. To actually serve and fight for something that is good and true and right, to give their lives even if necessary for others. Now it wasn't a perfect generation, I mean of course not, no generation is. But it was, and remains to this day, a model of inspiration for us, of men and women who serve and who give, and who are faithful in many ways. That's Abraham, by the way. And that's why I say that, to introduce his passage. Because Abraham is a model of faithfulness. He's not perfect. We've seen that in the last handful of chapters. In many ways, he gets things terribly wrong. He falters over and over again, sometimes surprisingly so. He is a man who is filled with folly at times, but he's also a man who is filled with faith. He is dependent upon the God who called him, who brought him to salvation, who gave him blessing when he deserved, just like all of us, just like every son and daughter of Adam, death and destruction. Abraham, like all of humankind, deserved the proper and just wrath of God because of rebellion and sin, yet he received the kindness of God, and he walked in that kindness, he walked in faith, he trusted in the Lord, and in that way, he's set before us as the model of a faithful believer. Warts and all, you could say. That's something we've definitely seen in our study of Abraham. That's something we'll think on a little bit more this morning as we draw his life to a close, or the study of his life to a close here with chapter 25. Two points stand out from this chapter, not only dealing with Abraham, but also dealing with his descendants, men like Isaac and Ishmael, and then other sons who were born to his concubines, or to, say, someone like Hagar, not his sons and children, not through Sarah, but through other women. We'll talk about that. The second, but the two things that stand out from this chapter, or at least the verses we've read here, that helpfully summarize Abraham's life and that bring it to bear upon our own lives are these. First, you have these in your bulletin. First, we see and have understood from Abraham about the undeserved kindness of God that God freely, graciously decided to show to his servant, Abraham. And then the second point we consider here is that God's faithfulness is not just something we experience in the present moment, but it's forward-looking. God's work with Abraham was generational. It's not just God working with this man and then stepping back. It's him working with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all down through the lineage of Abraham, ultimately to the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and then to us, you and I, who are joined to Christ. by faith, that God is faithful to us and undeservedly kind to us just as he was to those who have gone before us, all leading us to both live and die as a people who are secure. So that's what we'll see this morning as we make our way through these first 18 verses. of Genesis 25. So let's begin considering this big, general, overarching description of Abraham's life and ministry as the fruit of God's undeserved kindness, his free grace, his mercy that is lavished upon Abraham not for anything good in Abraham. This is clear from Genesis. Way back in Genesis 12, we see God shower Abraham with goodness, with blessing, by calling him to himself. When Abraham was just one amidst a number of regular run-of-the-mill pagans, worshiping probably a moon god, making sacrifices to such a god, walking in rebellion against the one true God who made heaven and earth, yet God, in great and tremendous mercy, brought him to himself, opened his heart, spoke to him, gave him the faith to believe in the promises God spoke to him, and called him to a marvelous task that would require a continual dependence, faith, and trust in the Lord's direction and care. And that's what Abraham does. God calls him from Ur, and later from Haran, to go to a land that he doesn't even tell him where it is. He just says, set your foot on the path, go out and I'll direct your path, I'll show you where to go. And in great faith, Abraham does just that. We see God showing kindness to Abraham, completely irrespective of Abraham's person. He didn't earn it, he didn't deserve it. He actually, like us, deserves the complete opposite, yet God calls him to himself. And more than that, God preserves him. Abraham's story is one in which God continually is there, sometimes working actively, directly, like even appearing to Abraham, say as the three men who visit him, two angels and God himself, or appearing before him in visions and things like that. Or as the angel of the Lord, you could even say, this is God preserving Abraham actively, but then God also preserves Abraham providentially. That is just in the way he ordinarily works things out, according to his will. And he uses the day-to-day occurrences in Abraham's life, in our life, to preserve his people, to preserve his people. His servant here, Abraham, from much difficulty, from destruction, from death, from harm, from messing up God's work in his life. I mean, all along the way, Abraham has stumbled. And each time, God has been the one who has been faithful to bring him back, yes? but also to intervene, to work so that Abraham doesn't make a full shipwreck of his life and faith. God shows undeserved kindness to him and how he preserves his servant even as he persists in folly and sin. If I were to summarize a thing that I have appreciated most about studying Abraham's life, it's that. that he's a man who's just like you and I. Again, he is faithful or trying to be faithful. He trusts in the promises of God, yet he's still very much a sinner. He is, as Luther said at the same time, justified, made right with God, and yet sinful. And so we see that in the way he lives. I mean, take for one, his and Sarah's concocted plan whereby when they go to a new area where they're not known, Sarah would claim that It's kind of a hat trick. Claim that she is Abraham's sister rather than his wife, and that would save them from... Perhaps any sort of harm about Sarah was very beautiful, and it was an appropriate fear you could say they had that if they went to, say, Egypt, the Pharaoh would desire Sarah to the point that he would have Abraham murdered and then take Sarah to himself. And so they had an appropriate concern on that end, but they worked it out according to their own Their own wisdom with, you could say, an anxiety or a stress went about trying to manipulate plans and details and lie, stretch the truth in order to preserve their own skin. Yet it's God who along the way, even in the midst of their folly and sin, preserves Abraham for himself. I mean, you kind of get a taste of it in this chapter here. I mean, two times here you have other lives of Abraham mentioned. You have Hagar. servant of Sarah. If you remember back earlier in Abraham's story, Sarah got very impatient with God's timing. And so she did what was common in that day to do. She had a maid. Well, why don't Abraham, I give you my maid, and you can raise up children through her, and they'll be my children, and everything will be safe. God's work will continue. This is how God, perhaps, is working things out. They act according to their own knowledge, their own wisdom, and their culture's ways, rather than depending upon the Lord. And it leads to the birth of Ishmael. And yet God is still gracious to this man for marrying another woman, for committing the sin of polygamy. which many of the patriarchs gave way to. Together with this woman who is mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, we read in verse 1 that Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. Now, later on in this chapter, verse 6, we read of the sons of his concubines. Now, in that day, a concubine was sort of like a half-wife. That's what Keturah would have been, the Book of Chronicles. First Chronicles mentions her as one of Abraham's concubines, and perhaps he had others who were sort of half-wives, women on the side that he could raise an offspring through, you know, he could have more children in a house, more people to work the land, you know, a harem like you would see in a king, that he could have these multiple wives or women who would serve as, again, sort of either full wives or half-wives, and that's him. I mean, it's a messed up system. Clearly so. And it does lead to great harm throughout most of biblical history for most of, even the patriarchs, the men who participate in that system. Think of David and Solomon, his son, who on behalf, or due to their many wives, had multiple sad difficulties. It wasn't the wife's fault, it was the sin at play there. And yet God remained faithful, even in the midst of such folly and sin. As a side note here, we would do well to remember that when we come to the Bible to be taught by it, we should always pay attention to the parts of Scripture that command something, rather than the parts of Scripture that simply describe something. So for instance, if we read in the Old Testament, like of Abraham here, that he had multiple wives, and it doesn't seem like God says anything against having multiple wives in Genesis 25, we can't surmise then, okay, it's okay to have multiple wives, or multiple husbands, or whatever. That's not the case. This is merely describing the way things happened and were. They're not prescribing the ways things should be. We do have passages of scripture that are very clear with God's desire for marriage. It's man and woman. One man and one woman and this to be sort of a lifelong thing. It is to be one of monogamy and devotion and care and love just as Christ shows love and care to his church. And the Bible is very clear on what marriage is to be. And so that's just it's a warning for us to to heed that when we go to scripture to be taught by it we ought always pay attention first and foremost to the parts of scripture that command something, that prescribe something from God's own desires and his law, rather than the simple places of scripture that merely describe what has happened. God is very kind to Abraham, his servant, even in the midst of his volume sin and his messed up marital life, and that he gives him fullness. Notice the description of him and his death here in verse 7 and 8. He lived 175 years, and that's a long time. It's not quite as long as some of the older saints in earlier parts of Genesis, but it's still described as a good old age, and he lived to be a ripe old man. full of years, and he was finally gathered to his people. In other words, he lived a good life. He had a full life, and that itself is a gift from God. You see the fullness of his life here, just in description of how fruitful he was, and how many children he raised, and how God was especially gracious to him. And that one child, Isaac, who would carry on his covenant, who would carry on God's work with Abraham, for all of Abraham's people, and ultimately for the good of every nation and tribe and people spread throughout the whole globe. We read in verse 11 that God blessed Abraham's son Isaac after him. In other words, God is showing undeserved kindness to his servant. Again, it's undeserved. He's actively opposed it in many places, and yet the Lord is faithful. And in that way, Abraham stands as a model for Christian pilgrims today. He's a surgeon. He's in a land that ultimately is not his yet, at least. He's put down a few roots. He's purchased a field and a cave. where he will ultimately be laid to rest, where Sarah, his wife, is laid to rest, where others of his descendants will be laid to rest, and that's an anchor point, it's a promise of what will ultimately be true, that the promised land, that land, will one day fully belong to his descendants. But it's not yet that day. Until it does come, he is a pilgrim, a sojourner in that place. Which very much is the way the New Testament describes us as a people of God. As sojourners, as strangers, as exiles in this present evil age. The book of 1 Peter is replete with such language. We are like Abraham. You could even say in many ways we're like Abraham far more than we would be like Israel in the land. And when Israel was in the land, it was given to them in the sense that they owned every square inch of it. They were to take dominion over it. They were to drive out the pagan nations. They were to do those sorts of things as a picture, an example of what heaven itself would be and the kingdom of God requires. But Abraham lives amongst the kingdoms of that world as a sojourner. He is to work with them. He is to, in many ways, seek their good. He is to maintain complete allegiance to the Lord, ultimately, but he must recognize that he is a pilgrim. And he walks by faith, not by sight. He walks as one who must embrace wisdom and how he lives in a world of pagans. He must walk by devotion to the Lord and trust in him. He walks continually in his life, as we've seen in his chapters, as one who is thankful and who worships. When God saves him from distress, when God works a great work for Abraham, it's almost paradigmatic. It's almost cliche that he would build an altar and give things to the Lord, because he recognizes that he is dependent upon the Lord alone for his preservation for his fruitfulness, for his protection, and for his blessing. And so that is very much a model for us as we consider our own lives as those who possess the undeserved kindness of God. This chapter is not just about Abraham though, it's about Abraham's children. And we see the undeserved kindness of God continue on in his children. Now, I couldn't say much about Isaac. We read here that God continued to bless him in verse 11, but we'll save that for the coming chapters ahead. And let's focus on Ishmael. Ishmael has been out of the spotlight for a while, never really been in it, but he is still Abraham's son, if by Hagar rather than Sarah. We read of him that he's there at Abraham's death. He joins with his half-brother Isaac, and they lay Abraham's body to rest in the cave that Abraham purchased. And so Ishmael is there. And then in verse 12, we have a great pivot point in this book. And if you remember back to when we began the book of Genesis, we noted that the book of Genesis is divided into 10 parts. And it's not based on chapters, it's based on generations. And this phrase, this formula you see, that closes out one part of Genesis and introduces another is found here in verse 12. These are the generations of. And then it speaks of the one it will speak. Now sometimes, That section of Genesis covers multiple chapters, right? I mean, Abraham's narratives, these are the generations of Terah. It goes from all the way to the end of chapter 11, all the way to, well, here we are now in chapter 25. But yet Ishmael's portion of the book of Genesis is just a handful of verses here. And it'll begin a new portion in verse 19. These are the generations of Isaac. But we can't not talk about Ishmael. He is one of the other sons of Abraham. He is sent away, if you remember earlier, sent away to live in the wilderness where he will become nations, where he will be very fruitful, just like Abraham was fruitful, where he'll be fruitful, just like Isaac is fruitful. We actually read here of his children and that the sons of Ishmael numbered 12 princes, which in many ways mirror the 12 tribes of Israel. and that he lived in what we would call Arabia, like the part of land between Egypt and Assyria, think of the Arabian Peninsula, and he flourished there. He was one who was blessed by God. He himself was protected by God in multiple instances as a child. As a teenager, as they were cast out and had to wander the desert, the Lord is the one who protected Hagar and protected Ishmael. The Lord is the one who grants fruitfulness to Ishmael because he is the son of Abraham, even if through Hagar. The Lord, in other words, show undeserved kindness to Ishmael of all people. Even though Ishmael will, as we read in verse 16, will be over against all his kinsmen. That's a way of saying he's gonna be a constant thorn in the side of the people of Israel. He's going to be a constant threat to them. And should he not be converted, he will be a constant threat to God's people. He will take sides with the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman, to use the language of Genesis 3. Yet God does show him much kindness, albeit a common kindness, as a way of saying a general benevolence, what we call common grace. God blesses many in this world who aren't ultimately in covenant with him, who aren't or at least in the New Covenant with him, God showers blessing upon the unjust, even as he does the just. Matthew 5 makes that clear. God blesses many men and women with talents, with skills, with fruitfulness, with life, that ultimately aren't believers. Just like Ishmael. God gives much common grace. to men and women in this world. In a very real way, the very existence of someone outside of trust and faith in the Lord is common grace. It's common grace is, yes, it's daily blessing, it's giving food, it's providing a place to live, air to breathe, life, a heart that beats, like that's God's common grace in these gifts that he gives to all people spread throughout this whole world. But in a very real way as well, common grace is a stay of execution. It's a waiting for judgment to come. It's God's mercy in the intervening time until he will demand an account for rebellion and sin. This is how God runs the world now. His common grace is good. If it didn't exist, we would see things being much worse than they are. Wars and rumors of wars would be far more numerous than they are today. I mean, the very reason that there can be moral restraint is the gift of God through common grace to this world. And we see it here even in Ishmael, how God blesses someone who will ultimately even be a thorn in the side of his people. Common grace as well, just as a note, should be a warning. The Lord's kindness is meant to lead to repentance, Romans 2 tells us. That means for any of you here this morning who do not trust in the Lord Christ, who have not humbled yourself and confessed your sins and seized hold of a God who is gracious to you, then you should consider his blessing of you with life right now. with breath, with sustenance, with care, you should consider that as his kindness to you. Yes, give thanks to it, and let it lead you to confess your sins, to repentance, which is a turning away from a life that is self-focused, that is grounded in just what I can get in this world, and turning to God, and trusting in him to define how I should live, and what is good, and what I should seek after, and who I am, and what I should be, It's a turning away from sin and rebellion and turning to God and his word and his grace, which he's shown to you in Jesus Christ. So God is undeservedly kind to every single one of us. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And his steadfast love is not just for the present moment. It is forward-looking. That's our second point, which we can gather from this chapter in many ways that in Abraham's life, God's mercy to him, God's steadfast love showed to him is not just for the years in which he lived. Actually, the vast majority of the years in which he lived, he's waiting for that promise. He's waiting for its at least initial fulfillment. The very report of Abraham is mostly taken up with that time of waiting, waiting for a child. Waiting for some place in the land that God has promised to him. Therefore, the faithfulness of God is looking towards the future. It's looking towards what God will do. not just in Abraham, but in his offspring. That's why the promise is constantly to Abraham that he will bless him, but he'll also bless his offspring, and he'll use his offspring to bring blessing to all the tribes and people and nations of this earth. And we see that first and foremost in Isaac. We read here, verse 11, God blessed Isaac. In other words, the word blessing, when you see it in the Bible, don't think of like something that's, you know, things went good for them. You know, we had a blessed day. It was a blessed encounter or something like that. No, think blessing rather than cursing. Think God being merciful rather than wrathful. When we read of God blessing Isaac, he is giving him what he doesn't deserve. He's sending his mercy that he put on Abraham now through Isaac. And it's gonna ultimately go through Isaac down through the generations to Christ himself, who will be the offspring of Abraham in full, who brings blessing to all who trust in him. We see God blessing Abraham with Isaac in his birth, the supernatural birth in a way. Sarah was very, very old, so was Abraham, very, very old, and yet God gave them a son. God miraculously provided a son. God protects Isaac from Ishmael, who mocks him as a toddler, And more than just making fun of him, actually is a threat to him. Ishmael's a teenager, Isaac's a toddler. God protects him and sends Ishmael off to dwell in the wilderness, to become strong there. God blesses Isaac. We read here that Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines, like Ishmael, which was very, very kind. They didn't... deserve anything. In other words, that it wasn't required that sons of concubines got anything from their father. But Abraham still was kind enough to give them gifts. But he gave all that he had to Isaac. Because Isaac is the one who will carry on the covenant promise. This is Abraham's way of entrusting the treasure that God has given to him and to future generations. To those who will come from Isaac this forward looking faithfulness of God in Abraham. It is first anchored to Isaac, but it clearly is not only concerned with Isaac. He. recognizes that there is a greater fulfillment coming. And we've pointed this out all the way through, even this morning already, that the sons and daughters of Abraham who will receive his blessing are not just his physical sons and daughters. They are his spiritual sons and daughters, those who confess the same faith, those who walk in the same ways, those who are pilgrim people like he was, those who depend upon his ultimate offspring, his son, who was supernaturally born, whom God provided and protected, who lives a full and a very fruitful life, his son, who came born of a virgin to die a cursed death. to be raised again in victorious resurrection in Jesus Christ himself. This is why the Abraham narrative, which we've looked at now for months, each time we look at it, we get a window, we get a peek, we get a sight of the Christ who would come, of our Messiah, the one we're waiting for, the one we ourselves anchor our faith to the same way Abraham did. So we consider what God has worked and done undeservedly in his kindness and his mercy and his faithfulness for Abraham, we cannot but think of Jesus and what God does undeservedly and mercifully to us because of him. The forward-looking faithfulness of God, which preserved a people throughout generations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, on down through the millennia to Jesus, this is what you and I rest in. It's what defines us. It's what makes us who we are as a Christian. We serve, we believe, we trust, we depend upon a God who is faithful. We have forgiveness of sins. Why? Because he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. We have security in Christ because he has come and died the death we deserve to die and he is the one who lived the life we were supposed to live, and he is the one who now walks in newness of life by virtue of his resurrection, which he gives to us when we trust in him. That means this can all culminate for us in Abraham's life, even considering the undeserved kindness of God to us as we walk and live and die as a people who are secure. In many ways, this is the main testimony of Abraham's life here, that God, in loving us, in blessing us rather than cursing us, that God, in showing undeserved kindness to us, does so to secure us for himself. He gives us safety. He gives us peace with himself and each other. He brings us into a kingdom that cannot be shaken. He makes us members of a family that he himself protects and cares for. brings us into a body, the very body of Christ, which he is building, which nothing can break apart, nothing can ever tear us under, that he has worked in each of us. The security, that we are safe with him. I mean, think about it, the thing that you were made for is communion with God. And the fruit of sin, is a breaking of that communion so that you cannot exist safely in communion with God in the presence of the divine, of the Lord who is holy in might and power. But because of Abraham's greater son, because of Jesus, who came for you in fulfillment of all of God's promises to Abraham and to every promise he made to all of his people throughout the whole Old Testament, because of him, that communion can now be safe. because your sins are laid upon Christ, are taken by him. That which you have earned for your rebellion, he has absolved and taken away. Therefore, now God is with you, and he is with you in grace, and you are secure, and you are safe in his presence. This is how we all live, and even face death, with the security that God is good to us, not for anything in us. We are undeserving, just as Abraham was. but because of his mercy, which he chose freely to show upon us. This should bring about in us a heart that is humble and thankful. In many ways, just like his servant Abraham, a heart that is dependent and devoted, that continues in repentance and faith. I say humble because, as we read in our New Testament reading, The story of the prodigal son, which is well known to us all mostly, is a story that speaks of pride, and that warns against Isaac's descendants as those who will think that God has already given to them everything, and therefore they are better than others. If we consider how God has been undeserving in his kindness to us, that should not puff us up. and should grant to us and give to us a humble attitude, a humble heart, because we are where we are, safe and secure in the presence of God, longing for heaven, knowing that should we depart this life, right this moment, we will be with the Lord. That is not in any way because of our goodness, because of our merit, because of what we have earned. It is, as Abraham in this narrative has told us all along the way, solely anchored to the undeserved kindness of God. It is ours in Jesus Christ. And so that is a good and fitting conclusion to Abraham's story. And I would wager to say Abraham would be happy to know that is the fitting conclusion to his story. That God is gracious, that you and I should recognize and receive and rest secure and safe in his undeserved grace. Amen.