"Our faith journey is not so much a maze as a labyrinth, which has only one meandering path to the middle. It may feel like we’re taking the long way, sometimes we feel far from our destination of holiness, but every step we take in faith and even in doubt leads us closer to God’s heart. There are no wrong turns, no dead-ends, no mistakes from which we can never recover. Only a sacred path to walk arm in arm, communing heart to heart with God." Jen first preached this sermon at St Denys in June 2026, the Bible passage is Genesis 21:1-21

The Moment You Realise You've Made A Mistake

Who remembers the character in the picture ? This is Wiley Coyote, the inventive but hapless enemy of the Roadrunner. In the cartoons Wiley was always thinking up new and increasingly outlandish ways to catch this very fast bird, but his plans always seemed to go wrong and invariably ended up with him becoming the victim of the trap he had laid for the bird. This picture captures perfectly the moment when Wiley realises it’s all gone wrong and he’s about to suffer the consequences of his mistake. And it’s funny because we can all relate, can’t we? We’ve all experienced that moment when we’ve been merrily trolling along, carrying out some plan that seemed sensible when suddenly we realise this is not a good idea!

I wonder if Abraham had a similar look on his face at this family party we read about today that ended, as some family parties do, in a blazing row that had been brewing for years.

God had promised a son to the elderly and seemingly infertile Sarah and Abraham. But he seemed to be taking his time in keeping his promise and they grew impatient. So they took matters into their own hands and decided that Abraham should have an son with Sarah’s maidservant instead. It had seemed a sensible plan to them at the time, although as onlookers we wince and cover our eyes, foreseeing the issues this could produce. And sure enough, before the child is even born, tensions between Sarah and Hagar mount.

 By the time of our reading today, 14 years have passed since Ishmael – the son of Hagar the maidservant and Abraham – was born. Things in the home have been extremely uncomfortable, with constant tension between Sarah and Hagar and her son. Even when, miracle of miracles, Sarah gives birth to her own son, Isaac, the tension continues, erupting finally at this family party when Ishmael teases Isaac, maybe not for the first time. Sarah finally snaps and tells Abraham that Hagar and Ishmael have to go.

 And I wonder if this is the point at which Abraham finally realises the awful consequences of the mistake he and Sarah made 14 years ago. Isaac is the promised child through whom God will fulfil his covenant with Abraham. Ishmael is not. This circle can never be squared and now there will be pain. The pain of parting with his son, Ishmael who he loved, the pain of a broken family, the pain of knowing all this could have been avoided if he and Sarah had just trusted in God and waited.

 I think to some extent we can all identify with this pain. Sometimes we choose actions that seem reasonable and defendable at the time, but soon things unravel, leaving hurt and pain for us and others in their wake. We find ourselves lamenting ‘If only…’ But now it’s too late and we must live with the consequences of our actions just like Abraham and Sarah had to live with the consequences of theirs.

How does God respond…#1

So where is God in all this? How does he react to Abraham and Sarah’s mistake? How does he respond to OUR mistakes? What’s his response when we, through impatience or brokenness choose our own way over his plans? Let’s look at how God dealt with Sarah and Abraham.

 Firstly, and most importantly, God keeps his promises. Even though Abraham and Sarah had not trusted that God was able, God keeps his covenant.

‘Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him’.

 Some might say that God would have been perfectly within his rights to change his mind and decide to work with another couple who had more faith! But God had chosen Abraham and made his covenant with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants and nothing can ever stop God’s purposes. Ever. Not then, not now.

 God’s purpose through his promise to Abraham was to create a holy nation, set apart for God to model to all the other nations what it looked like to live in relationship with God. And more than that, for His people to draw the other nations to God to be blessed too. Over the next 2000 years sometimes that worked out and other times it didn’t – you can read the Old Testament to find out more. But lying underneath that layer of the plan was a deeper, even more beautiful plan. And this was that, in time, a great, great, great, great x 100 grandson of Abraham would embody the perfect expression of God’s good purposes prevailing.

This man would overcome evil and death and make it possible for the whole of creation to be reconciled to God. This was Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection speak forgiveness for all our mistakes and pronounce blessing over our lives. It would be 2000 years after Abraham that Jesus was born, but God kept his promise to Abraham to give him a son and ultimately to bless the whole world through his descendants. So first of all we see that even when humans make mistakes and fail to trust, God is faithful to his promises and his purposes can never be thwarted.

How does God respond… #2

 Secondly, when we mess up, God is compassionate, comforts us and continues to guide us. The passage tells us how Abraham was distressed when Sarah asked him to banish Hagar and Ishmael from the family home. God sees his anguish and says to him,

 “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of your maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

 I love God’s grace here – that he doesn’t say, ‘I told you so’ or ‘Well, you’ve brought this on yourself.’ But he also doesn’t beat around the bush about what needs to be done. The home will never be a happy place while Hagar and Ishmael are at loggerheads with Sarah and Isaac. There can be no peace that way. God responds in truth but with comfort and reassurance and a promise to look after Hagar and her son.

  And we can expect the same treatment from God when we come to him with our imperfect choices and the pain that has caused. These things are never a surprise to God because he knows we are human. God will never rub our nose in it or look away in disappointment; he will always open his arms of love and draw us close, whispering words of hope and reassurance, and guiding us in the next steps of healing, however hard that will be. God never gives up on us or walks away. He is faithful and compassionate. Always. No matter what.

 We see this in this passage through the way he meets with Hagar and Ishmael once they have been sent away into the desert. God hears their cries of despair, responds, gives encouragement, provides the water they need and reiterates his promise to make Ishmael into a great nation too. This is a God who hears the cries of the outcast and the wronged and reaches out in love.

 And it’s no coincidence that 2000 years later we find Jesus also reaching out to the marginalised, bringing healing to the outcast and encouragement to the despairing. God’s purpose has always been to find the lost ones and draw them to himself – to bring all people and all creation to wholeness in Jesus.

Colossians 1:19-20 says:

‘For in him (Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether in heaven or on earth, by making peace through the blood of his cross. ‘

God's Purpose for Us

So what about God’s purpose for us? I think sometimes we can overcomplicate this and get ourselves into a bit of a pickle – especially if we’ve been brought up with the theology that God has a very particular plan for your life, with everything mapped out – from where you’ll live to who you’ll marry and everything in between. When we hold this belief it can lead to anxiety about having ‘missed’

God’s call on our lives or having gone down the ‘wrong’ path and somehow messed up God’s plans.

 But God’s purpose for me and for you is less about what we DO and more about who we ARE. God purposes for us to draw nearer and nearer to him in love, to know deep down how loved we are, and for that certainty to transform our hearts.

And whatever actions we perform out of that transformed heart are good – whether they be caring for others physically, writing policies that keep people safe, performing beautiful music to lift the souls of others, building houses to keep people warm and dry. It doesn’t matter what job you have or where you live. It’s the transformed heart that is our true calling, the level of closeness to God, rather than the specifics of what we DO.

 And the great thing about that is that  nothing can thwart God’s purpose for your life. Whatever life situation you find yourself in, whatever your abilities or mobility levels, if you’re where you thought you would be or if life has taken an unexpected turn you can ALWAYS draw nearer to Him in love, which always transforms our hearts to be beat more in tune with His huge, faithful, compassionate heart.

 Even if, like Abraham we have made what felt like a big mistake, God’s purpose to draw us closer and bring us, with the whole of creation into unity with Him through Christ Jesus can never be thwarted.

Labyrinth not Maze    

We can sometimes mistakenly think about our faith journey as a maze – a puzzle we have to work out where there are wrong turns and dead-ends and MAYBE we’ll make it to the end if we do everything right.

 But because of God’s faithfulness to his promises and his compassion on us, our faith journey is much more like a labyrinth, which has only one meandering path to the middle. It may feel like we’re taking the long way, sometimes we feel far from our destination of holiness, but every step we take in faith and even in doubt leads us closer to God’s heart. There are no wrong turns, no dead-ends, no mistakes from which we can never recover. Only a sacred path to walk arm in arm, communing heart to heart with God.