Introduction:
A. The story is told of two little boys who were waiting for breakfast one morning.
1. As their mother was preparing some pancakes, the boys began to argue loudly over who would get the first one from the griddle.
2. Their mother saw an opportunity to teach a lesson.
3. She said, “If Jesus were sitting here, he would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.’”
4. The older of the two boys turned to the other and said, “Okay, I’ll let you be Jesus this morning.”
B. Most of us want to be like Jesus, but we really don’t want to patiently wait for anything! Right?
1. We don’t like to wait in traffic. We don’t like to wait in lines at the store.
2. We go to fast food restaurants, because we don’t want to wait for the food to be prepared.
3. We don’t want to wait for our next raise or until we save, we just charge it.
4. We are a people who are accustomed to instant gratification.
C. The ABC show 20/20 once did an experiment with some children.
1. They wanted to see how the kids would do with waiting and self-control.
2. The children were given two choices: They could have a single cookie right now, or they could wait until the reporter ran an errand, and then they could have two cookies.
3. Some of the children grabbed the single cookie immediately, but others waited up to 20 minutes to receive their two cookies.
4. Those who waited used all kinds of tactics to sustain themselves.
a. Some covered their eyes so that they would not see the cookies set before them.
b. Others rested their heads on their arms, talked to themselves, sang and even tried to sleep.
5. The follow-up study revealed that those who were able to wait and forgo the instant gratification kept the same temperament throughout their adolescence.
6. The more impulsive kids who gave into instant gratification were more stubborn, indecisive and stressed.
7. How good are you at waiting? Could you have held out for the 2 cookies?
D. As we continue our series on Avoiding Life’s Biggest Mistakes, we want to talk today about Avoiding the Mistake of Impatience.
1. As we try to walk a life of faith, waiting on God is one of the hardest parts.
2. Trusting in God’s promises, and waiting for God to show us the way is very difficult.
3. It’s not that we don’t want God to act on our behalf, it’s just that we want to Him to act in our timing not His; and in our way, not His.
4. We want God to hurry up. Right?
E. Our good/bad example for this lesson comes out of the Old Testament and comes from the life of a couple named Abraham and Sarah.
1. The part of their story we will look at today is found in Genesis 16.
I. Their Story
A. How many of us have ever made an important decision without first consulting the Lord?
1. We all probably do, and far to often.
2. But why?
a. Maybe it’s because we don’t believe enough in prayer.
b. Maybe it’s because we’re lazy.
c. Or maybe it’s because we think that God is too busy to get involved in our mundane little problems.
3. I don’t know why we do. All I know is that we tend to make way too many decisions without first looking to the Lord for wisdom and direction.
4. We sometimes make decisions about marriage, about business, and about our futures, and we don’t stop and to ask the all important question, “What does GOD want me to do? How does the Lord of heaven and earth feel about this?”
5. Maybe we don’t ask God because we want to call the shots! We want to control our own destinies! We want to do what we want to do.
B. I believe that this is exactly where Abraham and Sarah went wrong in Genesis 16.
1. The very first sentence of verse one sets the tone, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.”
2. God had promised Abram several times that he would have children.
3. In Genesis 12:7, he said, “to you AND YOUR OFFSPRING I will give this land.”
4. But that was years ago. Now, they live in the land of Canaan, where they have been for 10 years, and Sarah is 75 years old.
5. She’s way past the age when women normally have babies.
C. Genesis 16:2 says, “so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.’”
1. Reading through the lines, I think this is what Sarah was saying: “Look. I know God said that we were going to have a baby. But that was a long time ago. For whatever reason, the Lord has kept me from having children. And now, I’m too old to have them! And frankly, I’m sick and tired of sitting around, getting older by the minute, while God is up in heaven doing absolutely nothing about our problem! So I am going to take matters into my own hands! Apparently, God helps those who help themselves! So I am personally going to make sure that we will have a child to inherit our estate.”
2. From a human point of view, we can understand how she felt.
3. They’ve been waiting on God all this time for a child. And now, it didn’t seem possible that it could ever happen.
4. And on top of everything else, back then, if a couple couldn’t have children, they were considered by society to be under God’s curse!
5. And so we can begin to imagine how desperate Sarah was feeling, and how tired she was of waiting for God’s promise to come true.
D. Some of us here this morning have been waiting on God for a long time.
1. We’ve been waiting on Him for a better job. We’ve been waiting for better health.
2. We’ve been waiting to get married, or have a better marriage.
3. Or maybe like Sarah, we’ve been wanting to have a child of our own, and it’s just not happening.
4. Some may be waiting for rebellious children to return to the Lord.
5. Whatever it is that we are waiting for, we can attest to the fact that it’s not easy to wait.
6. I don’t know about you. But at times I am not a very good "waiter."
E. But the truth is that waiting on God is worth the wait.
1. Everything that God has planned for our lives is worth waiting for.
2. We might get impatient. We might get frustrated. We might wonder why in the world it is taking so long.
3. But the things that God has in store for us are so wonderful that they are worth the wait!
4. If only we can hold out a little while longer. Isaiah 40:31 says that “those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength!” And Psalm 27:14 says “Wait for the Lord! Be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord!”
F. But that’s not what Sarah did.
1. She was exasperated to the point where she did not want to wait any longer.
2. And in verse two, she said to Abram, “Go. Sleep with my maidservant Hagar, perhaps I can build a family through her.”
3. And Abram agreed. Verse 4 tells us, “He slept with Hagar. And she conceived.”
4. If you are like me, then when I read this I say to myself, “This is one nutty family! Sarah is completely off her rocker! How strange that a wife would tell her husband to sleep with another woman!”
5. In our culture, we would call what Abraham did with Hagar adultery, and in the eyes of God, that’s what it was and is.
6. But 3000 years ago, this was a culturally acceptable way to make sure that there would be a male son to inherit the estate.
7. Hagar was Sarah’s property. And she could make Hagar do whatever she wanted her to do, including serving as a surrogate for her own barren womb.
8. Here’s an interesting side note: How had Hagar become a part of their lives?
a. Remember back in Gen. 12 when Abraham tried to help God provide for them during a famine?
b. He took Sarah down to Egypt and was afraid that they might kill him, so he said she was his sister, and the Pharaoh took Sarah to be his wife.
c. The dowry he gave Abraham included menservants and maidservants. That’s probably when Hagar entered their lives.
d. How ironic that a lack of faith caused him to go to Egypt and now a lack of faith will cause him to try to have a child through the Egyptian maidservant Hagar.
G. I obviously have a problem with what Abraham and Sarah did, but I also have a problem with what they didn’t do.
1. They didn’t approach God about their plan.
2. They never said, “Lord, is this what YOU want? Do you want us to take this step? Or do you want us to wait a little while longer?”
3. That is what they should have done. Right?
4. But instead, Sarah said, “Abraham, this is what we’re going to do!”
5. And Abraham got in the last word. He said, “Yes, dear.”
6. I’m not letting Abraham off the hook. He was the spiritual head of the household. He should have prayed about this situation before going to see Hagar. But he didn’t.
H. Then things went from bad to worse – They usually do when we run ahead of God.
1. In the second part of verse 4, we’re told that once Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise Sarah.
2. Does that development come as a surprise? Of course not.
3. Unfortunately, Hagar is a pawn in this whole situation.
4. She’s forced to go through the trouble of having a baby. And at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be considered hers to keep!
5. I don’t blame her for being a little angry!
6. All three: Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar are caught in this web of sin. Sarah acted in presumption, Abraham lapsed into passivity and perhaps sensuality (Hagar was likely an attractive young lady), and Hagar has become prideful.
I. Inverse 5 we see that Sarah is upset and takes it out on Abraham.
1. She basically says, “This is all your fault! I let you sleep with my maidservant. And now she hates me. You are responsible! May the Lord judge between me and you!”
2. If I was Abraham, I would have wanted to say, “What do you mean, ‘This is all my fault?’ This whole hair-brained idea was yours to begin with! So why are you blaming ME?”
3. In many ways what we have here is a repeat of the garden of Eden story, where everyone is ready to blame someone else for their problems.
4. When we take matters into our own hands, and things don’t work out, the first thing we’re tempted to do is to say, “It’s not my fault! Everything would have worked out just fine if it wasn’t for you!”
5. What do our kids say when we correct them? They say, “It’s not my fault. He started it!”
J. Like most husbands, Abraham doesn’t like conflict, so in verse six, he says to Sarah, “Your servant is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best.”
1. In other words, “Leave me out of it! I wasn’t really up for this idea, anyway. Do whatever you have to do.”
2. The end of verse six tells us “Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.”
3. I think it’s ironic that just as Sarai mistreated the Egyptian woman Hagar, the Egyptians would years later be described as mistreating the Israelites.
4. It’s the same Hebrew word in both cases.
5. So when things didn’t work out the way Sarah wanted them to, she not only verbally abused her husband, but she physically abused her maidservant!
K. So Hagar said to herself, “I can’t live like this.” So she ran away.
1. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “Where are you going?”
2. Hagar replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”
3. Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”
4. If I was Hagar, I would have said, “What? Go back to her? She’s mistreating me! She’s making my life miserable! You expect me to go back there and put up with more of her garbage?”
5. But in verse ten, the angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” (16:10)
L. The question we need to ask ourselves is: “Are God’s blessings worth waiting for? Are they worth putting up with all of the garbage and all of the hardships and all of the difficulties of this life?”
1. Sarah and Abraham got too impatient. They were determined to get what they wanted no matter what the cost!
2. Hagar said, “Yes. It is worth it to wait, if it means a better life for my son. If it means a more glorious future. If it means having a relationship with Almighty God, then, Yes! It is worth it.”
3. Hagar was told to name the boy “Ishmael” which means “God hears.”
4. In verse 13 we are told that Hagar gave a name to the Lord who spoke to her. The name she gave Him is “The God who sees me.”
5. Hagar trusted and obeyed God. She went back to Abraham and Sarah and she bore him a son named Ishmael.
6. Unfortunately, if you know the rest of the story you know that God also had this to say about Ishmael and his descendants, “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” (16:12)
7. There has always been and continues to be hostility between the descendants of Isaac (the Jews) and the descendants of Ishmael (the Arabs).
8. Abraham and Sarah’s impatience not only caused them loads of trouble, but they also caused trouble for everyone else.
II. Our Lesson
A. So that is their story, now let’s talk about our lesson.
1. In our Scripture reading from James 5, we hear God telling us simply and clearly, “Be patient. Be patient like the farmer who waits for the land to yield its valuable crop. Be patient like Job was patient during his suffering.”
B. What are the mistakes that Abraham and Sarah made?
1. First, They allowed their impatience to cause them to doubt or question God’s promise.
2. Second, They allowed their impatience to cause them to try to fill their desire by their own plans, rather than wait on God. The plan that they came up with was a worldly or carnal one.
3. Third, And then when it all blew up in their faces, they continued in sin by mistreating and hurting others.
C. We can make the same kinds of mistakes if we are not careful.
1. If we are waiting for a mate we can try to help God by hanging around unwholesome places, or lower our standards of purity or spirituality.
2. If we find ourselves deep in debt we can try to get out of it in ways that God does not approve of like stealing, or gambling.
3. If we are waiting for God to bring justice to some situation we might run ahead of God by trying to bring that person down by sabotaging their reputation or career.
4. This even applies to growing a church, we must not grow impatient and turn to worldly gimmicks or tactics to grow the church.
D. So, the lesson for us is this: If we have been impatient and run ahead of God, if we have devised human plans and substituted worldly methods for God’s will, and have mistreated and hurt others in the process, then we must repent and then start over by trusting and obeying God.
E. In a book called Abraham, F.B. Meyer wrote, “God has his set times. It is not for us to know them. Indeed, we cannot know them. We must wait for them. If God had told Abraham in Haran that he must wait all those years until he pressed the promised child to his bosom, his heart would have failed him. And only as they were nearly spent and there were only a few more months to wait, God told him, according to the time of life, ‘Sarah shall have a son.’ If God told you on the front end how long you would wait to find the fulfillment of your desire or pleasure or dream, you’d lose heart. You’d grow weary in well doing. So would I. But He doesn’t. He just says, “Wait. I keep My word. I’m in no hurry. In the process of time I’m developing you to be ready for the promise.”
F. So, will we wait on God?
1. Will we wait for God to give us guidance? Will we wait for God to give us deliverance?
2. Genesis 16 teaches us to pray and to believe, and to wait patiently because the Lord hears us and sees us.
3. Let’s be praying, “Lord, I want for my life and for my family only what you want. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
4. Psalm 22:5 says “They cried to you and they were saved, in you they trusted, and they were not disappointed.”
5. When we trust in God and wait on Him, we will not be disappointed in the end.
G. Maybe you haven’t been waiting on God, but He has been patiently waiting for you. Don’t make him wait any longer. Come to Him. Trust in Him. Obey Him, there is no mistake in that!
