Abraham, Our Spiritual Father
We continue to examine the story of Abraham, the father of the faithful. Our story today happens about 4,000 years from our day before Israel exits Egypt in Exodus – does that help you place our story? And even though Abraham lived so long ago, he remains vitally important. The Bible says every real Christian is a child of Abraham: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). The Bible doesn’t say you are a child of Moses, a child of Isaiah, or even a child of Paul – but you are a child of Abraham. Abraham is the paragon of faith and he is our father in the faith.
Faith is the distinguishing mark of the Christian. Did you know that the Christians were called believers before they were ever called Christians? Believers – this is the distinguishing mark of a Christian, is he or she is a believer. So Abraham remains important for us because he is the father of all who believe (Romans 4:11). Now, our story shifts this morning from Abraham, the husband, to focus on Sarah, his wife. For the first time we hear from Sarah – who knew she could speak! Now, throughout our series, never take your eyes off of Abraham, the chosen one, for the story of Genesis builds to a pressure cooker. Will God be able to save the human race through His chosen one, Abraham?
Throughout their lives, they are learning to an important life lesson: when problems arises, glance at the problem but stay glued to God’s Promise. Find Genesis 16 with me, if you will and put a bookmark in Genesis 21. Note: Don’t be confused by the names Sarai and Abram for in time, God will changes their names to Sarah and Abraham.
Today’s Scripture
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.
7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the LORD said to her,
“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the LORD has listened to your affliction.
12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”
13 So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram” (Genesis 16:1-16).
What a mess!
We are going to look at five characters in our story today. But this is really a story of two women. In a world that was dominated by men, here are two women with very different roles in this ancient patriarchal society. Both are mothers and they find themselves in deep despair for very different reasons. Look with me first at…
Sarah
God promised Abraham more children than the stars in the skies above and the beaches on the collective beaches of the world. This was the mother of all promises, if you will. But ten years later, Sarah still not pregnant. So she has a suggestion – what if her husband, Abraham, has a child with her servant, Hagar. At his wife’s suggestion, Abraham and Hagar had relations with one another and she becomes pregnant. Hagar’s pregnancy causes a rift between the two ladies of our story.
Barren Women
Beside her stunning beauty, the defining characteristic for Sarah is she cannot have children (Genesis 12:11). The very first time we hear Sarah speak she complains about her infertility in verse 2, “the LORD has prevented me from bearing children” (Genesis 16:2a). Stop to consider the role of women in this patriarchal culture. Her worth and significance came only in the family she could provide. If a woman was unable to provide children and family, she failed at life. With no avenues for a career outside the home, she was seen as worthless in her eyes and nearly everyone else’s eyes as well. Add on top of this, THE promise. Sarah didn’t know it yet but the promise made to her husband would be one of the mountain peaks of all of Scripture and all of history. She felt the pressure that she was unable to deliver on the promise God made to her husband. So ten years go by after this world-changing promise and there’s still no child. There nursery was all set and it was decorated for a boy. Numerous doctors visits had taken place, if you will… … but still no baby. Now, Sarah is around seventy-five years old at the time and she has no chance at having children.
Sarah, The Schemer
Somewhere in the midst of waiting on God for 10 years inside the Promise Land, Sarah because a schemer. Sarah began but to glance at the promise but was glued to her problem. Have you ever been like Sarah here? Sarah had done some calculations both about her infertility and God’s promises. She concluded the infertility was irreversible and God needed her help. Have you every tried to help God? In despair, she takes matters into her own hands. Sarah felt the appropriate thing to do was to do what everyone else around her was doing. This “wife-swapping” kind of thing happened all the time around Abraham and Sarah. She felt she needed to engineer the fulfillment of THE promise. So with no prayer and no consulting God, she tells her husband to have a child through Egyptian servant.
Sarah, The Superior
Sarah has the superior position to Hagar. So, no sooner had Abraham looked at Hagar than Hagar was pregnant. Sarah no longer liked Hagar even a little bit and she blamed Abraham. Sarah tells her husband shortly after Hagar’s baby bump appears in verse 4: “I am despised in her eyes.” The whole thing boomeranged in a way that Sarah didn’t see (but she should have seen). Sarah wakes up every morning - unplugs her phone - checks her Instagram and every morning it’s a picture of Hagar standing in front of the mirror taking a picture of her baby bump - telling everyone what size fruit it is ... And this goes on every single morning - reminding her - that’s my husband’s baby. Can you imagine...she starts treating her really, really harshly?
Conclusion on Sarah
Sarah’s motives may have been good; yes, she was sacrificial but she clearly acted wrong. And she hurt herself because she robbed herself of the privilege God was giving her. Sarah didn’t understand how special she was to God. She didn’t consider her true worth. God said she was valuable – if only she acted like it. She didn’t comprehend what a privilege the promise God had given Abraham and her. Instead, she saw it as an obligation. Instead of saying, “We’re going to have a baby!”… … she said, “We’ve got to have a baby!” In the end, Sara downplayed God’s abilities.
Life Lesson #1: God Doesn’t Need your Help
All kinds of parents felt they could take a shortcut in what is being called the College Admissions Scandal. We think, “If God isn’t going to open a door, then I’ll kick it in!” Sarah had studied her problems where she simply skimmed over God’s abilities. Again, it in a critical sentence for our series: she only glanced at God’s promise but was glued to her problem.
Sarah
Abraham
Abraham doesn’t come off well in this episode of our story. If you’re keeping track of Abraham, you know God introduced Himself to Abraham when no one else in Abraham’s family knew anything about God (Joshua 24:2). God commands him to go to the Promised Land, but Abraham leaves with Sarah because of a famine (Genesis 12:10-20). After lying to Pharaoh, Abraham arrives back home to the Promised Land when his nephew Lot gets himself kidnapped (Genesis 14:1-17, 21-24). Abraham rounds up a posse of 318 fighting men from within his family to rescue Lot and then He meets the mysterious Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20). God promises Abraham a huge family 13 different times in the book of Genesis.
Abraham’s Been to the Mountain
Remember, Abraham had been on a mountaintop where God showed Himself to Abraham and confirmed His promise to the patriarch. His faith was soaring high as an eagle because none other than God Himself showed up in Abraham’s life (Genesis 15). He even made Abraham as guarantee! You would have thought that Abraham had been to the mountaintop and nothing could shake his faith. You would think Abraham would never fail to trust God!
Spineless Abraham
Even though he’s eighty-five years old, Abraham has backbone of a jellyfish at this point in his life. The man who chased four kings over 120 miles and whipped their tails in Damascus, is the same man who says, “… whatever you want, sweetie…” when it comes to her suggestion about sleeping with another woman. When Sarah comes with her idea, Abraham could have paused and said something to the effect… … “Sweetheart, I know you may feel like there’s a lot of pressure on you with God’s promise to have kids. I know we are really old and there’s no human way this can happen. But I love you and I am absolutely sure of what God told me. I think this is a bad idea and I don’t want any part of it.” But he did none of that. Instead, he created a big mess.
Now, we may find it funny that Sarah blames Abraham for Sarah’s idea: “And Sarai said to Abram, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me’” (Genesis 16:5)! But in reality, she’s exactly right. Just as with Adam & Eve, the buck stops with Abraham.
Passive Abraham
Part of the problem with our nation is we are confused about the roles between a man and a woman. Men are men not because you have hair on your chest and muscles on your arms. A man is a man who take responsibility for his life and the ones he cares for. “But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:9). Notice the Scripture doesn’t say, “Eve, where are you?” Your Bible says, “Adam, where are you?” God comes looking for Adam even though Eve was the first one to sin. God gave His promise to Abraham and he was to take responsibility.
Abraham is a paragon of faith and patience as he waits on God to deliver on His promise for twenty-five years before he has Isaac. Yet, he is also way too passive in several episodes of his life. When Lot was taken captive, Abraham springs into action (Genesis 14:14). But when Sarah was taken by Pharaoh, Abraham does nothing to retrieve her (Genesis 12:15). Remember how he instructed his wife to lie to anyone Egypt by saying she was his sister? And then when Abraham senses the tension between Sarah and Hagar after he slept with her, how does he answer? But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please” (Genesis 16:6a).
You’re never less like a man when you’re passive like your father, Adam. You’re never more like a man when you accountable for your actions.
You can connect it this way: pink dresses is for passive and real men don’t wear pink. You don’t put your boys in pink dresses anymore than you raise your boys to be passive. Abraham was too passive and failed to answer the bell when it rang.
Life Lesson #2: God Blesses the Family When Men Take Spiritual Responsibility
You’re never less like a man when you’re passive like your father, Adam. You’re never more like a man when you accountable for your actions. In the end, Abraham didn’t show love for either woman in our story.
Sarah
Abraham
Hagar
The second woman of our story is Hagar who is the maidservant and is in the inferior role compared to Sarah. Again, this is a story of a struggle between these two women: Hagar and Sarah. Hagar is under the authority of Sarah for she is Sarah’s property with no personal rights. Plus, she’s a foreigner for the Bible says she is “a female Egyptian servant” (Genesis 16:1). Sarah never speaks to Hagar directly and she never says her name. Even though Sarah disrespected Hagar, God nothing of the kind. Where Abraham and Sarah treat as nothing more than a baby-making machine, God sees her. Hagar is sent away where the angel of the Lord stops here on her way home to Egypt. Surprisingly, the angel turns Hagar around and sends her right back to Sarah with a promise that no other woman in Genesis receives. Hagar even gives God a name in verse 13: “You are the God who sees me.” We find pregnant Hagar and on her way back to Egypt when “the angel of the Lord” stops her in her tracks.
Hagar is Special
Now, Hagar is the first person in the Bible who encounters “the angel of the Lord” of the 48 times we see this mysterious character. And she’s also the first woman in the Bible who God directly makes her a promise. And she’s the only person in the Bible to give God a new name (verse 13).
Pick up reading with me in verse 16 of Genesis 21: “Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 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? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt” (Genesis 21:16-21).
Life Lesson #3: God Defends Those with the Little Economic & Social Power & So Should We
Maybe you have been Hagar or you have been Ishmael. Maybe your pregnancy was not celebrated right away or maybe you were the son or daughter who was born into a situation that was not ideal. Maybe other sinners kicked you out of their club and made you feel like an outcast: God is a God who hears and a God who sees.
Sarah
Abraham
Hagar
Ishmael
Abraham and Sarah decided they’d help God out; they decided they’d hurry God up. One thing you can’t do is help God, and another thing you can’t do is hurry God. Hagar and her son, Ishmael, will live with Abraham and Sarah for 14 years or more (Genesis 17:25).
He is fourteen years old and now he’s a part of a broken home. And for these fourteen plus years, Abraham is trying to talk God into using Ishmael to bless the world. Don’t forget that he and Abraham have memories together, they’ve been fishing and hiking and riding together. God doesn’t need your help or he will not have you hurrying Him along. Don’t you get it - you cannot save yourself through your actions! You must rely on the grace of God to save you.
Ishmael has grown up in such close proximity to the covenant promise and yet here his life takes a dramatic turn. Now it doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to realize what kind of kid you’d turn into. If you grew up being told all your life, “You’re second. You’re inferior.” Later on, we’re told Ishmael made fun of Isaac. And yet in his pain, God hears the, “cries of the boy,” reiterated twice in this passage.
Life Lesson #4: God hears our prayers when we face the unexpected.
Sarah
Abraham
Hagar
Ishmael
The Angel of the Lord
The mysterious figure who first speaks to Hagar will later be revealed to be God Himself. God saves this tragic family of four here. Look at these four if you will. They don’t deserve God’s mercy. Ishmael is “… a wild donkey of a man” - that’s hardly a great résumé. He’s not some noble person. None of these people deserve God’s help (Abraham included). None deserve God’s salvation. They don’t deserve to have their cries heard. Yet, God comes and hears and blesses and directs this family for their good.
Remember, Ishmael is really forsaken by God. God left him and deserted him just like He did His own Son years later. When Jesus was at the very end of his life, when he was stretched out on the cross, he cried to God too, didn’t he? He said, “My God, my God!”
Life Lesson #5: When problems arises, glance at the problem but stay glued to God’s Promise.
Do you like learning the hard way or the easy way? Do you maintain your faith despite God’s delays?Are you able to remain firm in your belief in God’s ability despite the obstacles in your way?
