Genesis 16:1-16

Hear make sure we're going live over on Facebook. Send out the text message. That's important. Okay, I think we're just about ready. Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee and devotions. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. It let's see, February. Computers talking back to me again is February 8. And we are at Genesis 16. That's where every day we get together. We love have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love. For the Lord together. And this year 2023 Lord willing, we'll make it from the book of Genesis, all the way to the Book of Leviticus. And so we're at Genesis chapter 16. Quite a sobering story for us today. Why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice in who you are. And we pray for your spirit that you would teach us this morning that we would understand. Lord, we need your spirit. These words are written on a page, but we need to understand them in our hearts and know how to apply them in our lives. So please, God help us. In Jesus's name, Amen. All right, so we're at Genesis chapter 16. Why don't we go ahead and open up our Bibles and we'll read that chapter together. Now Sarai, Abram's wife bore him, no children, and she had an Egyptian maid servant whose name was Hagar. So Sarah, I said to Abram, see now the Lord has restrained me from bearing children, please go into my maiden perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Sarah I then Sarai, Abram's wife took Hagar her maiden the Egyptian and gave her to her husband, Abraham to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land. of Canaan. So he went into Hagar and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived her mistress became displeased in her eyes. Then Sarah, I said to Abram, you wrong, my wrong be upon you. I gave you my made into your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived I became despised in her eyes, the Lord Judge between you and me. So Abram said to Sarah, I, indeed your maid is in your hand, do to her as you please. And when Sarah dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness by the spring on the way to Sure. And he said, Hagar, Sarah is made, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing the presence of my mistress Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so they shall not be counted for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her behold you are with child, and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name, Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man, his hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Then she called the name she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her her. You are the God who sees for she said, Have I also here seen him who sees me? Therefore the well is called Berra law. Hi, Roy. Observe? It is between Keita Shem Baron. So Hagar bore Abram Hassan and Abram named his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Oh, well, that's a messed up story. We need to ask ourselves, Hey, what's this about? B? What's the best verse to some races and see what are we called to do in response to these words, so what's this about? Abrams and old dude? He's 86. There is not a young chick. She's not. She's not young. She's past her prime. And so they take matters into their own hands. Remember chapter 15. God had promised that he was going to make Abram into a great nation go count the stars in the sky. I'm going to give you a kid. It's not going to be Eliezer your your servant who's going to inherit all this I'm going to I'm going to make you into a great nation. Abraham believes that and God credits to him. As righteousness. But then Sarah and Abraham tried to take things into their own hands, and they do so in a despicable way. They do. Just we need to make sure we understand there are many things that we're going to read in the book of Genesis and Exodus, that though they are real history, that does not mean they are normative. It does not mean just because something happened does not mean that is what it should be. We talked about this before when we were going through the book of Acts. And so as we come here, and we're talking about through the book of Genesis This is one of these instances where we see this is not the way things are supposed to be. So Sarai gives a room her maid servant, Hagar, and in their minds this idea is that they can accomplish bringing an heir by essentially having a surrogate child by having a baby through Hagar, her, her, her maiden, and Abram is a fool. He goes along with this plan, and we see what happens as soon as Abram commits adultery. He has relationships with Hagar, he embraces her. What does Hagar do? I'm loved by Abram. As she puts herself on the same level as Ri and she looks down her nose at her now. She doesn't treat her with the respect that she wants her to walk. Of course, she's not going to she's just sleeping with your husband. We can identify with Hagar here and it only causes turmoil. It's horrible. And so Sarai says we now is your problem. And Abram says, It's not my problem. You're the one who gave it to me. This is horrible. And Hagar is caught in the middle here as this victim of them trying to take the promises of God into their own hands and fulfill it and they've made a mess of all of this. And so Hagar flees, and God meets her there and he shows grace to Hagar. Now even though she's not part of the Covenant, even though Ishmael is not going to be the child who inherits. He still sees her. He sees her distress, he sees how she was treated. And he promises her that she's going to have a son is going to be Ishmael and that she needs that Ishmael is going to grow up and he's going to become a nation as well. Now, God's going to use Ishmael, the Ishmaelites and they're going to be a thorn in the side of Israel. The rest of history. Still going on today? Look it up on Google. Look it up who are the descendants of Ishmael? I'm not going to go into that right now. But you're gonna see here that God still sees and uses even Hagar son Ishmael. And so this is a messed up story. What is this? About? This is Sarai and Abraham trying to take things into their own hands, trying to accomplish the promises by their works. This is what the Apostle Paul, I'm going to well let's go ahead and jump into what's the best first. I think in the best, the best verse to summarize this is I have verse four underlined, so when he went into Hagar and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived her mistress became displeased in her eyes. And then a verse six was five and six, the interaction between Sarai and Abram. But you might want to underline verse 17, or sorry, verse 13, and 14, I don't know let me know what would you underline last see calling this is where I'm going to use about and calling and merge them together. Paul picks up on this in the book of Galatians. And he says, what's going on? Here? is trying to accomplish by works what is only by faith? We see here this horrible thing that's happening, that the child of a promise is going to be Isaac. Now Ishmael, the child who comes by faith, we're going to come to later but here we see what happens when we try to accomplish the promises of God. By our own works. We have adultery. We have violence. We have victims. We have abuse. We have strife between husband and wife. This shows that this is not the way in which God is going to bring about his promises. This was not how this was supposed to happen. They received the promise of God in chapter 12 And in chapter 15. And now here we are in chapter 16. And they're trying to do it on their own. How many of us get wrapped up in that ourselves? I was just I just got off the phone off the offline with some pastors in India and I was going through the book of Galatians with them and encouraging them the same way. Don't turn from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is by Christ alone. That is the gospel, that God has sent his own son that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is Jesus Christ, who has promised that he has done these things. That it is the Holy Spirit who takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. It is Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead he would he died for our sins and he was raised for our resurrection. And so we believe in Him by faith, we are declared righteous the same way Abram was in chapter 15. But the question is, do we hold on to that? We are called to not try to earn our own salvation. Don't try to go back to the law. Don't try to make yourself right with God by all the number of things that you might do. Now you were saved under good work, but you were not saved by your good works. We received by Jesus Christ. We cannot bring about the promises of God. It is God who walked between the sacrificial animals and guaranteed His covenant. And so we must wait for Him and walk by faith. Do you cling to that? Do you hold the Jesus Christ? Do you trust in your Father in heaven? Do you know that the work of the Holy Spirit is going on in your heart brothers and sisters in Christ? There's a few things we're called to do here walk by faith. He is our shield and her exceedingly great reward. Trust in his promises, that in his timing, these things will come to pass and walk in righteousness. walk in his ways, not because you're trying to earn his promises. But because his promises have changed the way in which you live. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much that we can walk by faith and that faith changes the ways in which we walk God we pray that we would deal with this passage. Ugly passages like this today. soberly. Thank you, that you have given us hard stories that teach us and instruct us in the ways we should walk if God please. by your Holy Spirit, please teach us to walk in your ways. Let us walk by faith and not by sight in Jesus's name, Amen. Or may the Lord bless you as you've set your eyes on Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of your faith. May you walk in his ways and I'll see you next time. Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai