Genesis 16
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+16+&version=NIV
Introduction:
We are all familiar with the saying: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself? At the company where I used to work, they made a practice of using Temporary Services a lot. I certainly do not have anything against Temporary Services, but the thing that used to annoy me as an operator was that as soon as I spent a lot of time explaining to the temporaries how the job was supposed to be done, and got them to where they could do the job reasonably well, they would be gone to another job, and I would have to start the whole process all over again. After doing this for a while, I fell into the habit of taking less time training new people, and more into the habit of just doing the work myself. I adopted that philosophy of just doing it myself.
This is not necessarily a good attitude to have. For one thing, it causes you to have to do a lot more work. If you are in a position of leadership, God does not expect you to do the work of ten men. The smart thing to do is to train ten men to do the work of ten men. Many of us need to learn this lesson. We need to learn to work smarter and delegate more.
I used to operate in ministry as if it was my place to do everything that I saw needed doing. I felt that if I did not do it, it would not get done. There seems to be the attitude in many churches that is the job of the pastor to do the work of ministry, after all, “That is what he gets paid to do” is the attitude that many people have. Many men who go into ministry full time as the pastors of conventional churches suffer burn out from trying to meet the demanding expectations of their misguided flock.
We must be careful, in the church, not to saddle new converts with so much ministry responsibility as well. They will get burned out. I saw a cartoon a few years ago that was comical, but also pathetically true of all too many churches. The scene was a man getting up from off the altar after praying, and the pastor was leaning over him, saying these words: “Well, brother John, now that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, would you be interested in taking over the position of the leader of the missionary society?”
That old attitude, “If you want something done right, do it yourself” had carried over into my ministry. I have learned over the years through burnout and frustration that this is not the way to operate. I have come to realize that God does not expect me to be a one man show.
Going through life with the attitude, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” is not a good way to live. Unfortunately, that attitude or outlook also creeps into our spiritual life, and we can fall into the pattern of getting in God’s way by trying to make things happen. Personally, I am tired of knocking on locked doors. The doors never open, and all I have to show for it is bloody knuckles!
Let me ask you this: Has God ever given you a specific promise about something He is going to do for you, or revelation of something that is going to happen? Have you ever been given a prophetic word? I am referring to a direct word from God, not someone who calls themselves a prophet, because there are false prophets in the world. I have had prophetic words spoken to me on several occasions. Some of them were accurate, and some of them were not. It can be a touchy and dangerous topic.
Abraham and Sarah were given a direct promise from God. We read over in Genesis 15 of how God specifically promised Abraham that he was going to have a son, and that through that son Abraham would have offspring that would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham had been worried that he and Sarah were going to die childless and that their estate would go to one of his servants.
Here is one of the greatest passages of the Bible regarding faith:
”Abram believed the Lord, and he credited to him as righteousness.”
This is the second time that God had appeared to Abraham and made him specific promises. If you recall, in Genesis 12, the Bible tells us of how God called Abraham to leave his country and his people. At that time God promised Abraham that He was going to make him into a great nation, and that all the peoples on the earth would be blessed because of him.
The second time God appears to Abraham and gives him the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Later God goes on to show Abraham in a dream what the fate of this offspring would be. They were to be taken as slaves for four hundred years, then God would send a deliverer to set them free. These were very specific, direct revelations of God to Abraham.
Then in Genesis 16 is where the trouble starts. Sarah was getting along in years and she began to worry that she was not going to have any children. In the vernacular of our day, “Her biological clock was ticking.” She must have known about these revelations that God had given to her husband.
Maybe she began to think what a lot of us tend to think, “Maybe God needs a little help in carrying this out. Maybe I can push His hand a little bit. He seems to have either forgotten, or He is just getting lazy.”
We might not put it in those words, and we might not admit to ourselves or others that that is what we are doing, but that is what we are doing. We try to make things happen.
Brothers and Sisters, when are we ever going to learn to just trust God at His Word, and quit trying so hard to figure everything out ourselves, and quit relying on our own wits and resources to make things happen?
Many people have a misguided idea that we can speed up Christ’s Second Coming by working hard to make certain things happen first. Now don’t get me wrong here. I believe we should do everything in our power to spread the Gospel into all the World, and to bring as many people as possible into a saving relationship to Jesus Christ. But we are not going to force the Hand of God to move quicker because we work to make things happen. God has His own timetable and we cannot speed up or slow down what He has determined in His own sovereign will.
Brothers and Sisters, we cannot run ahead of the Spirit. When we do, we fall flat on our face.
That does not mean, however, that we sit by and do nothing while we wait for divine revelation and intervention. God does give us minds with which to think, and hands to work.
Proverbs 16: 3-4 states:
”Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The Lord works out everything for His own ends, even the wicked for a day of disaster”
Then in verse 9
“In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”
God never calls us to use ungodly means to accomplish some purpose that we think is good. The old saying “The end justifies the means” Does NOT hold true. God never calls us to compromise integrity to accomplish anything.
Sarah decided that God wasn’t doing what He said He would and so she needed to help Him. Sarah made a great big mess out of things.
Sarah decided that Abraham should have sex with the maid. She decided that she could get Abraham to take Hagar as his second wife, and she could in a sense use her as a surrogate mother. This kind of thing is still going on in our day. There have been numerous news stories in recent years about people using surrogate mothers to give birth to a child for a couple because one of the partners is sterile. This opens Pandora’s Box. Custody battles ensue when the birth mother gets attached to the newborn and does not want to give up the baby. This arrangement did not work back then, and it does not work now. God has a purpose for making each of us just as we are. We would all be so much more satisfied and fulfilled if we would accept that, and quit comparing ourselves to each other.
The funny thing about this whole story is Abraham. Typical man I guess some would say. “Abraham, I want you to get the maid pregnant.” “Sure honey,” he says, “I’m on it” Couldn’t there at least been a hint of protest from the old guy? Now instead of having one irritated wife to deal with, he has two.
When Hagar learned that she was pregnant, she began to despise Sarah, and Sarah in turn attacks Abraham.
Sarah said to Abraham, “You are responsible for the wrong that I am suffering.” Now some people might protest there. It was Sarah’s idea to start with, right? Now she is trying to blame it on Abraham. But, think about it. Ultimately, she is right. It is Abraham’s fault. He should have never agreed to such a foolish plan. He should have been a man, and told Sarah that what she was planning was wrong, that it was not of God, and that he would have nothing to do with it. But just like his old granddad Adam, he just went right along with what the woman said.
Husbands and wives, listen to me. God uses us in marriage to balance each other out. You don’t always have to agree with everything that your spouse says. Sometimes we need to correct each other in love. None of us is always right. If we are unwilling to admit that we are not, we are just being foolish and bullheaded. That does not mean that we should look for ways to prove each other wrong. We should seek to be in agreement as much as possible. But if you or your spouse is wrong about something, both of you should be mature enough to admit it and get on with it. Abraham should have told Sarah, in a loving way that her plan was wrong, and that he was not going along with it.
She, on the other hand, should have told him a long time before, that his habit of telling foreign kings that she was his sister, and getting her married off again, was also a dumb idea.
“Listen, Abe, we tried that before, and it did not work, remember? I am not going to go along with it again. It is wrong.”
They both got off on some wild tangents at times. They could have avoided a lot of difficult situations if they had learned the wisdom of being able to correct each other in love.
We all need to learn the wisdom of allowing ourselves to be corrected by others when we need it. There is nothing good or noble about wanting to prove that you are right all the time. No one is right all the time. We all make mistakes in judgement. We all do foolish things that we regret later. That is why we need grace.
The sad thing is that some people are so addicted to being right, that they are blinded to the truth. They are so addicted to being right that no one can ever correct them. Vindicating their ideas and opinions is more important than the truth.
Proverbs 12:1 says
”Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.”
So, rather than proving to others how smart he is, the man who is addicted to being right just proves himself to be a fool.
Let’s get back to the Scripture:
Sarah starts off by saying, “The Lord has kept me from having children.” Let me make a statement here. I know that a lot of people cannot have children for a lot of different reasons. One of the spouses may be sterile, and there are biological factors involved that really are not a result of God’s direct will. Instead, like other medical problems, this is a result of the imperfection of man’s physical nature now because of the Fall. There is nothing wrong with using medical technology to a certain extent to correct those problems. But if you strongly feel that God has kept you from having children, that it is His will for you not to have children, then you should not have children. The same thing goes for marriage. If you strongly feel in your heart that it is against God’s will for you to get married, then you should not get married. But make sure that you are hearing from God in these matters, and not making decisions based on what other people’s opinions and expectations of you are.
That is Paul’s whole point in 1 Corinthians 7. Paul is not knocking marriage or singleness, or any of that. He just means that we should be satisfied with who we are, and not compare ourselves to each other.
The point is, that Sarah acknowledged that God had withheld children from her up to this point. She also knew that God had promised that Abraham was going to have children. She also knew that since she was Abrahams lawful wife, then she would be the one to bear him children.
Next, we see Abraham taking the easy out again. He did not want to disagree with Sarah, so he goes along with her again. “Do whatever you want to with her,” is basically what he told Sarah.
Again, he could have stood to correct her. “Sarah, we are the ones who have created this mess. You gave me your maid to take as another wife and have a child. We cannot just kick them out now.” They were just going from bad to worse. The old saying “Two wrongs do not make a right” certainly applies here.
But even in all this mess, we see God’s mercy and concern for Hagar. The Angel of the Lord instructed Hagar to return to Sarah and submit to her. He also promised Hagar that for her obedience she would be blessed with offspring too numerous to be counted.
What do we learn from all of this? Several things:
1. We need to learn to trust God at his Word, without trying to figure out all of the who, what, when, where, and whys.
Proverbs 3:5-6
2. We need to learn to trust God to do what to us seems impossible. Are any of you facing situations in your life that seem hopeless? Has some problem overwhelmed you? Rest assured that it is not too big for God.
Matthew 19:26
3. Don’t start meddling in things and trying to fix them if you do not know what you are doing.
Proverbs 17:27-28
4. Never use ungodly means to try and accomplish anything, even if it seems like it will accomplish a good purpose in the end. The end does not justify the means. There is no such thing as a Robin Hood Christian.
1 Samuel 15
5. Be willing to be corrected. Be willing to admit that you are wrong.
Proverbs 27:5-6
6. Be willing to correct others in love if needs be.
2 Corinthians 7:8-12
7. Even if you have really made a big mess out of things, turn it over to God, and He can bring good out of it!
Romans 8:27-29
Danny's Stump 