Sermon Tone Analysis
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It is no secret that most of us are bad at waiting.
While humans have never been great at being patient, the instant availability of so much of what we want has only made our impatience worse.
We can get almost any food delivered to our house in less than an hour.
We can have same-day pickup from Walmart and Target, and if they don’t have what we want, Amazon will have it to our door in just a few days.
We don’t have to wait for commercials or for our show to come on at a certain time anymore because our streaming services show us what we want when we want to watch it.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that is all bad.
These same technologies allow us to get life-saving information to people instantly in case of a weather emergency or use drones to airlift blood to remote hospitals in Africa when someone needs a transfusion.
They allow us to at least connect with family and friends at some level when we are separated by distance.
They can do a lot of good.
However, the negative side of this is that we may find ourselves losing more of our willingness to wait on God to work.
God often does some of his greatest work through long, slow, difficult seasons of waiting, and that is something we don’t often like.
As we look at Genesis 16-17 this morning, we are going to see three ways we might respond when we are tired of waiting on God to fix something.
As we look at Abram, Sarai, and her servant Hagar, we are going to see three different reactions we may have when we get tired of waiting.
There are likely more, but I believe these three are fairly common.
As we will see, each reaction has its own consequences, and in each one, we again see the faithfulness of God to work in spite of the flaws of his people.
Let’s set the stage.
As chapter 16 opens, we realize it has been ten years since God brought Abram to the promised land and said he would have innumerable offspring.
He is now 85, his wife is 75, and they still don’t have a child.
Sarai, Abram’s wife, is tired of waiting.
In her actions here, we see what happens when we:
1) Get ahead of God.
Let’s read 16:1-3.
This was a fairly common practice in that region in that time.
If the wife couldn’t have kids, she could give one of her servants to her husband as a wife, and that child would somewhat be counted as the wife’s.
We will see this happen a few different times in Genesis.
However, the fact that it was common practice didn’t make it right.
In Genesis 2, God makes it clear that his design for the home is one man and one woman for one lifetime.
Any deviation outside of that is sinful and brings about pain.
We will see that here as we see how Sarai’s plan worked out.
However, Sarai seems to have gotten tired of waiting on God to fulfill the promise to give Abram kids, and so she tried to come up with her own solution.
Interestingly, this would actually have fulfilled the promise God made up to this point.
He had promised that Abram would have a child, but he doesn’t say that it will be Sarah’s child until chapter 17.
That should have been implied because of God’s design for marriage, but he hadn’t explicitly said it yet.
So, Sarai is tired of waiting and decides to get ahead of God and fix this on her own.
How does that play out?
Read verses 4-6...
It doesn’t take long for the whole plan to spiral out of control.
Abram took Hagar as his wife, and she was able to get pregnant.
Once she found out she was pregnant, it says that Sarah “became contemptible to her.”
That word “contemptible” is related to the word “curse” in 12:3, which will be important in a bit when we get to Hagar.
We don’t know exactly what happened, but the context seems to point to the fact that Hagar looked down on Sarai because she had been able to quickly do what Sarai had been unable to do for decades.
She was carrying the baby that Sarai couldn’t.
You can imagine the looks, the gloating, the snarky comments that these two women might have exchanged.
It is interesting to see how Sarai responds.
This was her idea, but Sarai blames Abram in verse 5...
Are you noticing anything here, by the way?
Can you think of another time in Genesis where a woman was tempted to do something that went against God’s instructions?
Can you think about a time where she took something and gave it to her husband and then everyone started blaming everyone else?
There are a number of parallels to the account of when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden.
It started with the wife and the husband didn’t stop her, and in the end, everything was a mess.
This reflects a tendency we all have had since the very first sin: “God isn’t doing what I want, so I am going to figure it out on my own.”
I have been honest, but I haven’t gotten that promotion, so it’s time to play hardball, even if I have to lie to get it.
I will be faithful to the Lord when I get my degree and a job, but for now, I may need to cheat in this class or I am never going to make it.
I have been waiting and keeping myself pure for that girl or guy God wants me to marry, but maybe I need to compromise so I can finally find a relationship.
I have been trying to hold this marriage together, but my spouse isn’t responding like I want, so maybe I need to look elsewhere.
Surely, God wants me to be happy, right?
I am doing this, and it isn’t happening in my time or my way, so I am going to get ahead of God and fix it myself.
Look at the damage this causes for Sarai and Abram.
Beyond the fact that this was sin that disrupted their fellowship with God, it results in heaping on additional shame on Sarai because Hagar could do what she couldn’t.
It causes additional tension in their marriage, and Sarai responds by blaming Abram and mistreating Hagar so badly she runs away while she is pregnant.
Beyond all that, the child that Hagar is carrying will fight against Abram’s other descendants for the rest of history until Jesus comes back and sets it all right!
That’s not an exaggeration, by the way.
The son, Ishmael, fathers nations whose descendants become the Arab peoples, including the Palestinians who are still fighting with the Israelites today.
When you or I get ahead of God, it may not have geo-political ramifications, but it will always disrupt our fellowship with God and can destroy our relationships with others.
Are you tired of waiting?
Sarai would caution you against getting ahead of God’s plan and trying to fix it on your own.
Instead,
There isn’t a time limit on that command.
In fact, God will have Abram and Sarai wait around another 15 years before he will finally bring his promise to pass.
We have to wait on him instead of getting ahead.
There are more ways we can respond negatively when we ar tired of waiting.
When we are waiting on God, we may find ourselves in a painful place.
In those moments, there is a temptation to, in an ungodly way...
2) Get out of the situation.
This is how Hagar responds.
Before we even read the next few verses, I want to make a couple items clear, although we don’t have time to get into a ton of detail around them:
This passage is not an endorsement of either slavery or polygamy.
As we have said, having more than one wife causes tremendous problems that continue to this day.
There is not an explicit condemnation of slavery in this passage, and although it still wasn’t right, remember that slavery in those days was often different than the slavery we are familiar with in America.
Also, this is not a command for an abused individual to return to or stay in an abusive relationship.
We don’t know exactly how Sarai was mistreating Hagar, and there are some aspects of this story that make it unique.
If you are in an abusive relationship, do what you need to do to get out and get safe.
You can talk to me, our deacons, or our wives, and we will do what we can to help.
With that said, though, there is a challenge for us in this passage, so let’s read it.
Hagar has been cursing Sarai, and Sarai has been mistreating Hagar in response.
Pick up in verse 6-13...
Hagar is in a difficult situation, and about 15-16 years from this point, God is going to send Hagar away from Abraham.
However, it’s not time yet, so God calls her to go back to Sarai.
We are going to come back to this section at the end of the message and focus more her conversation with this one called “the angel of the LORD.”
For now, though, let’s recognize that waiting on God required her to return to and remain in a difficult place.
She had been so badly mistreated that she felt her best option was to run away, but God was calling her to go back.
She had to go back because she had removed herself from the blessings God promised to Abram.
Remember that in 12:3, God said he would curse those who cursed Abram and bless those who blessed him?
Hagar had cursed Abram’s wife, and as such, had put herself into a place where God would not bless her.
By returning, she was coming back to a place where God could bless her in spite of the adversity.
Obviously, there are specifics for her circumstance that are different than yours or mine.
However, the principle we can see here is that there are times we need to lean into painful circumstances.
They may go on longer than we want them to, but God may be accomplishing something in the waiting that we cannot rush.
Are you willing to stick it out to see what God does?
Again, if you are in an abusive situation, seek to get out and get safe.
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