Sarai and Hagar (Gen 16)

INTRODUCTION

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Genesis 16.

While you’re turning there, let me remind you of where we are in Scripture. Just last week, we witnessed a unique ceremony in Genesis 15 in which God reaffirmed His covenant with Abram from Genesis 12. I’m not going to remind you of the details to an extreme degree, you can go back and read them if you’ve forgotten, but it involves several animals, a vision, and a dream; and the statement being made by God is that He is not only able, but He is willing to keep His promise or His covenant with Abram.

While we worked through Genesis 15, I pointed out that what was happening was that even though Abram had received this promise from God, He doubted that God was actually going to do what He said He would; Abram had a lack of faith in God.

I did mention that it isn’t necessarily wrong to have doubt or a lack of faith—what matters is what we do with that doubt or lack of faith. If we allow our doubt to push us away from Jesus Christ, we’ve sinned, but if we allow our doubt to compel us to dive into God’s Word, to increase our prayer, and to move closer to God through Jesus, we’ve doubted well. I explained that the best way to deal with doubt immediately, is to remember God’s promises, reflect on His faithfulness, and choose to trust Him in the little things.

Now, what happens as we continue in Genesis is that despite God’s covenant with Abram, despite God reassuring Abram with this ceremony, Abram immediately falls back into his doubt of what God will do—and so, Genesis 16 records an instance in which both Abram and Sarai sin because of their lack of faith in God.

Let’s read Genesis 16 together and then I’ll explain how we’ll study the passage.

Genesis 16 ESV

1 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.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) Abram and Sarai’s Sin (1-6), which records their lack of faith and what they chose to do in sin to solve their own problems (notice that I’m calling this section Abram and Sarai’s Sin and not Abram, Sarai, and Hagar’s sin—Hagar didn’t sin here, she’s a victim here); and (2) God’s Grace on Hagar (7-16), which then records how God blesses Hagar and shows her grace despite the sin committed against her by Abram and Sarai. The goal of this sermon is for you to see two specific points: (1) even when we sin, God’s plan for our lives will still be fulfilled and (2) even when someone sins against us, God’s plan for our lives will still be fulfilled. Now, this is not cause to go on sinning, but rather, it’s hope when we struggle with sin or when someone sins against us.

Prayer for Illumination

ABRAM AND SARAI’S SIN (1-6)

The Problem (1a) — So, our text starts with Abram and Sarai thinking about what they perceive to be their greatest need or problem.

Note that I’m calling this their perceived need or problem.

The reality is that God had already promised to handle this issue for them—remember Genesis 12 and Genesis 15.

Genesis 12 is the first iteration of God’s covenant to Abram for Abram to have descendents as numerous as the stars and that his descendents would form a nation that would bless all other nations.

Genesis 15 is the second iteration of God’s covenant and it includes that unusual covenant ceremony as affirmation that these things were definitely going to happen.

And yet, Abram and Sarai in Genesis 16 still struggle with that issue of doubting God’s plan.

So, they think or they perceive that they have a problem because they don’t have a child yet.

Often we do similar things and we think similarly to Abram and Sarai.

So, while part of us might be questioning how they could be so foolish to think this way, we really have to consider how often we’re just as foolish.

How often do we know what God’s Word says and we do the opposite? As if we could know better than the all-knowing Creator of the universe.

Abram and Sarai recognize that they were promised a child, but they’ve realized that they have yet to receive their child, so they go about rectifying that problem.

Abram and Sarai’s Solution (1b-4) — They come up with what they think is a good plan, but let me be abundantly clear from the beginning, their plan is absolutely sinful.

And despite their plan resulting in a child for Abram, it has actually caused significant harm not only between Hagar, Sarai, and Abram, but also to countless generations after the event, but we’ll talk about that briefly later.

Sarai comes up with a plan—her plan is for Abram and Hagar, who was Sarai’s servant to have a child since Sarai couldn’t have a child.

Notice how even in suggesting this plan, Sarai still tries to blame God in v. 2, “Sarai said to Abram, ‘Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children.”

That shift-blaming has been around since Adam tried to blame Eve and Eve tried to blame the serpent. We have the same tendency today—we always try to blame other people when we sin.

Sarai says that since God has prevented her from having children, the next best thing would be for Abram and Hagar to have children.

Again, it sounds like a foolish idea and yet, when we find ourselves desperate, we tend to do foolish things as well.

Abram listens to what Sarai has to say and partakes in the requisite activity to make this plan work and Hagar conceives.

Now, I do need to clarify one issue because you’ve probably noticed that I keep referring to this as Abram and Sarai’s sin, but not Hagar’s sin.

My reasoning for that is simple—Hagar is a servant and the term servant isn’t actually quite right. The literal translation is that of a slave-girl. Hagar doesn’t really have the ability to say no.

And when you read Leviticus’ statements concerning how people are to treat servants, if there is an issue like this, the guilt is usually placed on the free persons not the slaves.

This plan, for them to have a child through a servant is actually quite normal in their culture for the pagan nations—pagan people would do this anytime they seemed to struggle with infertility.

However, God had made a promise and He had reaffirmed that promise with Abram.

This is Abram and Sarai trying to accomplish God’s plan on their own.

The Result (5-6) of which is contempt between Hagar and Sarai and further struggle between them all.

In v. 5, Sarai complains to Abram.

The complaint is simple—now that Hagar has conceived, she is treating Sarai with contempt and Sarai can see this issue—notice that she tries to shift the blame onto Abram, “may the wrong done to me be on you!”

Sarai in v. 5 really acts as if she did no wrong in this, but clearly, it wasn’t a plan concocted by Abram and Hagar, the plan was really developed by Sarai and Abram and at no point did either one of them sit down and say, “you know, this might not be a great plan” or “there could be some real consequences from doing this.”

So, we see this complaint and Abram essentially shirks the whole issue in v. 6.

Abram tells Sarai to do whatever she wants, “But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.”

Which tells us of the significant power dynamics at play here—Hagar is treated like an object instead of like a person.

Abram shirks his responsibility to lead his household.

Sarai refuses to admit her own wrongdoing in the whole ordeal.

And, of course, in anger and in contempt, Sarai treats Hagar harshly.

What exactly the Bible means by Sarai treating Hagar harshly, we’re not entirely sure, but whatever Sarai did caused Hagar to run.

Those are the results of Sarai and Abram acting sinfully—relationships were damaged, people were hurt, and ultimately, they were in sin.

Now, in all this, you might think that Hagar really got the short-end of the stick. And while we would never condone what happened to her or the situation as a whole, what we see in vv. 7-16 is that God can and does redeem past tragedy. God shows grace to us even when people sin against us. Keep that in mind as we re-read the last ten verses:

GOD’S GRACE ON HAGAR (7-16)

Genesis 16:7–16 ESV

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.

Hagar runs because of Sarai’s harsh treatment in v. 6 and in v. 7 we’re told that Hagar has an interaction with a different person, “The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.” We learn two key details with this verse:

First, we know that Hagar is desperate because she’s hiding in the wilderness.

Again, remember that they lived in the Middle East

For us, the wilderness is a forest, which is often temperate for most of the year.

For her, the wilderness is the desert, which is often not temperate.

In fact, if you do some research on the desert in the Middle East you’ll find that at night, temperatures can drop to around 40º-50º at night and be as high as 130º during the day.

And, of course, it’s a desert, so there’s not a ton of water, the fact that she found water while running is significant—if we believed in luck, we’d say that she was lucky, but in reality, it looks like God providentially led her to that water.

So, Hagar is on the run and she’s desperate, if for no other reason than she’s in the desert.

Another reason that she’s desperate would be the way that servants were treated in that time period—if she was caught, it would’ve been within Sarai and Abram’s right to execute her for trying to run.

Second, we learn that during her desperation, the angel of the LORD appears.

Now, this is the first instance of the angel of the LORD in the Bible, which means I need to take a moment to give you a definition of who this being is.

The actual identity of the angel of the LORD is one that’s been debated for quite some time. However, the historical position concerning the angel of the LORD is this, the Jewish people have always believed that the was God in the flesh. The early Christian church in the first and second centuries believed that the angel of the Lord in contexts like this referred to a pre-incarnate Jesus.

Meaning, the historical view has been that this is Jesus in the flesh before His earthly life during the first century. There has always been a little pushback with the idea of a pre-incarnate Jesus or even God in the flesh because there’s a misconception that God cannot be in the presence of sinful people.

Rather, it’s actually the opposite—sinful man cannot be in the full presence of God without God taking on flesh or without God only showing a part of Him like He does with Moses on Mount Sinai.

The other pushback is that of exegesis—some argue that if this is God in the flesh, why doesn’t it say so?

The reality is that it does, but maybe not in the way that most people would expect because most people would expect the Bible to outrightly say that this is God, but that’s not how Eastern literature is typically written.

Eastern literature has a tendency to be more poetic, more illustrative, and less direct.

Rather, you can tell that this is God in the flesh because of the way that the being speaks and from her own understanding of who this is.

We see confirmation that this is indeed God speaking to Hagar by the grace that’s given to her by this being in vv. 8-12. We also see confirmation that this is indeed God speaking to Hagar by how Hagar responds in vv. 13-14.

Look at how the angel of the LORD speaks to her in vv. 8-12, “he said, ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?”

Of course, we know this is a rhetorical question.

Even if this is just a regular angel (a messenger from God), don’t you think that the angel would know at least a little what Hagar is up to?

And yet, the angel asks her this question to start the conversation and Hagar’s response is as to be expected, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.”

What we might not expect is the angel’s command to her, in v. 9, “the angel of the LORD said to her, ‘Return to your mistress and submit to her.’”

Now, don’t misunderstand this situation as one of God’s approval of slavery or even the sin of Abram and Sarai against Hagar. That’s not the case whatsoever, God never approves of sin.

However, He does work within and through sinful people—meaning, even though He doesn’t approve the sin, He chooses to work within sinful people despite their sin.

So, the angel of the LORD gives this command for Hagar to return to (let’s be honest) a rather difficult situation for her, but he also gives a promise to her in vv. 10-12, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude . . . Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. [Ishmael] 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.”

The promise given to Hagar is that like the originally promised son, this son will also become a multitude—a great nation.

This son will be a bit different in that whereas Abram and Sarai’s biological son will become a nation that’s a blessing to all nations and that God will protect that nation; this son will become a nation that’s a curse to all nations—he will fight and war against all nations.

Everyone will be against him.

Now, going back to the idea that the angel of the LORD is God, Himself—note how everything is worded in the text. The angel of the LORD doesn’t say that “the LORD will do these things.” Rather, he says, “I will surely multiply your offspring.”

It might sound like a semantic issue; however, if you pay close attention to how the prophets speak later in the Old Testament, they’re always abundantly clear when they’re speaking God’s words or their own.

If they’re speaking God’s Words, they usually preface it with something like, “Thus says the LORD.” Even when they’re prophesying events to come, it’s always “Thus says the LORD,” this will happen.

The angel of the LORD in Genesis 16 doesn’t do that, He simply says, “I will do this.”

Likewise, when Hagar responds to this, her response is a realization that God spoke to her in the flesh. She says that God is a God of seeing, who looks after her. And then she names the well that she received water, Beer-lahai-roi, which means “the well of the Living God who sees.”

She recognizes that God had not just seen what had happened, but that God saw her and cared for her despite the sin committed against her.

We might say that God redeemed her past tragedy and turned it into a blessing for Hagar and her son.

And really, what we see in vv. 13-14, is praise from Hagar—she had found hope and comfort in the God who sees her despite the tragedy that surrounded her.

We see her essentially worshiping the Lord despite being sinned against by Abram and Sarai; and then we see her obey.

She returns to Abram and Sarai—something that might sound foolish to us and yet, that’s what God wanted her to do.

And Hagar has a son and the son is named Ishmael, just like the LORD told her.

The Result again, is that God uses a tragic situation in Hagar’s life to bring about His purposes. He redeemed the sin-filled tragedy committed against her, which brings us this morning to our application; and our application is really seen in two different ways. Sometimes, you’re Abram and Sarai and sometimes you’re Hagar. So, let’s look at this passage from those perspectives:

APPLICATION

From the Perspective of Abram and Sarai

The sin committed by Abram and Sarai was the fruit of a lack of faith or trust in God.

Or, in other words, we often look at just correcting sin problems, which are the fruits of the underlying problem rather than the problem itself—what is the actual problem in Genesis 16 that tempted Abram and Sarai to sin?

It was a lack of genuine trust in God to do what He said He would do—they thought that they needed to take things into their own hands—or, in other words, they thought that instead of waiting for God to fulfill HIs promise, they needed to do these things themselves.

That then led them to committing sin against Hagar and ultimately against God.

Likewise, there are often times in our own lives in which our lack of trust in God causes us to try and take things in our own hands—though, maybe not to the extent that Abram and Sarai did.

So, we might lie because we think if we tell the truth, something negative might happen.

Or, we steal with the intent to utilize what we take for something good—the Robin Hood ideology.

Or, we think that the sentencing someone received in the court of law or public opinion wasn’t just, so we decide what’s just for that individual.

But, in each situation, when we’re tempted to act out of turn (like these) it’s because we don’t trust God to handle the problem and we don’t trust God to keep His Word.

Like Abram and Sarai, you will find yourself in situations in which your lack of trust in God will cause you to try and take things in your own hands.

And like Abram and Sarai, you will find yourself falling into sin because of your desire to take things into your own hands.

The question is, what do you do when you find yourself experiencing these sorts of temptations?

Ideally, you’ll recognize when you’re being tempted to sin and you stop—you run from that temptation and you stop entertaining that sinful ideology.

I think of Jesus when He was tempted in the wilderness, who reminded Himself of God’s Word as He was being tempted by Satan to sin.

I think of the Proverb, “when sinners entice you, flee [or run away].”

Of course, your realization of what is sinful directly correlates with your understanding of the Gospel, the Bible, and God Himself.

So, if you have a faulty understanding of the Bible, you’ll have a faulty understanding of God, and then you’ll have a faulty understanding of the Gospel, but if you learn to think with a biblical worldview what is sinful becomes more evident.

And as sin becomes more evident, you’ll know that you need to avoid it, you need to run from it, you’ll need to reject it.

Nevertheless, even as we seek to reject all sin, we’re still going to stumble and fall. That’s just the reality—I mean, consider how Abram literally receives a promise from God and that promise is then reaffirmed and yet, the very next chapter shows his sin.

And yet, God still keeps His promise to Abram—Abram does, in fact, have a child with Sarai and their seed does become a nation that blesses all other nations.

Despite Abram’s sin, God still works within Abram’s life; despite Sarai’s sin, God still works within Sarai’s life.

Which shows us something very important where our application is: your sin will not and cannot stop God’s plan for your life.

Your sin will not cause God to rescind His covenant given to His people who believe in Him.

Your sin will not stop God from loving you.

Of course, like Paul says to the Corinthians, that doesn’t give us the right to continue in our sin so that grace may abound, but it does give us hope in that when we do struggle with sin and we do fall into our sin—God still cares for you, He still loves you, and He will still keep His Word.

When you fall into sin—even as Abram and Sarai do, who sinned because they tried to take things in their own hands—God still loves you, He still cares for you, and He will still keep His promises to you. So, repent when you fall into sin, get back on your feet, hope and trust in Jesus who has promised salvation to those who repent and believe.

From the Perspective of Hagar

Again, Hagar was not in sin during this situation—based on the situation, that she was a slave and based on what Leviticus teaches concerning how slaves were treated, she found herself in a situation in which she was sinned against.

Both Abram and Sarai sinned against Hagar in their plot to take things into their own hands.

Now, your situation might not be identical—I’m certain of it because no one in here is a slave in the same sense.

And yet, you will find yourself in situations in which someone else will sin against you.

The reality is that we live in a sin cursed world and everyone is influenced by their own sin—and often those influenced by their own sin will sin against other people.

You might find yourself the object of slander, which is sin; or gossip, which is sin. You might be robbed, hurt—physically, mentally, or emotionally; you might get attacked.

You might find yourself in significant worse situations like Hagar’s where you are a victim of some sort of assault or something that you really had little to no control over.

And like Hagar, during the situations in which you are sinned against, you might run, hide, you might find yourself confused and maybe a bit hopeless.

But like Hagar, when people sin against you—God still sees you.

God still loves you, He still cares for you.

That doesn’t lessen the fact that someone sinned against you, but it does drive you to have hope in God who doesn’t sin against you whatsoever and still cares for you and loves you and sees you.

And while you’ll still experience pain, suffering, and confusion from being sinned against, God gives you more grace and His grace is sufficient for you because He still sees you.

When you’re sinned against, you should still find hope and comfort in God because He sees you and cares for you.

What Genesis 16 shows us is that when we sin, we can’t ruin God’s plan for our life—He still loves you, He still cares for you, and He’ll still keep the promises given to you as part of His people—so get back on your feet, repent, hope and trust in Jesus. This passage also shows us that when people sin against us, we should still find hope and comfort in God because He still sees us and He still cares for us and He gives us more grace.

Pastoral Prayer