Finding Faith in the Wait

The God Who Sees Us

Bible Passage: Ge 16:1–16

The root of much of the hardship experienced in this section of Genesis is the impatience of Abram and Sarai as they wait on the promises of God.

We too often find that when our desires cause us to pursue a different direction from God’s design, that alternate direction will lead to destruction.

The fundamental problem of this passage is that sometimes the people of God try to pursue the promise of God apart from the plan of God.

Think about this- In ancient Israel, the people were promised a Messiah who would deliver them.

Centuries passed, and during this time, many relied solely on this promise with no action or preparation on their part.

By the time Jesus arrived, their expectations did not align with God's plan.

They anticipated a political king instead of a servant leader.

We must seek to understand God's plans, not just cling to His promises.

And thats the problem with Sarai and Abram here. They cling to the promise of having an heir but they do not seek to understand the plan.

They don’t wait.

But wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in him; for unfaithful, untrusting waiting, is but an insult to the Lord.

Charles Spurgeon

They don’t wait in faith. They come up with their own plan.

Like God has forgotten about them.

God hasn’t forgotten about them. God cannot forget about them.

We can forget.

I remember my first year coaching football at Providence. I was the linebackers coach and we are about to leave the school we travelled to- Monroe High School- We get seated and settled in the bus. and the bus starts moving.

All of a sudden we see- one of our offensive lineman bust out of the bathroom at a full sprint. Its the quickest any of us have seen this boy move. Because the head coach told him he was going to go use the bathroom.

How many of us have ever been introduced to someone- only to immediately forget their name.

The biggest lie we tell ourselves is, I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it.

They forgot the promise of God in the wait. They didn’t fully trust.

They saw the days, the years pass by. they saw they were aging even more.

So let’s read chapter 16 of Genesis and unpack what the Lord would have us see.

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.

1. Sarai's Impatience: A Costly Choice

Ge 16:1-4a

We have all made poor choices in our life. Some choices are worse than others.

We have read about people who have made poor choices in their life.

We probably all recognize the name Steve Jobs and how he was the founder of Apple, Some of us may recognize Steve Wozniak as his co-founder. But there was a 3rd co-founder of Apple. Ronald Wayne, a man whose brief stint with the company became a legendary tale of what might have been.

He famously sold his 10% stake in the company for just $800 – a decision that, in hindsight, seems almost unimaginable. Today, thanks to Apple's current market value of approximately $3.45 trillion, Wayne’s stake would be worth around $345 billion.

But he didn’t see the value of the company. He never thought Apple would be what it is today.

And in these verses- Sarai doesn’t understand how God can keep His promise.

She’s old. She’s barren.

Here the thing- God never made a promise that way too good to be true. She didn’t trust the plan and promise of God.

The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that the saints still sin at times.

God’s man Abram has been in the promised land for a decade by this point.

He has survived famines and wars. But now he and his wife come face-to-face with the most dangerous challenges we all experience: uncertainty, impatience, confusion, and desperation.

Tragically, the great faith evidenced in Genesis 15 is followed by the sad tale of a great fall in Genesis 16 as the pair tries to fulfill the promise of God apart from the plan of God. Doing so inevitably leads to pain.

Rather than devising her own plan, it would have been better if Sarai had talked to God as Abram had done, to discover His plan for her as it related to childbearing.

However, because she was approximately seventy-four years old at the time, she may have given up and thought it futile to even pray about a thing like that. So, she came up with her own alternate plan.

This passage reveals several aspects of the hardship that happens when we resist the plan and don’t trust the promises of God.

First, hardship comes through broken trust.

Sarai is struggling with infertility. But the deeper issue is not Sarai’s broken body but her broken trust in God (v. 2).

Sarai isn’t just doubting God’s promises.

She is also blaming God for her problems. In her mind, he is not just withholding what is good but also causing what is bad.

Second, hardship comes through broken vows as Abram agrees to go along with Sarai’s plan (v. 2).

Like his forefather Adam in Eden, Abram thus abandons his leadership over his family and capitulates to his wife’s unhealthy desire. I

n what happens here through verse 4, there also are echoes of Genesis 12.

In Egypt, Abram pretended Sarai was not his wife. Now Sarai wants Abram to pretend that she is not his only wife.

In another echo of events back in Eden, Abram “listened to the voice of Sarai,” signaling that her disobedience to God’s design leads to his own disobedience (v. 2 ESV).

A broken timeline leads to broken trust which leads to broken vows. As a result, it leads to broken hearts, broken bodies, and ultimately a broken family.

Third, hardship comes through broken relationships.

After Hagar becomes pregnant, the text shows how broken trust leads to broken choices that result in broken relationships (vv. 4–5).

Corruption breeds contempt which breeds conflict which breeds condemnation.

Hagar’s pride combines with Sarai’s pity and Abram’s passivity to bring about the destruction of the moment. (Men’s passivity is the cause of sin) (lead your homes) (every nonprofit is a giant highlight of the failure of men)

But notice hardship comes through broken people.

I see this quote everywhere- I have no idea who to attribute it to but it says-

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, Weak men create hard times.

There definitely seems to be some truth to that statement.

I just there is one caveat missing this those statements.

Strong men are only found in Christ Jesus.

If we stand on the word of God and lean not on our own understanding then everything goes better.

Abram is not standing on the Word of God and he leaned on His own understanding.

And this weak make that created this hard time- is going to give Hagar back to Sarai.

Abram gives Hagar back to Sarai for condemnation (v. 6).

Imagine Hagar’s situation.

As a servant with few rights, she is pressured into being a solution to her mistress’s problem.

As a result, she doesn’t just witness Sarai’s brokenness over her infertility anymore.

Now she experiences the results of that brokenness within herself.

Abram is guilty of using her body, Sarai is guilty of crushing her soul. So she is flee.

2. Hagar's Hardship: Human Conflict

Ge 16:4b-6

The front pages of new sites across the world are filled with stories of war and turmoil in Israel right now.

The Palestines messed around and found out when they decided to kill innocent men and women at a concert in Israel.

Israel is not messing around. They are going Sherman’s march to the sea. Total war.

We have seen mob violence with screams of “Death to the Arabs” or “Death to the Jews.” The conflict is not over religion; it centers in the land.

God’s plan has not changed.

Canaan was given to Israel and will be theirs entirely some day as fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

We must remember the promise was given while Abram was still childless.

According to all standards of Jewish and Oriental inheritance, Ishmael, the firstborn, would become the heir of Abram’s wealth and the descendant of a promised line.

But God’s plan of a chosen nation did not include the son of Hagar the Egyptian.

Human impatience drove them to adopt a cultural pattern common at their time and in their part of the world. Sarai suggested that Abram could father a child through her servant girl Hagar.

Since this ancient Oriental practice seems so foreign to our system of ethics, we wonder with Rondal Youngblood:

How could the wives of the patriarchs suggest such a thing? Once again, it was the legally authorized custom of that time for a man who had no son to take measures that would insure the orderly disposition of his inheritance when he died. He could adopt a son, as Abram had apparently already done (c. 15:2–3). Or … he could produce a son by cohabiting with one of the servant girls in his household. If a son were born as a result of such cohabitation, the inheritance rights of that son would supercede the rights of any previously adopted son. In a polygamous society, where men commonly had a wife and one or more concubines (as Abram did; see 25:6), sleeping with a servant girl was not nearly so strange or shocking as it might seem to us (Youngblood, 166).

But the plan went awry from the beginning. Like Peninnah and Hannah (1 Sam. 1:6), Hagar despised Sarai, Sarai blamed Abram, Abram gave permission for whatever Sarai wanted to do, Sarai mistreated Hagar … and the horrors continued.

No doubt for Hagar this was a door of opportunity.

To become the first concubine of the great Abram was a considerable step up from being the slave of Sarai.

All of Abram’s camp knew his wife was barren, and word of Hagar’s fertility probably traveled fast.

But Sarai was not quite ready to be replaced as the mistress of the house. She never cared to see the child of that union which she herself had suggested.

Sarai’s jealousy eventually drove Hagar into the wilderness to escape bondage in Abram’s tent because of the child she carried.

The stage was now set for the birth of the Arab nation.

Their ancestress, driven by a love of freedom, sat alone by a spring in the wilderness of Shur. There she was met by the angel of the LORD.

This designation is found with some frequency in the Old Testament (Gen. 19:1, 21; 31:11, 13; Exod. 3:2, 4; Judg. 2:1–5; 6:11–12, 14; 13:3, 6, 8–11, 13, 15–17, 20–23).

While some believe this to be an angelic figure like Michael or Gabriel, many scholars equate an encounter with the angel of the Lord with an appearance of God himself.

How the visitor speaks to Hagar and how she responds to him support the theory (vv. 10, 13).

The Christinese term for this is a Christophany—an appearance of the Son of God before he took on flesh as Jesus.

If this is indeed a Christophany, then this scene is a preview of John 4:1–26 where Jesus meets with another woman at a well. In both cases, the presence of God brings a woman healing after hardship.

3. Divine Intervention: God's Compassion

Ge 16:7-12

One theologian observes, “The key term throughout the chapter is ‘misery’ … which occurs as a noun in v. 11b and as a verb in v. 6 [mistreated] … and v. 9 [submit]. Hagar was afflicted by Sarai (v. 6); she was told to put herself back under that affliction (v. 9); and the Lord heard her affliction (v. 11)” (Sailhamer, 135).

The appearance of the angel taught the runaway servant a lesson she probably never forgot.

She discovered that God is El Roi—the seeing God.

She learned what many people today have never learned—that they cannot run away from the Lord whose eyes are everywhere seeing the evil and the good.

Like Samuel, Ishmael received his name from events in his mother’s life and not his own.

All this happened at a well between Kadesh and Bered, a place where Isaac later lived (Gen. 25:11).

How happy Abraham must have been at the return of Hagar from the desert.

Her testimony must have reminded him of his own experiences with God’s promise. Surely it was plain to Abraham that Sarai’s slave girl had met God in a personal way, and the pregnancy must have taken on new meaning until the birth.

While Abram did nothing to assist Hagar and her unborn child, God intervened to assist her.

After Hagar fled, apparently taking nothing with her on her journey, the angel of the Lord found her near a spring in the desert. It was the spring (or fountain) that is beside the road to Shur.

And he asked her two questions worth pondering in today’s times as well. The first question was, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from?”

Since this angel knew Hagar’s name and whose servant she was, certainly he also knew where she came from. The angel was actually asking Hagar, an Egyptian, whom Paul said represented the old covenant, what is your history? What is your past? What road have you traveled to get to this point?

The second question he asked her was: And where are you going? What is your future? How will your journey end? What awesome questions these were! Where have you come from, and where are you going?

Hopefully, those who are in an unstable place in life today, who feel like giving up and running away from it all, will ponder these questions as well.

Hopefully, they can muster better answers than those Hagar gave. Firstly, she never told the angel where she came from, and secondly her generic answer suggested she did not know where she was going.

She was more than likely going back to Egypt. And any time we see people going back o Egypt its a picture of people leaving the will of God and going back to their sin and shame.

The truth was, after Hagar discovered she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress Sarai, and started competing for the position as Abram’s number one wife.

This caused Sarai to mistreat her in order to re-establish her dominance and remind Hagar of her status as a slave. She wanted to force Hagar back into submission.

But the emotional and physical pain, caused Hagar to run away, taking nothing with her on the journey. Evidently, the plan Abram and Sarai concocted to use Hagar as a surrogate to bear their offspring, was different from the plan Hagar had for herself. She did not want to only be a surrogate, she also wanted to be equal as a wife.

Thankfully, verse 9 says, the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”

In other words, do not make a mockery of her, thinking you are better than her, because you were able to conceive. You, who represented the old covenant, must give in, and submit to her, who represented the new covenant.

She is number one! And unless the old covenant submits to the new, there will never be peace between the two!

This was tough advice for Hagar. It meant she would have to surrender her hopes and dreams.

Most importantly, it meant she would have to exist in an environment in which she was no longer welcomed.

Her eventual departure was inevitable, but this was not the right time.

While Sarai was ready for her to leave, Abram was not.

Hagar and her unborn child were still in his heart. They had become his family, rather than Sarai’s.

God demonstrated His mercy to Hagar in verse 10, and He spoke tenderly to her to demonstrate His compassion toward her situation.

He informed her that He would increase her descendants so much that they would be too many to count.

Notice, despite Sarai’s plan, God referred to Hagar’s descendants as hers, rather than Sarai’s.

In fact, God did not even refer to Hagar’s descendants as Abram’s, because He never intended Abram’s descendants to be reckoned through Hagar.

This meant that from God’s perspective, Abram and Sarai were never supposed to build a family through Hagar. The angel also said to her:

Genesis 16:11–12 ESV

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.”

As a wild donkey, he would have a wealth of potential to be industrious, but his wildness would prevent his potential from being realized.

His sin would be, his hand being against everyone, but his punishment would be, everyone’s hand being against him.

This also meant Ishmael would not trust others, nor could he be trusted by others.

More importantly, he would live in perpetual hostility.

The jealousy and despised feelings his mother Hagar felt toward Sarai, would be borne out in him and his feelings toward Sarai’s descendants. This was quite a prophecy!

Verse 13 shows that Hagar spoke back to God. It says she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her, saying, “You are the God who sees me. I have now seen (or seen the back of) the One who sees me.” The angel said God hears, but Hagar said He not only hears, but He also sees. Verse 14 explained, that is why the well where Hagar was found was called Beer Lahai Roi (well of the Living One who sees me). Undoubtedly, this encounter with God, who hears and sees, changed the rest of Hagar’s life.

Verse 15 declares that Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram, named him Ishmael.

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael (God hears).

Again, Ishmael never became Sarai’s son.

In other words, her plan did not work!

In fact, the day Ishmael was born, must have been a sad day for her.

However, the question to be asked is, once Ishmael was born, did the relationship between Abram and Hagar cease?

It is unclear what the nature of Abram’s and Hagar’s relationship was once she gave birth to Ishmael, but what is clear is that while Abram gave Sarai license to mistreat Hagar, there is no evidence he mistreated her himself.

What will also become clear from later chapters, is that Abram became satisfied with having Ishmael as a son, such that he appeared hesitant when God again told him he would have another son, through whom his offspring would be reckoned.

Nevertheless, as we go further in Genesis, it will become more evident that God’s plan always eventually prevails.

Its either God’s way or God way.

If it is the Will of God it will be done.