When Waiting Turns into Worry

Text: Genesis 16:1–16

Big Idea

When we stop trusting God's timing, we often create problems that God's timing would have prevented.

CONNECTION TO GENESIS 15

Last week we stood in God's waiting room.

God reassured Abram.

God renewed His promise.

God established His covenant.

And Abram believed God.

Genesis 15 ends on a mountaintop.

Genesis 16 begins in a valley.

The problem isn't that God changed.

The problem is that time passed.

And often faith is easiest immediately after God speaks.

The real test comes weeks later.

Months later.

Years later.

When the promise remains unfulfilled…

Sarai is going to express some doubt… I want us to remember that all of this was part of the revelation that God is giving to Moses at the time that the people of God are about to go over the Jordan River. They've been wandering for 40 years. So think about the people of God. What have they done?

They have also received a promise from God. They have also come through the Red Sea toward the Promised Land. They also, at the last minute, have exercised a lack of faith in the promise that God gave. And now Moses is telling the story about their forefather Abram and showing that he did some of the same things. He received a promise from God. He had a lack of faith, went to Egypt, came out of Egypt, and now, even though the promise has been reiterated, there is also going to be a major lapse of faith in Genesis 16, which it still reverberates with problems worldwide and especially in the Middle East even today. So let's look at it. Genesis 16.

Introduction:

Have you ever noticed how difficult waiting becomes when there is no visible progress?

If you're tracking a package and see updates, you can be patient…

If a contractor keeps showing progress, you can wait…

But when nothing seems to be happening… Waiting becomes much harder.

That is where Abram and Sarai find themselves.

God promised a son.

Years have passed… Still no son.

God promised descendants. Years have passed. No child.

And in that silence, they make a decision that would affect generations…

Genesis 16 teaches us what happens when faith gives way to human solutions.

As the chapter unfolds, we discover four warnings from the waiting room.

I) Don't Let Delay Cause You to Doubt (vv.1–3)

(Vs. 1) Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children..."

The chapter begins with a painful reminder… Sarai is still barren. She is 75 years old at this point of her life…

Her barrenness was deemed a tragedy in ancient culture, where it was a mark of success to have many children and a sad failure to have none. From Sarai’s perspective, the flower was fading, and time was running out. Anguished humiliation throbbed within her. Significantly, she knew that God had promised Abram that a son coming from his own body would be his heir (cf. 15:4), but it had not yet been explicitly revealed to her that she would be the mother.

The promise is real.

The problem is real too.

(Vs. 1b) Isn’t it ironic that Hagar was an Egyptian… So Abram picked up Hagar in Egypt. And remember, Abram never should have gone to Egypt. And when he went to Egypt, you might say he dodged a bullet. He certainly did. But then remember, when he came out of Egypt, he was enriched by Pharaoh, just like the children of Israel years later came out of Egypt and were enriched by Pharaoh. And yet, part of that enrichment was a maid girl by the name of Hagar. So you might say it this way, although Abram left Egypt, in some ways, Egypt never left Abram. There are always consequences to our unwise sojournings. 

(Vs. 2a) Notice how Sarai begins speaking:

"The LORD hath restrained me from bearing." Interesting that this was Sarai’s view… God is not allowing me, God is keeping something from me. None of this attitude had anything to do with God’s promise. Sarai would bear a child, but now…

How often do we jump the gun, how often do we not take God’s promises at face value…

Sarai understood that God was sovereign over the womb. He had promised descendants to Abram and Sarai, and they had not yet come after many years. There was a lot of pain in these words.

The pain of hope deferred (Delayed) making the heart sick ().Proverbs 13:12

Proverbs 13:12 KJV 1900

12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: But when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

Over time, prolonged waiting can become emotionally exhausting. Solomon says it "makes the heart sick." He's not describing a physical illness but an inward discouragement, weariness, or heaviness of spirit…

The pain of prayers not yet answered.

The pain of arms that had never yet held her own child.

The pain of public shame.

The pain of blaming God for one's problems; unbelief is a sin, but it is also a sickness, one that carries a lot of pain.

She is focused on her circumstances rather than God's promise.

Then comes her plan:

(Vs. 2b ) Go in unto my maid..."

While we are scandalized by Sarai’s polygamous solution, it was perfectly logical and acceptable in the culture from which she had come as well as in the culture that surrounded her.

I think we have to ask ourselves what have we allowed… it may be culturally accepted through the lens of humanity, but in the lens of God’s word…

This was culturally accepted.

But it was never God's plan.

Proverbs 3:5–6 KJV 1900

5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.

Hebrews 10:36 KJV 1900

36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

"When you cannot trace God's hand, you must trust God's heart." - Oswald Chambers

Many people quit a diet one week before the results become visible. Not because it isn't working. Because they become discouraged by the waiting…

Sarai approaches Abram with, “Here try this…” When it comes to obedience in God we shouldn’t have a try this mentality. We certainly shouldn’t use cultural norms to try to establish biblical obedience…

(Vs. 3) There it is, it’s been ten years. Sarai’s saying this is my idea and I accept this… Here Abram is passively complicit…

II) Human Solutions Cannot Improve Divine Plans (vv.4–6)

Abram goes in Hagar conceives and herein lies sadness. And that is that when we step outside of God's will, when we do things our own way, sometimes our plans look to have immediate success. So it looked like, oh, that worked. Remember what Sarai said immediately? Hey, it may be, it may be, but it did, it worked out.

And sometimes when we try to take matters in our own hands and help God out, so to speak, it seems to work out. But listen, be careful, because when you engage in sinful behavior, you may get what you want, in this case, a baby, but they didn't want what they got. And honestly, the Middle East crisis today between the Arab world and the Jewish world is, really finds its genesis in this story. Look at verse number four…

(Vs. 4) When Hagar had this child, she began to have a different attitude towards Sarai because she's thinking, I've been objectified. I've been used. I'm just like a piece of luggage here. I'm not loved. I'm not supported. And Hagar actually began to hate Sarai. This caused this huge rift in this family, and she's not wanting her son, we'll see the son is Ishmael, to be raised by Sarai. She knows that she doesn't want, she can only love like a mother loves. And on all of the multifaceted tensions that are going to come through a wrong decision like this. You know what sinful decisions do? They always make situations way more complex. Obedience makes things simple, and sin makes things complex.

"Whenever we try to accomplish God's will through fleshly methods, we create consequences God never intended."

Galatians 6:7 KJV 1900

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

"Faith and patience always go together. When we run ahead of God, we usually create our own difficulties." - Warren Wiersbe

Illustration

Abraham Lincoln reportedly said “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend four sharpening the axe."

Impatience often creates more work than patience.

(Vs. 5) It kind of sounds like Sarai is taking responsibility… And here it is that it seemed to be this agreed-upon decision. We're both on board with this. Now, all of a sudden, when things don't turn out the way they thought it would turn out, now you have a husband against a wife and a wife against a husband and all this unnecessary tension.

(Vs. 6a) So again, Abram is passive. Abram could have said, No, no, or you're right, I have sinned. I shouldn’t have done this. Or, No, Sarai, you were wrong, but he didn't do either one. Notice what he does. He adopts a very passive response when he says, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee.

(Vs. 6b) And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, boy, she dealt harshly with Hagar.

Boy, so you think this situation that was supposed to help God out to make things easier has now made everything harder. And the Bible says that she, that's Hagar, fled from her face.

So wow, from bad to worse. Now, they thought it was a bad situation. It wasn't. They just needed to wait. But because they jumped the gun, tried to help God out, they made what they thought was a bad situation, which wasn't, into a really, truly bad situation.

III) God Sees Us Even in Our Mess (vv.7–14)

This is where the chapter turns.

Hagar flees.

Alone.

Rejected.

Pregnant.

Broken.

And then:

(Vs. 7) So Shur actually means a wall or a border, and it's between Canaan and Egypt. So most probably what Hagar was doing is running home, probably trying to run back to Egypt and be with her own family.

And Shur would be kind of the border of that. So she runs to a place where she can get water. Obviously, that area of the world is desert, so the water sources are known by people. And Hagar runs, she runs to this place, to this fountain of water, and God finds her there, because the angel of the Lord is really an Old Testament theophany, an appearance of God in human form. Sometimes we call that a Christophany, an Old Testament appearance of Jesus…

Psalm 34:18 KJV 1900

18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

(Vs. 8) So she had a responsibility to, I know who you are. Hagar, by the way, means stranger, foreigner, and you're Sarai's maid.

Now watch this. (Read) Whence comest thou and whither wilt thou go?

Hagar, where are you running from? And where are you running to? Now, obviously, God never asks questions that he doesn't already know the answer to. But here, God's asking these questions because this is gonna prod the conscience of Hagar.

Hagar, what are you running from? Where are you gonna go? What's your plan? And it's interesting because Hagar doesn't really have a complete answer.

She says in verse 8, (Read), I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai.

Hey, I'm scared. I'm running away. I'm running from Sarai. So, in other words, she kind of somewhat answers the question where she's been, but she really doesn't answer the question where she's going. And I'm not sure that she entirely understands where she's going. She's just scared and confused and without answer. And God finds her there at that place of distress.

And I love what Hagar now, well, what God now says and how Hagar now responds, because it says in verse number 9,

(Vs. 9) Listen, you need to get back to a place of submission. This is of me. I'm going to bless this. I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna bless your son. And you have to do the hard thing now and submit to your God-given authority. Now that would be a very tough pill to swallow, because remember, what actually instigated all of this was the fact that Hagar now despised her mistress.

So you've got to go back to a woman that you in your heart are despising, but her positional authority in your life has not changed. So go back. But watch the promise that God gives, because whenever God tells us to do something, he always gives us the impetus and the grace by which to do what he has called us to do.

(Vs. 10) Now, what does that sound like? That sounds a whole lot like the promise that God made to Abraham. Now, this boy obviously is Abraham's son, but he's saying to Hagar, Hagar, just as I've made to Abraham a promise that a great nation would come out of his loins, that nation would be Israel, and the promised seed would be Isaac in that sense.

But God is saying I'm also giving a promise now to you, to Ishmael. In other words, God's blessings can at once both be true. God can make a blessing to Israel and have specific redemptive purposes for the nation of Israel, but he also can make a promise to Ishmael, and that's what he's done here. He made a promise to Hagar, really, and Abraham in that sense, through Ishmael.

(Vs. 11) Ishmael means God hears. I want you to name your son, God hears. Because Hagar, when you were all by yourself, running and felt that you had nobody in the world, when you were out in the desert place and felt as if you had no resource, I heard you. I heard you. And you can always know in your darkest moments, you can always know as your son grows, I hear, I am the God that hears. What a special revelation of God.

God is saying, “I’m sensitive to this. None of this was my plan, all of this was the consequences of a lack of faith on the parts of Abram and Sarai…

(Vs. 12) And even today, we see in the Middle East the problem between the Arabs and the Jews. And where did that problem begin? Right here, through the faithlessness of Abram. So you look at one line of Abram's family, you say, what great faith. You look at another line of Abram's family, what great faithlessness. And yet in both cases, God is faithful. In spite of the human beings, God is faithful to both Isaac for his purposes and to Ishmael, in a sense, for his purposes.

(Vs. 13) So God gave a name. God named Ishmael, Ishmael, God hears. But watch now what Hagar does, because Hagar now names something herself. And the Bible says she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me. So God gave a name to the boy, and Hagar gave a name to God… It’s the only time in the Bible this name is given.

El Roi… The God who sees… What have we learned? God hears, and God sees…

(Vs. 14) The well of the living one who sees me…

"There are no forgotten people with God." - Charles Spurgeon

Application

You may feel overlooked.

God sees.

You may feel abandoned.

God sees.

You may feel lost.

God sees.

IV) God's Purposes Survive Human Failure (vv.15–16)

(Vs. 15-16)

The chapter ends with Ishmael's birth… Abram is 86 years old.

The promised son still has not arrived.

And yet God's covenant remains intact.

Genesis 16 is filled with mistakes.

But God is still working.

Romans 8:28 KJV 1900

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

2 Timothy 2:13 KJV 1900

13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

Lamentations 3:22–23 KJV 1900

22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

"Our unbelief cannot make the promises of God of none effect." - J.C. Ryle

CONCLUSION

Genesis 16 teaches us that waiting can be dangerous.

Not because God becomes unfaithful.

But because we become impatient.

Sarai stopped waiting.

Abram stopped trusting.

Hagar became caught in the middle.

And the consequences lasted generations.

Yet even in the middle of human failure, God remained faithful.

GOSPEL CONNECTION

The good news is that our salvation does not depend on our ability to wait perfectly.

If it did, none of us would make it.

Our hope rests in a God who remains faithful when His people stumble.

The same God who pursued Hagar pursues sinners today.

The same God who kept His promise to Abram has kept His promise through Christ.

STRONG CLOSING LINE

"God's delays are never God's denials. And when we learn to trust His timing, we discover that His plans are always better than our shortcuts."

This sermon pairs beautifully with Lessons from the Waiting Room because Genesis 15 teaches how to wait, while Genesis 16 warns what happens when we stop waiting.