Justified Sin

Have you ever seen someone make a mistake, and then not own up to it?

They’ve done something wrong, and they won’t admit that they did something wrong.

It’s tough because I’m not comfortable with it.

They won’t admit that they are wrong.

Instead, they make excuses for their sin.

They justify their sin.

They often say it’s not their fault, but it was the situation’s fault.

Or they were put in a lose-lose situation.

I’m a baseball fan, and a couple weeks ago this happened with the New York Yankees.

It was game 2 of the American League Division Series, between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

It’s bottom of the 6th inning, and the Yankees are winning 8-3.

Theres a man on 2nd and 3rd and 2 outs.

A new batter steps up to the plate.

And with 1 ball and 2 strikes, the Yankees pitcher throw high and inside to the left handed batter - that means it almost hits him.

The batter check swings, holds his swing back, and it looked like the ball bounced right off of him.

This means he’s hit by the pitch or so it seems and he’s awarded first base.

This means he’s hit by the pitch or so it seems.

Upon review, it looked like the ball didn’t actually hit the batter, but hit the bottom of his bat.

And since the catcher caught the ball, it’s not a foul ball, it should be strike 3.

That should mean inning over, and the Yankees are one step closer to winning the game.

All that needs to be done to clear this up, is for the Yankees manager to challenge the play.

If he challenges it, it means it will be reviewed on video, and the correct call can be made.

The Yankees wait the 30 seconds they are given to challenge a play, but they don’t do it.

Since they refuse, that means, the call stands, the batter goes to first, and now it’s bases loaded 2 outs, bottom of the 6th inning.

Now it’s bases loaded, 2 outs, bottom of the 6th inning.

Next batter steps up to the plate and does what you always dream of doing, he hits a grand slam in the playoffs.

That grand slam made the score 8-7.

The Indians ended up tying the game in the 8th inning.

And then winning the game in the 13th inning.

It was a great game.

The Yankees lost.

But really, they should have won.

And for the rest of the series, the Yankees’ manager was criticized, because he clearly blew the call, and ultimately lost the game for his team.

After the game was over he was approached and asked why he didn’t challenge it.

He made up different excuses, but never owned up to his mistake.

He justified his decision, when all he really needed to say was, “I messed up.”

It’s so frustrating to watch someone not admit to a mistake.

They justify their actions.

They give excuses.

It’s not just the manager of the Yankees who does this, it’s not just other people, we do it too.

Which makes today a difficult text to preach.

I really wrestled how to preach this passage.

I wasn’t too sure how to do it.

In fact, to be honest, I wasn’t even content with the point of the passage.

Mostly, because it’s a series of sins, that can all be justified.

They can all be explained away.

One person messes up, only to put the next person in a difficult situation.

That person sins, but is able to say he did it because the previous person made him do it.

What makes this hard to preach?

Because I can’t help but empathize with the second person.

It’s hard to condemn a person who started off with the world against him.

It’s hard to preach, because I’ve used that excuse before.

So as I go through this text, it’s going to be uncomfortable.

It’s going to be personal.

And you, like me, might not like some of the conclusions.

The first point of this sermon is justified sin is still a sin.

To help us understand this, let’s look at .

Let’s look at this together now.

Read .

This is a passage that the ethicist would say is in the grey area.

There are some who are afraid of saying something is always wrong, or always right.

This is called relativism.

It’s a character of post-modernism.

Those who are this way, say there is no black or white.

They say we can’t say something is always right or wrong.

Instead they say much of what we do is in the grey.

It’s debatable.

It’s neither good nor bad.

This passage has a series of events, that we can’t help but mourn over.

We will briefly look at each situation.

As we do, ask yourself how you feel about each stage?

Think to yourself, was the main actor right or wrong?

I’m going to tell you right now, there’s not a whole lot of right in this passage.

Which is going to be hard to swallow, especially considering, the moral dilemmas placed on each person.

If you were in their shoes, you might have done the same thing, which makes it hard to say they’re wrong.

Where chapter 15 was a chapter of great victory, chapter 16 is a chapter of great defeat.

In chapter 15, Abraham was a man of faith.

In chapter 16, he’s a man of flesh.

When we first met Abraham, back at the end of Genesis 11, he was about 75 years old.

He was promised by God to become the father of a great nation, to possess a great land, and to become a great blessing to the world.

By now though, it’s 10 years later, and Abraham is 85.

I’ve never met too many 85 year olds who are just entering parenthood.

So it’s turning into an impossibility.

Where chapter 15 was a chapter of great victory, chapter 16 is a chapter of great defeat.

In chapter 15, Abraham was a man of faith.

He believed God.

He was credited with righteousness.

In chapter 16, he’s a man of the flesh.

Instead of trusting God to fulfill the promises, he takes matters into his own hands.

So we come to our first justified sin of the text.

Sarah had an Egyptian servant.

Her name was Hagar.

She was probably given to them during their brief stay while in Egypt, when Abraham sold Sarah to Pharaoh for his safety.

Sarah, says that God has prevented her from having children.

Again, God has made it very clear that there would be a child.

And that this child would be the biological son of Abraham.

Sarah’s idea is that Abraham should take Hagar as his wife, and try to have a child through her.

This is where we begin to justify things, and question, “Is this really wrong?”

Before you think, “Well, technically, that’s still a child of Abraham.”

Sarah’s not looking for some loop hole in God’s promise.

She’s not thinking God promised a son, and any son will do.

Sarah intends on taking the child as her own.

The plan is get Hagar pregnant, then steal the child away, claim him as her own.

Basically, kidnap the child from Hagar.

In verse 2, she says, “Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.”

The word obtain is a Hebrew word that means build.

Sarah will build a family by Hagar.

Sarah justified her actions, because she thought it would bring about the promise of God.

Within the world at this time, these types of things were done.

People would have concubines, and they would have children and claim the children as their own.

But that doesn’t mean it was right.

In the words of every parent known to man, “If your friends told you to jump off a bridge would you?”

Just because this was the action of the world around them, it doesn’t make it a right action.

Her actions can be justified by saying she just wanted to fulfill God’s word.

You could say she had faith in God’s promise, she just didn’t believe God could do it supernaturally.

So she put her lack of belief into action.

What she was proposing was sinful.

She may have thought that Hagar was just a slave and it wouldn’t change anything in her and Abraham’s relationship, but look at the end of verse 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.”

God considers that an act of marriage.

Sex, procreation, is for marriage.

It’s something that husbands and wives do.

God’s desires never change, God’s law never changes.

The 7th commandment is thou shalt not commit adultery.

You could say she had faith in God’s promise, she just didn’t believe God could do it supernaturally.

So she put her belief into action.

And one of the qualifications of an elder is that he be the husband of only 1 wife.

Sarah might have been able to explain why they did what they did, but a justified sin … is still a sin.

Then there is Abraham.

Look at the end of verse 2.

Sarah comes up with this plan.

Have sex with Hagar, get her pregnant, then they’ll take the child, and raise him as their own.

Then the end of verse 2 says, “And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.”

I’m not going to make any jokes saying that husbands shouldn’t listen to their wives.

God created marriage, and part of marriage is that the wife is the help meet, basically, men we better listen to our wives.

The problem is that he listened to his wife to sin.

Again, they weren’t trying to fulfill God’s promise just from a certain point of view.

They were taking the promise into their own hand and they wanted to fulfill it their way.

This isn’t the first time in history that a man listened to his wife to sin.

Adam did the same thing.

Eve handed him the fruit and he ate.

No questions.

No argument.

He just ate.

Then do you remember how Adam responded when God confronted them?

- “The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

“It’s not my fault, she made me do it.”

What’s the problem?

The father of the human race listened to his wife to sin.

And now the father of Israel listened to his wife to sin.

And before I look

Abraham, like Adam before him, sinned, and justified his sin.

This chapter raises some uncomfortable thoughts, because I’m sure we’ve been there.

It’s funny how we have a hard time saying the truth sometimes.

For example, Sarah’s plan was sinful.

I hope we don’t have a problem saying that.

And Abraham’s response was also sinful.

But with Abraham being a patriarch and a hero, sometimes we have a hard time admitting he was wrong.

AW Pink, someone who I truly admire, and respect, said that Abraham was a good husband because he didn’t want to quarrel with his wife.

Pink actually commends Abraham because he didn’t put up a fight.

Pink justifies Abraham’s sin, saying he just wanted to get along.

Sometimes we justify the sins of others, because we like them, or wonder what we would have done.

And before we look at Hagar, look down at verse 5.

Things have soured between Hagar and Sarah.

Now remember who’s idea this all was.

It was Sarah’s plan.

But when things go sour, who is Sarah mad at?

She isn’t mad at herself.

She doesn’t take responsibility for things.

She doesn’t say, “Well this didn’t turn out well. My bad. Bad idea on my part.”

Instead, she turns to her husband Abraham, and says, “May the wrong done to me be on you!”

This is all your fault.

This is the epitome of not taking responsibility.

She’s justifying her sin.

Now for the hardest person to critique, Hagar.

When we read this story, I have a certain fondness for her.

She’s a slave.

She didn’t go to Sarah and say, “I have an idea, let me get pregnant, and I’ll be a surrogate for you guys.”

She was treated like property.

Her womb was treated like property.

And her baby was treated like property.

She’s not innocent in this whole affair either.

And we might look at her, and justify her as well.

We feel pity for her.

If there is anyone in this whole passage who we think should get a free pass … it’s probably her.

Look at verse 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.”

Do we not feel empathy for her?

Absolutely, you’d think she should look down on her mistress.

After all she’s been through, how she’s been treated, you’d she should look down on Sarah, she deserves it.

But that’s not exactly what it’s talking about.

In this culture, to be pregnant was to be blessed.

When a woman was barren, she was seen as cursed.

And when there was a barren woman and a fertile woman:

One was seen as cursed, the other as blessed.

One was seen as lower, the other as better.

Hagar was not looking with contempt, because she’d been treated cruelly, she was looking with contempt because she thought she was better than Sarah.

She was filled with pride.

I’m sure you’ve been in similar situations.

Someone has treated you poorly.

They’ve been cruel to you.

Then something bad happens to them.

Inside you applaud.

You think they got what they had coming.

You might even celebrate whatever disaster happens to them.

And if someone confronts you on it, and says you shouldn’t be proud, you get angry.

You think in your heart:

If they only knew what you had to go through.

If they only knew what has been done to you.

Maybe you’re in that situation now.

How are we to respond?

Jesus said, “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”

And says, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Boy, it’s hard to respond that way isn’t it?

It’s so hard, to not get back at people who wrong us.

It’s easy to jab them in the gut, when we think they deserve it.

We justify our sin.

What I’m trying to show you is that even if we don’t consider something a sin … God still does.

Our great problem is that we lower God’s standards.

When in reality we need to raise our own.

Consider the price that was paid for sin.

God never lowered sin.

In fact with the death of Jesus, it was raised.

Resist ever thinking sin isn’t that bad.

Because when you lessen sin, and you justify it, you lessen the payment for sin, Jesus Christ.

The second point of this sermon is that Christ seeks the sinner.

Verse 6 says that Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar and she fled into the desert.

Hagar, took off, and was most likely headed back to Egypt.

Then in verse 7 you see something very tender.

The angel of the Lord found her ...

This is not just an angel of the Lord.

This is The angel of the Lord.

When you see the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, this is what we call a Christophany.

It’s an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament.

How do I know it’s Jesus and not just an angel?

First the language says so, it’s THE angel of the Lord.

Often times he’s worshipped.

A normal angel would forbid being worshipped.

Also, later on in this text He speaks as if He is God.

Verses 10-12, he blesses Hagar’s son and prophesies what his life will be like.

He never speaks as if he’s only a messenger.

He speaks with authority, saying, “This is what I will do.”

Verse 9, “I will surely multiply your offspring ...”

Here, he comes and speaks tenderly to Hagar.

He finds her.

He comforts her.

Here we see a glimpse of what the ministry of Jesus will be in His own life.

Though Hagar had sinned by being proud and boasting in her pregnancy, Jesus still sought her out.

In , Jesus says of His ministry, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

We see the kindness of God, in that had Hagar had her way, she would have left, and been lost in the wilderness.

But the love of Jesus is so great that He pursues His elect, who in their unconverted state, willfully flee HIs presence.

And though we reject responsibility for our sins, it was Christ who put them upon Himself.

He took responsibility.

says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

So while it may be hard to admit your sin, you have a gentle savior, who saves the lowly.

He seeks the lost.

reminds us, ““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Lastly, the Gospel calls for radical repentance.

Up until now, I’ve been saying that a justified sin is still a sin.

You have sinned.

Perhaps there have been times that you have felt as if you’ve been put into a corner over your sin, and you felt as if you had no choice, you had to sin.

But suppose it’s finally starting to making sense.

And you admit that you have sinned.

Previously, you denied your sin.

Previously, you felt it wasn’t that bad.

But now you are thinking yes you were wrong.

What are you to do?

Hagar grew proud.

She fled from Sarah.

The Angel of the Lord, Jesus, finds her, and look at what he says at the tale end of verse 9, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.”

That’s radical repentance.

Sure Hagar was proud.

Sure she saw herself as more blessed than Sarah.

But Sarah was cruel to her.

Why should she have to return?

And not just return but the angel of the Lord told her to submit to her.

To not just come back and say, “Now we are equal parties.”

But to put herself under Sarah again.

You see, if you truly see your sin as sinful, you will do whatever it takes to make amends, to restore the friendship.

The little letter, Philemon.

It’s a little letter written by Paul.

It’s about a run away slave, named Onesimus.

He is a slave, and runs away to Paul.

Paul receives Onesimus, and enjoys his friendship.

But finally, what prompts the whole letter, is that Onesimus learns that he has wronged his master, and becomes a Christian.

Onesimus returns back to his master, Philemon.

That’s radical repentance.

The Prodigal Son.

After squandering his inheritance, he finds himself the lowest of the lows.

He returns to his father.

He tells his dad, “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’”

That’s radical repentance.

How about the apostle Paul?

He was originally named Saul, and was a persecutor of Christians.

He was said to have ravaged the church.

He becomes a Christian.

I bet there was a grudge against him.

He’d sent people to their deaths.

And now he comes like everything’s okay?

The church had to acknowledge that Christ saved Him for a purpose and had to forgive him.

He returns, calling himself a brother, to those he was formerly an enemy of.

That’s radical repentance.

If you understand the depth of your own sin, you will no longer lessen it, but you will acknowledge it’s heinousness, and repent.

Have you done this?

The Angel of the Lord told Hagar to go to great lengths in her repentance.

Have you gone to great lengths?

Have you acknowledged your sin, and done all that you can to restore a situation?

Have you held a grudge against someone because you think they’ve wronged you?

And that grudge has turned into hate.

Sometimes when multiple people sin, their collective sin is like an onion.

There’s layers to it.

There’s an original sin, then you add your sin to it.

Then the next person adds there sin to it.

Until everyone is guilty and we forget what the original sin even was.

Maybe it’s time to go to that person, and apologize.

Can you do that?

If not why?

Is it because you’re still justifying your own sin?

This is an awkward message.

This is an awkward passage.

It’s not neat and tidy.

It confronts our relativistic culture.

It confronts those who like to live in the grey.

It calls for us to acknowledge our sin.

Trust in Christ.

And repent.

Pray.