Unfaithful People Before The Faithful God

Call to Worship: Isaiah 53:10-54:7

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:26-38, 46-56

Benediction: Jude 23-24

Announcements:

Security System installed

Livestream staying and live

Covenant Renewal

Church Picnic - July 17th

Joint Service - Aug 28

Today: SWF, Communion, Potluck

Call to Worship: Isaiah 53:10-54:7

To God be the Glory

Watching over me

Scripture Reading: Luke 1:26-38, 46-56

Prayers

From Reading

Unreached

Missionary

Global Church

Local Church/min

Nation/official

Our church

I want to be where you are

Show us Christ

Sermon: Genesis 16 Unfaithful People Before the Faithful God

I remember standing in a valley in my wife’s home country. It was in the mountains north. This valley is a fishbowl, on all sides there are mountains and the only way into this valley is over a mountain.

The echos in that valley were amazing. It was too big for a voice to do much, a truck backfiring or a rock falling, it just reverberated from everywhere for quite some time

This passage is like that valley. There are echoes of it all over Scripture

just as a short example

Paul writes about in Galatians, he uses an allegorical interpretation of it as an illustration to make a point about how we are saved

Paul in that interpretation Paul also quotes from our call to worship, Isaiah 54 - so we must read Galatians, and Genesis 16, and Isaiah 53-54 together to understand his point

Ishmael descendents have significant impact on the life of ethnic Isreal

When we read the Angels’ word to Hagar here, and we read out Scripture reading of the Angels words to Mary- the wording and the pattern of the conversation is so close to like Luke 1, it’s very likely intentional

At this point, we have connections to the Mosaic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant from Galatians and Isaiah, the New Covenant from Galatians and Luke. Of course this is about the Abrahamic Covenant

And I really haven’t scratched the surface

The chorus of echos down the halls of time and history is beautiful and provokes awe inspired worship

It would be very easy for us to chase every echo but if we do that, we’ll miss the source, the heart of this passage

The heart of this passage isn’t found in Sarai or Hagar, its not found in Ismael or his Father Abram

The heart of this passage is God’s Faithfulness

God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises, even when every single person in this passage is unfaithful to God

Last week we learned began with Abram questioning if God would keep his Promises

Abram had the kingdom God promised. Abram was faithful to God and those around him, he did what was right and because he did what was right. But doing what was right, cost him everything God promised. Abram understandably questioned and even accused God

God told him

I will bless you Abram, You will be my blessing

I will make you into a great nation with people and land, kings will come from you and rule over this Kingdom

but then he lost the people and the land, and he has no heir to this supposedly promised dynasty

God promises that he’ll give him it all, even more than before

But then Abram questions God, how will he know he just won’t lose it all again

God makes a Covenant with Abram, Covenants bring people into relationship with each other

And they are broken through disloyalty, unfaithfulness - normally you’d spilt animals in two and together walk between them. By doing that each person is promising to keep the terms of the relationship or essentially may God strike them dead

But God to answer Abram’s question, how can Abram know that he or sons after him won’t lose the promised Kingdom

God walks through those cut animals alone. God is saying if he, God, or Abram, break the covenant, if either of them are unfaithful to this promise. God himself will pay the price in Blood.

And we know at that moment, God promised to nail his own Son to the Cross

God not only brings Abram into relationship with him through a Covenant, God

In our passage, God’s promise is immediately tested. Every person, all of them members of Abram’s household, all of them apart of this relationship with God - every person mentioned is unfaithful. By the terms of the Covenant, they break it - unquestionably

That’s the entire first half of our passage through verse 6

And as we begin reading the second half in verse 7 we’re left with the question:

If they broke the covenant. Will God leave them? If we are unfaithful will God leave us?

Will God forsake his promises because they were unfaithful, what about when we sin?

Will the God who alone walked through the bloody path between the spilt animals that night really remain faithful in the face of our unfaithfulness?

The answer yes - God will do it

God will remain faithful

You can trust God and in fact his mercy and his grace is even greater than what you’re probably thinking right now

But let start with the people’s unfaithfulness though and then we’ll get to God’s faithfulness

Unfaithful People

look at verses 1-3

Now what did God just promise to Abram

Genesis 15:4–5 ESV

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Now how much time as goneby? 10 years, a decade

I have to give Abram credit, he trusted God longer than I would have made it. I’d give myself 2-3 years before I started questioning God. definitely wouldn’t have done with Abram and Sarai did - but I certainly would have started questioning if I could trust God sooner

That’s what there doing. On one hand they’re questioning God’s promises by taking matters into their own hands and on the other side, they’re trying to force God’s promises to come true

That’s two sides of one coin

If you try to make God do things he promised to do - not stuff he commanded you to do like share the Gospel and be a good witness and do kingdom work, but let’s say force a conversion by apply pressure on the person or using some tactic to get saved

on one side you are trying to take matters to your own hands - only God can save and on the other hand - you’re not trust that God will do what he promised and save sinners through faithful Gospel testimony

And you know what, even putting God on a timeline is the same thing

They thought, Ten years - that’s long enough. God should have done it by now - let’s help him out

Bad idea -easy to say here when I look at that passage

Waiting in my own life - not so easy - God why haven’t you.... whatever yet, been praying for a long time - knock knock - do you hear me!

Of course he hears us. If he is waiting, it is for a good and praise worthy reason.

With Abram and Sarai - he waits until they completely give up hope in themselves. It’s only when they know there is no physical way - nothing they themselves could do any longer - that God gives Sarai a son - he waits until they know they can’t do themselves to teach them he will be faithful and he will do what he promised

But Sarai and Abram haven’t learned that lesson yet.

Now remember with me. What were Sarai and Abram meant to be to the world around them? God’s blessing

this lady Hagar - where is she from Egypt. So she would count as the part of the World, the nations right?

Hagar is poised to be such a privileged position. She dwells in the house of Abram. She is a maidservant of Sarai. Of all the people in the world we’ve met - she is the closest person outside of their family to the family of promise. We’d hope, we’d expect she of all people in the world would be the very first to receive the blessing of God through Abram

But instead this image bearer of God is traded like cattle between the husband and wife. Look at verse 3: Hagar is given no voice, no choice, no power. Sarai takes he and gives her to Abram. Abram takes Hagar. He uses Hagar to get what he and Sarai wanted an offspring, and heir a son

We find in many ancient cultures that since a maidservant belong to the mistress not the man, the mistress could give her to the man and if the maidservant had a child, it would belong to the mistress

Which, for us is messed up, because it is

And Abram and Sarai aren’t behaving like they are heirs of the Promises of God, the kingdom of God, they’re behaving just like the wicked nations around them

That’s really important for us to see. we talked before about how Abram and Sarai didn’t trust God and they took matters into their own hands

When we do that - it doesn’t just affect us. It hurts everyone around us

Instead of watching Abram and Sarai trust God, instead of learning about faith and the goodness of God. Hagar hears them complaining about God and then she has the terrible experience of being used and abused and mistreated by these people who are supposed to represent God

Now you might not be trading humans around and using them for your own gain

but do represent God, we are his chosen Representatives. Even for something small and easy like when complain and grumble to others around. what are we saying about our God and his promises to us? what are we teaching them about God, faith and faithfulness?

The reality is we are also being unfaithful

Unfortunately Genesis 16 just gets worse

Hagar mocks Sarai

Sarai curses Abram

Abram fails to protect his new wife and instead shoves her into harms way

Sarai then mistreats - same word later used for the harsh Egyptian mistreatment of the Israelites in Exodus

its so bad pregnant Hagar flees from her angry mistress

Abram and Sarai’s unfaithfulness has sunk the whole family into treating each-other cruelty

and significantly, every single on of them has sinned against God. No one in this story with worth of praise. None of their actions are deemable. in fact they are all condemnable and worthy of judgement from God

What will God do?

[Slide]

The Faithful God

Look at verse 7 with me

The angel of the Lord finds Hagar on the road back to Egypt and he speaks to her

To put this in context. look at verse 10. What does the Angel say? ‘I will surely multiply your offspring.’

who can give life?

In verse 13, She called the name of the LORD who spoke to her. ‘You are a God of Seeing’

I would suggest that this is the Lord, who several times in Genesis appears and is called an Angel of the Lord -

and now who is Hagar

She is an Egyptian woman - a woman of the nations

But God will not forsake or deminish the purpose of his covenant with Abram - to being God’s blessing to the whole World

To bring the nations through the promised son of his Kingdom back into relationship with him

Abram sinned, Sarai sinned, Hagar herself sinned but God will not forget his promises

God will not relent in accomplishing his purposes

so he appears to this pregnant servant woman wandering in wilderness

God appears to her

God first speaks to her

God tells her to go back to Sarai

Why would God tell her to back to Sarai

Because she is Sarai’s maidservant, she is Abram’s wife

It’s true that running away from your problems doesn’t solve them

but in this world, Hagar would be a be committing a crime and she could be punished by Sarai even more

The Lord sends Hagar back but not empty handed

to this abandon, mistreated, Egyptian woman - God makes a promise

He tell Hagar to call her son Ishmael - God hears

God hears Hagar’s pain, he knows her need, he will not forsake her

Not only will God not forsake her and her family

God will raise up her son into a great nation

She was mistreated and victimized but she can trust that even though she must return to her mistress, her Son will not be a servant - God will lift him up and place over his kinsmen

She is a servant but God will make her son a king

And then God allows Hagar to do something no other person in the Bible is allowed to do. Hagar names God. She doesn’t respond to the promise, she responds to the person, to God who make the promise

To the sons of Abram through Isaac - God appears and names himself - I am

But for this lowly woman - God allows her to name him after her own experience of his personal presence - you are a God who sees me

Abram did not see her, he used her and then threw her in harms way, he cast her out

Sarai used her, and then abused

But God saw this neglected woman. God cared for her. Abram and Sarah failed to help her enter into relationship with God. God keeps his promise to her and she gives birth to Ismael in verse 15

God appears to Hagar himself and welcomed her to approach him in a way no other person, male or female in the Bible is allowed and She does it at the Well of the Living Water

Hagar, Sarai, Abram were all unfaithful. But God not only remains faithful to each of them individually but he continues through their sin to work out his good purposes for the entire world

Paul in Galatians uses that allegory to illustrate the point that freedom, freedom from our unrighteousness because of our own inability to be faithful to God

Paul quotes Isaiah 54 and we know that when anyone quotes a verse, they intend for us to read in all the surrounding verses too because we made up the verses, they are referencing passages

and right before Paul qoutes Isaiah 54:1

Isaiah 54:1 ESV

“Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.

Isaiah reads of the suffering servant-king who will be crushed by the Lord for our sins so he can makes intercession for the transgressors - for us the unfaithful, the sinful the guilty

and then just after what Paul quotes - Isaiah explains for the child of the barren women to stretch out the tent pegs, to make their tent bigger not because they will dispossess, drive out the nations but because they will posses, they will welcome in the nations

The Death of the Servant-king for the sins of all the transgressors leads rejoicing of the family of the promise welcoming in, possessing the nations

I do not think it is an accident that the announcement of the Birth of Jesus parallels the Angel of the Lord’s announcement to Hagar

The God Hagar named the God who hears will give this woman a son named God saves, he will be a king and rule over his kingdom, he will reign over the house of Jacob and there will be no end to his Kingdom

Through this Son - who is the well of life, who himself is the living waters, he welcome the son of Hagar, the Son of Sarah, sons and Daughters of Eve from every Nation into his kingdom

This the son promised to Abraham will be faithful. Abram and Sarai and Hagar sinned, the whole world sinned. So to Keep his promise to Abram, To bless the whole world through his covenant with Abram, this Son Jesus will pay the penalty for our transgressions so he can welcome us forever into the household, the Kingdom of God

We can sit here and legitimately say that this passage teaches us we need to trust God and wait on his promises. He teaches about how many people get hurt when we sin because we not only are unfaithful to God but we withhold his blessing

but more than anything here: Remember God will keep his promise.

God will welcome you into his Kingdom

Jesus will reign forever

Jesus will get rid the world of affliction and injustice and treachery

Jesus, the bride-groom will never cast out his bride the church, he will treasure her and honor her always and he will remain faithful to us

So not only should you trust God and wait on him, you have no reason to doubt him in the first place

He has already done it all and he is doing

His Kingdom has come and he is bringing to competition

We don’t need to worry if God will keep the Promise. He kept it, Jeshua - God Saves came, Immanuel - God near us, came, walked among us, died for us and dwells within us,

It’s done and being brought to competition, there are the last days

And see here God’s concern for the people of the nations. It is this woman of Egypt alone in all of Scripture that God allows to place a name on him. He comes to her, he promises to her, he raises her from a place of affliction to be mother of a king

and then through the promised son, all of her children who believe in him can be saved reign with the king of kings

God goes out of this way, he goes out into the wilderness, to bring his blessing to the woman of the nations because God’s concern, God’s desire is that all would be saved

If Abram and Sarai stopped obsessing about themselves and what they thought they were due and should have already they could have been God’s blessing

Does God bring that blessing anyway

Yes? but do you really want to walk in the footsteps of Abram and Sarai in this particular or do you think you should follow God out into the wilderness to track down the hurting, the needy, the outcast and downcast, the people presently outside the family of Promise so learn that God hears their cries, he nows their affliction and has answered their cries by sending Jesus who died for them. So they can learn that God not only hears their cries but he come to rescue them

To give them a new life, to cloth them with the honor and righteousness of his son, to give them into joy and life everlasting in his very own family, in his own kingdom through faith in his Son, Jesus who died for us

God met Hagar at the Well of Living One who sees me

Follow God out into the wilderness to he tired, weary, heavy laden people of this world and tell them that all Jesus is the living waters