The God of Ishmael. Genesis 16. Rev. Min J. Chung. (Sunday Lord s Day Service, October 3, 2004)

Transcription

1 The God of Ishmael Genesis 16 Rev. Min J. Chung (Sunday Lord s Day Service, October 3, 2004) Introduction This is such an obscure chapter in the Bible. How can this be applicable to us? Well, the Bible is incredibly applicable to everyone. For example, this passage is applicable to people with relational conflicts. I mean, the relational issues here are matched by the modern day soap operas and movies that we re so interested in. In fact, this is even more interesting. This passage also applies to people concerned about their families. How should I raise my family? What should I watch out for? This also addresses the topic of marriage. Whether you re married or simply want to get married, there are many applications to be drawn from this passage about that. If you re concerned about your work, your job, your relationship with your boss or coworkers, this passage certainly applies to that area. Some of you are very discontent. You re unhappy to be here. You re unhappy about your studies, your grades, your workload. This passage also applies to you. Some of you feel like running away. Whatever you re running away from God, the law, whatever it is, this passage can speak to you. Perhaps you re struggling with worldliness. You know it is unbiblical to desire things of this world, but it s just so hard to shake. Well, this passage is for you. Some of you are thinking about going to the mission field in the future. Perhaps you re discouraged about ministry. This passage can speak to you. Maybe you re going through menopause. I don t know if anyone in this congregation is struggling with this, but this passage addresses that issue, as well. If you don t know what menopause is, ask your area pastor or a female servant. Some of you are struggling with impatience. This passage can speak to you. If you re childless, this passage is for you. If nothing I ve said applies to you, this passage has sex in it, so at least you ll be interested. So this passage is applicable to everyone but if simple applications are all you take away with you, it s like you re eating dessert or an appetizer, but not the main course. You re just tasting the food and chewing it but not digesting it. You re not getting the nutrients you need to strengthen you to live. The things we get from this chapter should not be just simple applications for your life. These little things are related to what God is doing in history. This passage teaches about how God uses His people. Do you want to live for God? Do you want true happiness that comes from living for a worthwhile cause? This passage is about what God is doing in redemptive history. Let s read this chapter together. 1 Now Sarai, Abram s wife, had borne him no children. God had given Abram a promise which he in turn told Sarai. They were waiting for the children God would use to produce a family, through that family, a nation, and through that nation, Jesus Christ. That s what God is doing in history. They were waiting for this promise to be fulfilled. Isaac was yet to be borne. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant;

2 perhaps I can build a family through her. Why does she suddenly have this crisis? It s been about ten years since the promise. She s about 75 now. 65, 75, it s not a big difference. All of a sudden she flips out. Why now? Bruce Waltke, a great scholar, says that there s a good chance she was going through menopause. That s probably true! Her biological clock is ticking, so she suddenly says, The Lord has kept me from having children. She wants her maidservant to sleep with Abram and bear her a child. Now, it s good to know that it was the custom at the time. If a woman didn t have any children, her maidservant could have a child with her husband and that child would become hers. No one would laugh at or protest it. Abram agreed. Ooh! OK. Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me. Talk about a soap opera! Jealousy, relational conflicts. 6 Your servant is in your hands, Abram said. I.e., It s your problem. Do with her whatever you think best. Then Sarai ill treated Hagar; so she fled from her. The Lord doesn t leave her alone. 7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going? I m running away from my mistress Sarai, she answered. 9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, Go back to your mistress and submit to her. What?! That s my translation. 10 The angel added, I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count. 11 The angel of the LORD also said to her: You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone s hand against him, and he will live in hostility towards all his brothers. Ishmael is the father of the Arabs. This explains the current conflict between Arabs and Israelites. 13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the One who sees me. 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; This is not some kind of Hawaiian beer. It is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. 15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. Today I will offer four little pieces of advice so that we can fit into the big plan of God. The advice might seem applicable to you right now, but it s little advice for a big plan. It s so we can participate in the plan of God, just like Abram, Sarai, and Hagar did. The advice isn t just so you can be comfortable right now. It s so you can be involved in the big plan of God. I. Check Your Feelings 1. Feelings tell us a lot about ourselves. Emotions indicate what we want. They tell us what s in our hearts. Positive emotions mean you re getting what you want. Negative emotions mean you re not getting what you want. When you go shopping and find a good sale, you feel happy. Why? Because you re getting what you want. But if you re cheated, like if you come home and find out the product you bought isn t good, you feel bad. Why? Because you didn t get what you wanted. Cubs fans can understand what Sarai went through. No championship for eighty some years. They kind of understand the impatience she felt. In relationships, if you get what you want from someone, you re happy. But if you don t get what you want, you re unhappy. Emotions indicate what you want, what you crave, what s in your heart. Look at Sarai. She had negative emotions: anger, unhappiness, discontentment, blaming. You are responsible. Why?

3 Because she wasn t getting what she wanted. What did she want? A child. A family. 2. What was Sarai s theology? The passage seems to suggest she believed in the sovereignty of God. She says in verse 2, The Lord has kept me from having children. She knew God had the power to give and to withhold. However, she didn t believe in the goodness of God. In essence she was saying, The Lord has kept me from having blank. What I want. Children, toys, money, a car, grades, an attractive spouse. She believed in the sovereign power of God but doubted His goodness. To her, God s goodness meant giving her what she wanted. Because He didn t give her what she wanted, He wasn t good. 3. What was her thinking process? I want what I want. She wasn t thinking about God s kingdom. She wasn t thinking, Abram and I will have children. We ll become the father and mother of many. Through us, many nations will arise. The Messiah will come through us. God will fulfill His salvation plan through us. Many people will be blessed through us. She was thinking, I want a child. I want what I want. In fact, Sarai means princess. And that s what she was. Serve me! Serve me! Later, her name would be changed to Sarah, which means noble woman. Isn t that great? God was in the process of changing a princess into a noble woman. But are you a princess? I want what I want. Serve me! Or are you a noble woman, a godly woman? 4. Because she was a princess, her strategy was to use worldly customs. Go sleep with my husband. Nobody laughed at this or thought it strange. It was a custom of the times. Everybody did it. But it was worldly. Who was she trusting? Other people. Look at verse 2. I can build a family through her. What was her purpose and goal? She was living for herself. She wanted her own happiness. She wanted a child and tried to have one by her own strength, by using others, and with a worldly strategy. 5. She wasn t thinking about God s words. She was thinking about herself. I m the center of the universe. Abram, give me what I want. When he didn t give it to her, she blamed God. She wasn t serving God; she wanted God to serve her. She used Hagar to get what she wanted. Go sleep with my husband and bear me a son. Go through all the pain and then give me the child. It s like: How about you crack all the crab shells and take out the meat and I eat it. She was thinking, I m God. Thou shalt serve me and make me happy. That s also what we do. Whenever we re unhappy, we make adjustments to be happy. When we re angry or unthankful, we do what Sarai did. Serve me! You re not giving me what I want. We reward people who give us what we want through our smiles, praise, or thanks. We need to check our feelings and emotions. The way we make adjustments shows what we re living for. 6. Let s dig into this a bit more. What was the source of her feelings? Verse 2 says, I can build a family through her. The word build is used in Genesis 11 when mankind built the tower of Babel. They were rebelling against God by building a tower and making a name for themselves. Saint Augustine wrote The City of God. The thrust of the book is that there are two cities, the city of God and the city of man. The city of God is built by people who desire to live for God. The city of man is built by people who desire to live for themselves. That s what Sarai was doing, building the city of man. Whether you re building a tower to make a name for yourself or a family to get what you want, you re building the city of man. Check your feelings to see what you re building. 7. Genesis 3 goes even deeper. Satan came to Eve and told her, When you eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will be like God. The city of man is built by people who desire to be God. When you want to be God and desire others to serve you whether your husband, God, or others you are building the city of man. That desire is the source of your feelings. Getting what you

4 want makes you feel good. What are you building in your life? What drives you? What can t you live without? What can t you say no to? Even good things can be idols. You can use family, career, academics, friendships, to build a city for yourself. The things you want are just accessories in the city you are building for yourself and your own glory. The Lord s Prayer says: Hallowed be Thy name. It s not supposed to be about making a name for yourself; it s about exalting the name of Christ. 8. Whenever we feel unhappy we have to check ourselves. Why do I have these feelings? Is it because I m not getting what I want? Is it holy frustration or unholy ambition? How do you react to others? What adjustments do you make? Your negative feelings and selfish adjustments hinder the plan of God. Sarai s negative feelings and selfish adjustments hindered Abram and what God was doing through that family. Why? Because she was busy building her own family and her own kingdom for her own glory. 9. Check your emotions. This is a little piece of advice but it has to do with the big plan of God. When you deny your desires, carry your cross, and live in obedience to God, you have positive feelings that come from the Lord. That is joy in the Lord, not selfish joy from getting what you want. Remember, there are two kinds of joy. One type of joy comes when you selfishly get what you want. The other type comes when you live for God s glory and He receives it. If you re in alignment with God, you have every right to have true joy in Him. II. Check Your Hearing 1. Let s talk about Abram a bit. At the end of verse 2, Abram agreed to what Sarai suggested. The word agreed literally means heard. He heard. The Hebrew word is shema. When God spoke to Israelites, He often said, Shema, Israel. Listen and obey. Abram listened to his princess, rather than God. He listened, followed, and obeyed. 2. Let s put ourselves in Abram s shoes. The promise hasn t been fulfilled for long ten years. Sarai has no kids and is going through menopause. If you know anything about menopause, your hormones are going wild so you act weird. So she s acting weird and maybe nagging him all the time and there s all this conflict at home. Perhaps he s doubting. God said I m gonna have a child, but does it necessarily mean it s gonna be through Sarai? Did I hear the promise right? Is it through Sarai or someone else? But Abram had to know that God s intention in marriage was a monogamous relationship (Genesis 2). He must have been able to figure it out. But when Sarai suggested that he sleep with her maidservant, he probably rationalized it in his mind. Well, everyone else does it. Isn t that what we do? We usually don t listen to sin s voice right away. We usually start out listening to God s Word, but over time, we begin to listen to the voices of others around us, the princesses in our lives, and their logic begins to make more and more sense, until ultimately, we stop listening to God and listen to them. 3. What was the issue for Abram? Basically he was hearing two voices. First, the voice of Princess Sarai. Her voice represents the world. It is the voice that comes out of rebellion and a desire to build the city of man. The other voice was God s. Genesis 15:4 says, The Word of Lord came to him. This man will not be your heir but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. Abram knew that it was through Sarai that Isaac would be born. But he listened to Sarai s voice more than the Lord s. 4. Genesis 3 says the same thing. Adam heard God s voice and spoke to Eve. But Satan came to Eve and spoke lies to her. She in turn told

5 Adam to eat the fruit. Adam listened to his wife. God told Adam that the reason he sinned was because he listened to his wife. Of course, it s not wrong to listen to your wife, but the point is that instead of listening to God, Abram listened to a human being. 5. Both Abram and Adam heard and trusted man rather than God. Come on, cheat, lie, give in, drink, compromise this is what the world says. Trust, endure, persevere, be faithful that is the voice of God. The city of God is built by God through the Word of God by using men and women of God. The city of man is built by man through the words of man by using the logic of man. It s built by men and women who want to be mini kings. So check your hearing. III. Check Your Seeing 1. Let s take a look at Hagar. Hagar ran away from her mistress Sarai. But God didn t leave her alone and despised. He always comes to the despised and mistreated. An angel of the Lord came (we don t know whether it was an angel or a manifestation of God) and spoke to her (8), Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going? I m running away from my mistress Sarai, she answered. Go back to your mistress and submit to her. Who was Hagar? She was an Egyptian slave, probably attained by Abram when he fled to Egypt in chapter 13. Going to Egypt was sinful because he left the promised land, Canaan, to escape the famine. Sin breeds sin and this Egyptian slave became a source of sin. This young lady probably felt exalted temporarily because her master chose her to produce an heir for the family. So when she became pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. You re nothing. I have a child and you don t. Sarai persecuted her and she ran away. 2. What was Hagar seeing? Verse 8 says, I m running away from my mistress Sarai. She didn t say that she was running away from suffering or hardship or Abram. All she thought about was Sarai. Hagar couldn t get Sarai out of her mind. Sarai was her princess, her idol. That s all she saw. Before Hagar became pregnant, Sarai was probably really nice to her. Hagar was most likely from a lowly family in Egypt, bought by a rich foreigner. So Sarai was her source of hope. Then she became her source of pain. When you put your hope in things of this world, there s a pendulum reaction when don t get what you want hope becomes misery. Joy turns into pain. When you put your hope in the wrong things, they turn on you. 3. Then, Hagar encountered the Lord. He spoke to her. Verse 13 records the only time in the Bible that a human being names God. Usually God names human beings or gives His own name to them. But here, God impressed upon her heart and mind a name. You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the One who sees me. She named Him God of Seeing. And this is the God she saw. Until this time, all she saw was her idol, Sarai. She was her hope. But this hope turned sour, for she was an idol. Now after Hagar encountered her Lord, she realized He had always seen her, even when she didn t know it, even when her eyes were on someone else. There was never a time she was out of His sight. And finally she saw Him. 4. When God comes and asks, Where are you coming from and where are you going? He didn t ask her this because He didn t know where she was. He wanted her to realize what she was doing so she could see Him. It s the same reason God asked Adam, Where are you? in Genesis 3. When Adam was running away from the Lord and hiding behind a tree, out of all the trees in the garden, He comes to that specific tree and asks, Where are you? If you play hide and seek with God, you ll lose. Why did God ask him that? He was asking him, Where are you in your relationship with me? Why are you running away from me? That s what God wanted Hagar to realize, that

6 she was running away from Him. Who are you trusting? Where are you going? I am the one you must see. Stop looking at your idol. I ve been watching you all your life. See me. 5. Some of you are running away from the Lord. But you can t hide from God. From the heights of the heavens to the depths of the sea, even in the belly of a big fish, you can t hide from Him. He ll come to you and ask, Where are you? Come back to me. There has never been a time His eyes have not been on you. He knows where you are coming from, what you are going through, and where you are going. He sees you. Do you see Him? Every time you come to worship, do you see Him? He wants you to see Him. There is never a moment and there is no place you can be outside of God s sight. David says, Where can I hide from your Spirit? Ever since I was in my mother s womb, you ve been guiding and protecting me. 6. That s a scary thought for some people. God sees me! Oh boy, I m in trouble. That s why He makes you go through hardships. To bring you to the point when knowing that He sees you brings you comfort instead of fear. God sees you. All throughout your life, even when you thought you were alone, He was watching you. Take your eyes off of other things. Behold Christ! Look at Him. Whether you re in sin or discouraged or running away or just trying to run the Christian race, look at our holy, loving God. If you re running away, look behind you and you ll find that God is relentlessly chasing you. If you re in distress, look at the God who wants to comfort you. What do you see in the midst of hardships and difficulties? The wind and waves? Your problems? Your idols? See the Lord. Check your seeing. IV. Check Your Submitting 1. When Hagar ran away from her mistreating mistress, God didn t say, Oh Hagar. You poor thing. That s right. Run away. He said, Go back! Verse 9 says, Then the angel of the LORD told her, Go back to your mistress and submit to her. 2. The little piece of advice is this: go back and be faithful to your calling. Submit to your authorities. Love your neighbor. Up until that point, Hagar submitted to Sarai out of selfishness. When Sarai was nice to her, she was Hagar s joy. When she wasn t, she was her pain. When she served her with joy, it was, My lady. When she served her with pain, it was, My lady killer or My terror. After she saw God and He told her to go back, she began to serve Sarai not for herself but for the Lord. Submitting to Sarai became her calling. She did the same things for her master, but now it was for God. Her submitting to Sarai was submitting to the Lord. 3. That s what must change about our perspective. When we submit to our boss or our parents, we are submitting to the Lord. Think about a real princess. And picture a bunch of grown women serving this little princess. Why? Because of the king. That s what we are to be like. When we serve the princesses around us (boss, parents, etc.), we are serving the King. It s our calling. That s the little piece of advice. 4. But now let s take a look at the big picture. Why was it good for Hagar to submit to Sarai? Because it contributed to God s kingdom. Do you know why Hagar went through so much suffering? Look at verse 4: When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. The word despise is the same word used in Genesis 12:3 when God gave Abram and Sarai this promise: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Curse is the same word used for despise. God is in the business of fulfilling His redemptive plan. Therefore, whoever messes with it, God will curse that person. When

7 Hagar began to despise her mistress, she was hindering God s redemptive plan. 5. The little application is this: We need to be nice to others and submit to our authorities. The big picture is this: Because if we don t, it will hinder God s plan. We need to love Christians around us, pray for them, and support them financially, not so they ll be nice to us, but so that they can be strengthened to be salt and light in the world and build His kingdom. You need to submit to your parents because it encourages them and can help them to know Him more. Every act of submission can contribute to God s kingdom. Be faithful to your calling (the little piece of advice) because God is using you to fulfill His plan (the big picture). When I look at you, I don t only see you with my physical eyes. I see potential. I believe God wants to use you, each and every one you. God can use you. I pray for that. That s why CFC exists. That s why I m nice to you. If I help you and you help me, together we can carry out God s plan. 6. One thing we notice from this passage is the consequence of sin. Even today we see such strife between Jews and Arabs (Israelites and Ishmaelites). The source of their conflict is in this text. We have to understand how big the consequences of our sin are. 7. However, God is in the business of redeeming, even sin. Look at Abram. Through this man would come a child, a family, a nation, and eventually Jesus Christ and salvation for the world. Look at Sarai: a princess becomes a noble lady, the mother of many, as she is freed from the slavery of her selfishness. Look at Hagar: a slave girl who goes through suffering but sees the Lord and obeys by returning to Sarah. Her child, Ishmael, needed a father who had faith so that he would know the Lord. Verse 11 says, The angel of the LORD also said to her: You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. 8. Look even at Ishmael, from whom came the Arabs. Scripture tells us that God has chosen spiritual Israelites (those who believe in Christ) for His kingdom. But this passage gives me hope for the Muslim world and Arabs. For the same promise given to Abram was given to the Ishmaelites. Verse 10 says, I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count. Is this just a numerical increase in the amount of Arabs? I don t think so. I think this includes spiritual blessings. Not only will there will be many Arabs, but they will be blessed by God. I have hope that God s eyes are not only on Jews and Gentiles but on Ishmaelites as well. This promise means that many Arabs will become children of God and will be included in the number of the stars God promised Abram. God will even use them for His redemptive plan. This should be an encouragement to any missionary who is discouraged as he or she labors in the Arab Muslim world. We hold onto this promise God sees them and one day they will see God. 9. One thing to realize is that before God used the Israelites, He used the Ishmaelites. Hagar s son s name was Ishmael, which means God will hear. They didn t have Isaac for a few more years, so for awhile it was only Ishmael running around the house. And every time Abram and Sarai called their son Ishmael, it was a rebuke to them, for that s exactly what they couldn t do. God will hear! God will hear! Since they didn t pray to God, He used Hagar and Ishmael to speak to them. It hurt to hear it, but it was redemptive it cured them. Sarai listened to those words and prayed and eventually became the mother of many. Before God used the Israelites, He used the Ishmaelites. 10. World history is moved by God and His promises. We need to have two kinds of vision. First, we need to have microscopic view of ourselves. We need to see our sins and rebellion and continuously repent. We must see our feelings and thinking process. We must see how similar we are to everyone in this text. But we must also have a telescopic view of history. As we are faithful to the Lord, we

8 impact the world and are used in the mighty plan of God. God is doing His thing in this world let s be a part of it. Conclusion Know that there is a battle in your heart. There are two cities to build, two desires, two worlds, two kingdoms. Have a microscopic view of yourself. Check your feelings. Check your hearing. Check your seeing. Check your submitting. What do you think about all the time? Then try to have a telescopic view of what God is doing in this world. See His big plan. You can take part in it. Every single one of you can participate in the big plan of God. If you re breathing right now, He has a wonderful plan for your life. Overcome your sin. Repent so you can participate in His plan. It might entail suffering and hardship. You might have to go back. But through it all, you will grow and shine. He has a plan for you. Let s pray for a few minutes. Lord, help me to listen to the little advice of the Bible so I can participate in His big plan. Suggested Closing Songs In His Hands "