Scripture: Genesis 16:1 - 17:27
Main Idea: Our ever-faithful God sovereignly redeems faithless people and calls them to respond
• This passage helps us to grow in our faith and learn how to live a life of dependent faith in God despite our failings and faithlessness.
• Chapter 16 opens with failure and faithlessness and then in chapter 17, the account ends with redemption, the hope of God’s covenant promises and faith-filled obedience.
• This account begins 10 years after Abram and Sarai had obeyed God’s call and relocated to the land on Canaan.
• Despite Abram’s failure to trust in God and his deceit about Sarai’s identity in Egypt many years earlier, God had protected Abram and Sarai and blessed them richly on the way out of Egypt.
• Yet Sarai was still barren and they faced yet another test of trusting God in the midst of the mundane, when after 10 years, they did not see God’s promises fulfilled in the time they expected nor in the way they expected.
1. Our faithless efforts lead to trouble
• Abram responded passively and he listened to his wife instead of listening to God’s Word.
• Sarai blamed God for not getting what she was promised.
• Instead of trusting that God would do what He said He would, Sarai starts to look for ways that she can help God along.
• Sarai looked to a means that was culturally accepted in the world around them instead of believing God’s Word and waiting for His timing and clear direction.
• She wanted what she thought God had promised her and she wanted it in her own time and in a way that made sense to her.
• And isn’t that just like us? We want what we think we deserve or what we believe God has promised us and we want it now and in a way that makes sense to us too.
Romans 14:23 that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin”
• When we begin to distrust God’s Word and His character, it leads to us looking to shortcut what God has for us – as if God needs our help to fulfill His Word.
• Our faithless efforts lead to trouble – like they did for Sarai and Abram
2. God faithfully seeks out His people in affliction and sin
• The key to interpreting most of chapter 16 is the few verses where the angel of the LORD speaks to Hagar.
• We are not meant to be left hopeless with the damaging results of faithless human efforts
• God faithfully seeks out Hagar in the midst of her affliction
• God sought out Hagar even though she had been proud before
• God sought Hagar when she left the tents of Abram and ran for her life
• She had been abused by Sarai to the point that she was probably scared to some degree for her life and the life of the unborn baby too.
• She may have thought all hope was lost and that she was all alone, but God faithfully sought her out and told her that he had listened to her affliction.
• In the midst of her darkest hour, God sought her out and God comes to us in our affliction as well
• Maybe you are thinking that God has abandoned you or left you alone in your circumstances but if God sought Hagar in her affliction, then surely, He will be faithful to meet you and minister to you in your time of affliction as His very own adopted son or daughter.
• God faithfully seeks out His people in affliction and sin.
• The angel of the LORD sent her back into the place of her trial – but he sent her with hope and a promise
• God faithfully sought her out and promised to bless her – the angel said “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they can’t be numbered…”
• God honored her highly in the midst of her trial – even though she had sinned as well.
• And the angel told her to name her child Ishmael, which means “God hears”
• She would have needed to remember that his name meant “God hears”
• God hears – as Hagar is recorded saying, “God is a God of seeing” and “truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”
• Truly God sees us in our affliction and truly He looks after us.
3. God faithfully makes His covenant with undeserving people
• Sarai & Abram had both wavered in their faith majorly for the second time and they deserved to live with the consequences.
• Sarai had taken control of the marriage and followed in Eve’s footsteps
• Abram abdicated leadership and passively listened to Sarai instead of listening to God’s Word to him.
• None of the characters in this story were deserving in themselves of divine favor
• But God poured out His great grace and faithfully reiterated His covenant because He had chosen Abram
• Here again, God makes a covenant and blesses His people even when they are undeserving
• And it is important to note that Abram didn’t initiate this covenant – although he should have.
• Just as God had sought out Hagar and made promises to her, God initiated a covenant with Abram.
• God was the one who came and sought Abram
• God faithfully made His covenant with undeserving Abram and He faithfully makes His covenant with us, even though there is nothing in us to deserve it.
• This passage helps to reiterate who God is – you see, God is a God who is compassionate, He is a gracious and forgiving God
• God is a faithful God to our absolutely faithless race.
• God is a merciful God
• God is a kind and generous God
• And God is a God of all grace who makes His covenant not only with Abram but he extends His covenant and all the blessings and promises of the covenant to us, who are sons and daughters of Abraham through faith.
• But God has promised us a land even better than the ancient Israelites
Revelation 21:1-7 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son
• What God has promised is true and God is so sure of this that He considers it already done.
• You can trust that God will make a new Heaven and a new earth and that God Himself will dwell with us and relational difficulties and mourning and crying will be no more.
• This passage is meant to give us hope – it is meant to point us to God and it is meant to call us to trust in the faithfulness of God.
• It is also meant to motivate us to respond to God & His blessings
4. God faithfully calls His people to respond to His blessings
• God calls us to read chapters like this and respond in faith.
• God wants to give faith to those who are weak in faith as well.
2 Tim 2:13 says, "if we are faithless, He remains faithful-- for He cannot deny Himself."
• Most of us experience times when we are not faithful, and for others of us, although we desire to have faith, our faith is weak sometimes.
• But our trust is not in our ability – our trust and our faith is in the faithfulness of God.
• You may still be more aware of your faithlessness, however, the good news is that not only is God faithful, He will heal our faithlessness.
Jeremiah 3:22 ""Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness." "Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God."
• Not only does God remain faithful when we are faithless - He will heal the faithlessness of those who come to Him.
• In the end, Abraham did not doubt even in the face of reason for doubt – in fact Romans 4 comments on this passage and says
Romans 4:18-25 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead ( since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
• Abram responded by giving glory to God in the face of distrust and he grew strong in his faith
• For Abraham, it was 23 years after the promise that God gave to him before Isaac was born
• Maybe you are experiencing affliction of some type – God calls you to respond to Him and cry out to Him and He will meet you in your affliction and give you help.
• A good portion of chapter 17 has to do with circumcision – how do we respond to this?
• We don’t try to keep the law in order to keep God’s covenant with us.
• But God calls us to be faithful to His covenant with us and He does call us to obedience as a sign of our covenant with Him
• Obedience to God does not secure our standing with God and obedience to God is not where we place our confidence – but God asks us to obey in a humble response to His covenant and out of gratitude to Him.
• We aren’t to earn His favor but we are meant to come to Him and circumcise our hearts – to submit our desires to Him and let Him trim away the ungodly desires and have His desires motivate our living.
Galatians 5:4-6 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love
Potential Application Questions:
1. What do we want, or feel like we deserve, that God has promised to us?
(some possible areas: a career, money, possessions, a spouse, a child or maybe a perfect husband or wife?)
2. Whatever it is we want –are we trusting in God and His perfect timing, even if it may mean we don’t understand?
3. How have we tried to find ways to make sure that what we want happens, even if it may have meant compromising what we know is right?
4. Where are we tempted to resort to expediency when we believe it helps what we believe is God’s will for our life?
5. How does knowing that God listens to our affliction and meets us in it, change your view of God in your affliction?
6. How does seeing that God redeems us when we fail and sin give us hope?
7. How does knowing that God makes His covenant with undeserving people like you and I and his covenant does not rely on our performance or on our ability to keep His covenant give you hope?
8. What problem or difficulty are you facing that you are tempted to think is insurmountable?
9. Are you more aware of God’s faithfulness or your faithlessness and inability?
10. How does God’s covenant faithfulness apply to your situation?
11. Where is God calling us personally to respond to His covenant blessings and obey Him?
