Well, this morning, as we're between series, when we come back in January, after January, we'll come back to the book of Acts and start a new series since we've just finished the book of Revelation. I was thinking of, we have four, at least I have four services up until Christmas Day and then Dr. Godfrey will be preaching on Christmas Day. I was thinking of what do I do? Do I do something out of each gospel? I wanted to go back to the Old Testament today and look at the struggle. And then tonight we'll come back at 5 o'clock and look at Luke chapter 2 and see the Lord being faithful to his promise. But the struggle for that is found so powerfully in Genesis chapter 16. So I want to revisit the story of Abraham, Sarai, and Hagar from Genesis chapter 16. First book of the Bible. This is the word of the Lord, Genesis chapter 16, verse 1. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 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. And he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, may the wrong done to me be upon you. I gave my servant to your embrace. and when she saw that she had conceived she looked on me with contempt may the lord judge between you and me but abram said to sarai behold your servant is in your power do to her as you please then sarai dealt harshly with her and she fled from her the angel of the lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness the spring on the way to shore and he said hagar servant of Sarai, where have you come from? And where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are pregnant and you shall bear a son you shall call his name ishmael because the lord has listened to your affliction he shall be a wild donkey of a man his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him and he shall and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen she called the name of the lord who spoke to her you are a god of seeing or she said truly i have seen him who looks after me Therefore, the well was called Be'er-le-hi-roi. It lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. Well, as we come to the time that we celebrate the birth of Christ, I think you know it's easy to sentimentalize this time and to miss the real reason for the season and to miss the real reason that God sent His Son into the world. We know that and we say that God gave us His Son because we are sinners. Even saying that, I think we say it so often and so frequently, God gave His Son to save us from our sins. We say it so frequently it tends to lose its real effect upon us and we don't really think about it often in scripture's terms in the way that it presents it to us that God gave us his son to us as sinners after we had made a royal mess of everything that seems to help a little bit more to really appreciate what we're celebrating this year and think about a little bit how bad we have wrecked the plan ourselves this morning I wanted to go back and look with you into the life of Abraham and Sarai and see God's promise to them in light of their actual efforts to wreck this, doing all that they can to wreck this, even though they thought they weren't. They thought they were helping the plan. And it has such an important place, I think you'll see by the time we're done, to help us celebrate the birth of Jesus and to understand the character of God which is something that Genesis constantly does for us as we should appreciating him and glorifying him the way that he calls us to. You'll notice in Genesis chapter 16 that the text is pointing us to a very serious challenge and it's a sort of test for Abram and Sarai. The first thing the text draws to our attention is Sarai's barrenness. Remember the names would be changed a little bit later to Abraham and Sarah in the next chapter that will happen in Genesis chapter 17. So I'm staying with the names as they're presented here. But you'll notice here that the first thing that's said in chapter 16 is now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. A common struggle that we find throughout the Old Testament in the line among the people of God of struggle to bring forth the seed. We see this with Hannah. We see it all the way back in the garden with Eve. This has been the struggle of barrenness, a common one throughout the scriptures, all having to do with the struggle of bringing forth the Messiah. Verse 3 tells us that Abram and Sarai had been in the land for 10 years now. Nothing is happening up to this point. God had made this great promise to Abram back in chapter 12 and he keeps repeating the promise encouraging Abraham with the promise now God had made it 10 years ago 10 years ago and he keeps rehearsing it for him Sarai is looking at the circumstances and she begins to think about her Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar she begins to think about a plan for this you'll notice there in verse two that sarai said to abram behold now the lord has prevented me from bearing children go into my servant it may be that i shall obtain children by her if we follow the the whole flow of these narratives you'll remember if you remember back in chapter 15 that glorious chapter of the Lord really showing the covenant of grace cutting the covenant of grace making everything very clear of his plan was he said wonderful things to Abraham back in chapter 15 I remember that chapter began where the Lord took Abraham out and he showed him the stars of the heaven the sand of the seashore and he made that beautiful and glorious promise so Abraham shall your descendants be remember abraham was struggling abraham asked back to the lord but i have no son this was a real struggle for this couple it was a very real struggle for this couple of living by faith as opposed to the very present reality that there was no son there was no son and god uh did something wonderful in chapter 15 he had reassured abram that there will be one that will come from his own body and from the own body meant through the wife of uh his wife sarai they were one flesh he had confirmed this by doing that glory that made that glorious scene in chapter 15 where he took an oath stance he made his promise by promise an oath hebrew says two immutable things he walked through those pieces he cut the covenant remember he passed through those pillars in a glorious theophany and assuring with an oath passing between those pieces alone as abraham slept that he would do what he promised well here they are 10 years later the two twin promises of the abram abrahamic covenant we call land and seed here we are 10 years no land no seed it's a test in some ways god has been testing abram the whole way you remember back you remember ahead he will test him with with isaac in chapter 22 god had spoken god had said here you'll notice that the great struggle that that really is going on in the family here that god had called out of ur of the chaldeans to live by faith in all of these promises when there was nothing to show for it nothing that there was nothing to show and you have a very difficult time here you see in the life of abraham squaring what god had promised with present circumstance from the perspective of sarai to be barren was to be cursed to be thought of as being cursed god had been saying to my husband she thinks that through my womb we're going to have children as the stars of the heaven i'm 75 years old i'm way past the flower of youth what do you do at a time like this how do you handle a circumstance like this well you have two options the test of course which is a test that still comes to us to this day it's testing us right now in various ways and in various places where we are the test is really the same the test is wait upon the lord trust in the lord thinking of proverbs 3 with all your might lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him he'll direct your paths we love psalm 27 wait i say on the lord be of good courage wait i say upon the lord well that's an easy thing to say but a much more difficult thing to do the way of faith is a way of not working it's a way of believing in what god has said against all odds you think to yourself that's one way or you begin to think to yourself well this is not going as planned god must need some help with this plan god must need some help with this plan he doesn't call us to be idle he doesn't call us to sit on our hands and so sarah begins to think sarah begins to think there must this must mean if god has said and it's not happening that we have to move this he doesn't call us to idleness does he and that's exactly what she does she constructs this this plan to get the job done abram behold now the lord notice what is said there behold now the lord has prevented me from bearing children i um i thought about that this week a little bit and i thought that's a um quite a thing to say when you're struggling with promise and reality and you're struggling with what god has said and the circumstances that are in front of us the problem seemed to be for a bit here the sovereignty of god when things aren't going as plan sovereignty can be a tough pill to swallow when you know that God could do something about it and he doesn't or at least doesn't seem to be at the present moment sovereignty we as reformed people love the doctrine of of God's sovereignty it's kind of interesting when we arrive at moments of crossroads how we use that particular doctrine what am I to do what am i to do i think um what begins to show forth here is that we're all sort of practical arminian we like to claim the doctrine of god's sovereignty as reformed people but we're practical arminian god has prevented but god said so i will you see the equation what do you have here i think it's pretty evident that what you're having and seeing in the life of sarai is bitterness bitterness is a is a destructive sin it's a fruit that develops in people's lives when life turns this way and that way and happens against the way that we want things to go or even in this particular case as we think god has promised for it to go how it should go what it should be and especially when we're masters at carving out life the way that we want it to be when things don't go according to plan i've seen bitterness destroy people i've seen it completely wreck people you'll remember esau was the hebrews the book of hebrews warns about a root of bitterness springing up bitterness it's the the default way here of what we have of dealing with it is to take matters then into your own hands. And that's exactly what begins to happen here. That's exactly what Sarai does. She devises this plan with her maidservant, Hagar. Abram, you go into her and we will obtain, fascinating word choice, we will get, we will build the holy family ourselves. The verb is architectural. we're going to construct, we're going to construct the family. I was thinking, our society trains us, of course, to think this way. We're wired to think this way. What do we always say? If you want, and I struggle with this one all the time, if you want something right, you have to do it yourself. We've learned and been taught that success and prosperity is a consequence of hard work in life. This is the first thing we tell our children. Listen, if you're going to get ahead in life, you have to work hard. If you're going to make anything of yourself in life, you've got to work hard. It's true, isn't it? We build our lives this way. We think this way. The way we want, we plan the number of children we're going to have now. We've got it all mapped out. We know what our goals are. We're thinking of where we want to live, how we're going to get there, how we're going to achieve it, the size and makeup of the house that we want, defining how we're going to live. Everything in life is mapped out. Everything. What we're going to do for recreation and enjoyment, how we're going to spend our money, right down to the church that most fits our needs and our wants. We have that all figured out in our minds. This is how we live. Remember the Mariah Carey song? I know most of you know it. There's a hero if you look inside your heart. You don't have to be afraid of what you are. And there's an answer if you reach into your soul. And the sorrow that you know will melt away. And then a hero comes along with the strength to carry on. And you cast your fears aside. And you know you can survive. So when you feel like hope is gone, just look inside you and be strong. And you'll finally see the truth that a hero lies in you. I don't want any of you to think I sing that in my car. That is not a good song to sing. That's in us. That's how we think. The message from Genesis, and this is what we see throughout the Scriptures, is that Christianity operates on an entirely different principle. The way of the calling of God is directly contrary to everything that you've learned, especially in your American way of thinking, especially as you're hardwired. Everything is different. Everything is reversed. Our society says your home is here. Build it. Build what suits your desires. God says my home for you is not of this world. Society says have it now. Instant gratification. God says patience. Society says live for the glory now. God says glory later. You see what Scripture is showing us here. Abram was justified in chapter 15. Abram was justified. There was a logical ordering to this. Paul even picks up on this in the New Testament. When we have believed and we are justified, then we notice the struggle really begins. It's a real struggle. So we set out in this calling that God has given to live by faith in the promises that says, All this is yours. All this that I've prepared for you. I have given you a land and I've given you a Savior. And we look at this and we start to realize our situation isn't much different. You've already forgotten revelation and everything that's been promised, haven't you? In the thick of it. In the hardship of it. What do you think your struggle is from this moment on? It's a retreat from faith to live again by sight. this is the struggle of the christian life this is the the hardship and the struggle that we face in this particular life and you should know it's what we're all fighting against to live by faith so sariah has this building plan it's a building plan culturally uh what she had was acceptable one of the legal codes for mesopotamia said if a man's wife has not born in children but a harlot from the public square has borne him children. The children with the harlot has the children which the harlot has borne him shall be hares. They'll be the heir. You could go get a prostitute and get this done. That was accepted culturally, but it was never accepted by the Lord. Abram the pragmatist. This man who a few chapters ago slayed kings. took down Kedolah-Omer, plundered the wealth of six nations, a mighty fighting war, a conquered Bera of Sodom, cowers before his wife to this awful plan. Think of the circumstance. He had just heard God say, the seed will come from your own body, Abram, and now his wife is pressuring him to do it himself. In an ironic twist, and I've always been amazed at Genesis, the things that it shows us. I love this book for so many reasons, but in an ironic twist, this was the very thing Abram had done to Sarai when he had messed up the land promise and fled down to Egypt directly contrary to God's calling and gave away his wife into the arms of Pharaoh twice. Sarai has now returned the favor. She's dumped him into the arms of her maidservant. This is a mess. This is an absolute mess. Abram should have said, Sarai, no, we can't do this. Remember what we learned in Egypt. Please don't suggest such a thing. The Lord is the giver of life. He just told me with a powerful vision that he's going to provide. he just he just cut the covenant of grace he made promises to us with no leadership no leadership cowering before this sinful plot what do you read a little ominous phrase there so abram heeded the voice of his wife you figured out what this is it's genesis 3 revisited isn't it this is genesis 3 this is the whole story being told again you remember uh satan had come into the garden and had said to eve has god really said the tree of life is set out for you as a reward isn't it Eve you're not receiving what you could have now you don't have to wait you don't have to wait Eve devises a plan doesn't she she takes the fruit to her husband and what do you read of Adam and he heeded the voice of his wife he ate from both both families here descend into a world of war and conflict which is exactly what happens before us in our text we read that hagar conceives sarai is looking at now a baby bump and this thing's getting bigger you ever heard the statement hell hath no fury like a woman scorned Abraham now has two in his house. Sarai is looking at her satisfied husband with another woman. And now it's progressing from bitterness to rage. Think of Abraham's house now. There's a proverb that we laugh at, but it's true. God knows what he's talking about. Better to dwell on a rooftop alone than in a house with a contentious woman. Some of you are laughing silently right now. Why? Here it is. Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with content. May the Lord judge between you and me, Abram. Hear it? She's not calling him Lord right now. Abram, this is your mess. It is. It is his mess. It's his fault. Look at what you've done. I gave you an opportunity. Notice the language there. And lo and behold, she despises me now. The Lord judge between you and me. This thing's descending into war, isn't it? Look at the web of sin now in the home. Confusion, anger, discord, fights, bitterness, envy, intimacy with her husband, all gone. And now he has another wife. The whole house is set ablaze in this turmoil. It's a web of conflict, chaos. Maybe I could describe it with the words of Proverbs 30. Under three things, the earth trembles. Under four, it cannot bear it up. Whatever he is about to say are the worst things you don't ever want to have to face. And here they are. A slave when he becomes a king. A fool when he's filled with food. Number three, an unloved woman when she gets a husband. Number four, a maidservant when she displaces her mistress. here it is. You're seeing this play out in Abraham's house. The scripture has set up for you one ugly mess. Ugly. This is one dysfunctional family, isn't it? Can you imagine this scandal being brought out today? You're all watching scandal after scandal, aren't you right now on the news? I mean, you're watching all the abuse of men right now on the news every night. I guess it somewhat surprises me that everyone's surprised about it. It doesn't justify a thing, but men have been pigs a long time, a long time. On the evening news, Abraham Abraham was just charged by Hagar. And we sit back in shock. How could this stuff go on? Right? Full of rage, Sarai asks, what do we do with Hagar? Here's the abused one. Abram keeping the peace, whatever you want. As you're reading this, you're trying to figure out who's the honorable one here, right? Is there anyone? Is there anyone honorable in this story? There's not one. This is a royal mess. And this is your family. It's kind of amazing where the Lord shows up. We haven't heard too much from him, have we? He sees, imagine this, he sees all this unbelief. Contrary to everything he called Abram to. What do you expect? What happened after the fall? Well, surprising things, didn't it? Thinking of what Sproul said, what God could have done. Shouldn't his punishment have been infinitely greater? But he lived another day, and he lived another day, and then God clothed him. Same event. Same event. You hearing the message? Look at our homes. Look at the conflicts. look at the messiness in your families. Look at it. This is the stuff we all hide, of course. This is the stuff that we all hide. If we went through each family here to see what's happened in your families and what's been done and what you're dealing with, mom, dad, children, it'd be rather embarrassing, wouldn't it? You wouldn't really want to talk about it, would you? Things you'd never want to expose, things some of you are going through right now. And all of a sudden you realize we're starting to look a little bit like this family. All of us have lived assaulting God's plan. All of us. You understand how important Genesis 15 was now? In that scene, God said, the seed will come from your body, Abraham. all these promises, he cuts the covenant, he goes into oath stance, two immutable things, this is done. Abraham was asleep. What that meant was God would see whatever he had said to completion. And now you're beginning to understand the horror of what Abraham realized when he was asleep that he would put his son through because of this kind of behavior so that we would never have to face the curse you see i believe the apostle paul when he was um when he looked at genesis 15 and he saw the marvel of genesis 15 and he spoke about justification by faith which he proved from genesis 15 he then flipped over to genesis chapter 16 and under inspiration of the spirit in romans 4 wrote god justifies the wicked god justifies the wicked because he was talking about abraham if that never bothers you in the course of your life something's wrong it will stop bothering you when you realize you're the wicked it overwhelmed the apostles to testify to the truth that no matter how bad we fall along the way, He will fulfill His word of promise. He will fulfill it. Nothing can separate us from that fulfillment. Abram, I will bless you. And you will be a blessing to all nations. Lord, Lord, wait. What if I mess it all up? I'm your shield and your reward. Lord, what if I throw away my wife twice? I'll get her back for you twice. She's going to bear that seed. Nothing's stopping that. What if I fail along the way and I try to take everything into my own hands and I royally mess it all up and I go into another woman and try to produce the seed through her? Your name will be great. When you study this, your affection is no longer for Father Abraham, is it? Your affection's for one, the Lord. Now, he enters into this mess. Who is the casualty here of all this reckless abuse? And there was male abuse. There was every kind of abuse under the sun in this passage. Tegar, this little, poor, abused Egyptian slave girl who was a nobody, who had been shown no mercy, Who really was abused. Who's fleeing now alone all the way back to Egypt. Her life is absolutely wrecked. She now is impregnated with no father to raise the child. One pastor called her a soulless baby machine. Verse 6 tells us Sarai treated her harshly. She ran. She's alone. And we come to glorious verse 7. And the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come and from where are you going? She said, I'm fleeing from my mistress Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered from multitude. Here, he, he, not Abraham, the Lord is going after her. He cares for her. He cares for the oppressed. The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless. You want to see it? On top of that, I can't get away from this thought. God said, Abram, you will be a blessing to all the nations. The Lord makes this promise to Hagar. It's a stunning promise. I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be multiplied for number. Maybe that's a little confusing to us. What? How? Because he's rooting it in another promise. Did you hear? Did you catch the language? it's almost as if the angel of the Lord is smiling when he says this. Behold, you shall have a son. You're pregnant and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name. Pause. Are you seeing this? You should call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. It's as if the angel was overjoyed and was so ready to say the name, but not yet. Not yet. The Lord has listened to you. God would fulfill His promise to Abraham. How so? How do you clean up this mess? How do you clean this up? Who could clean this up? Imagine this mess in our day. In our homes, look at the mess. Who can clean it up? This gets to the heart of what we celebrate. Now we're talking Christmas. Matthew 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Behold, Joseph, son of David, son of Abraham. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit, she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. which is god with us you see it was through abraham through the seed through sarai all the way through and isaac your seed shall be called it was through him that god sent his son and i can't get this out of my head i can't get out of my head jesus telling his disciples we need to go somewhere where do you I've got a schedule to keep where do you need to go where do you need to go Samaria we need to go out to a well we need to go out to a well there was a woman out there alone an adulteress and abused by five husbands five men abused here he comes the woman at the well hagar says you've seen everything the woman at the well says this man knows everything i've done and he saves her and he brings into the family of abraham that outcast thereby showing us he cleaned this all up and we stand back today and we start thinking about what we're celebrating We're not just saying Jesus came to save sinners. Yes, we're saying that. But we're coming and we're saying Jesus came to save sinners of which I am chief. And then we're saying this. Jesus came to save sinners of which I am chief and I royally messed it all up. I'm the wicked one. I'm this. And the Lord says, I've come to you. I've come to gather the outcasts of Israel. It's overwhelming because this mess and the household of Abraham caused a lot of grief and it shows us the agony that we produce for ourselves retreating from a life of faith and trying to live by sight. You can make a real mess of things in this life and guess what? You have. But none of that, none of it can stop what he's doing. Did you hear that? That's the most wonderful message in the world if you know what you are. You could be standing here and saying, oh, that just gives license to every kind of bad behavior. How could he preach that? Then you don't know yourself. When we mess it up, which you do, God is stronger. He will prevail. And he will fulfill what he has promised for you. It's all of grace. It always has been. It always will be. And his love is an everlasting love rooted in his loving kindness and his covenant mercy and his covenant love which he loved his son with and it's that knowledge you see of that love that inspires us to change for in the next chapter God comes to Abraham and says Abraham that's it this is enough of you behaving like this I am changing your name to Abraham after all this after he had already been justified and after he royally messed it up God's teaching us something there's a logical ordering to this for a reason you've messed it all up but I'm with you what more can he say what more can he say what more can he do for you what more can he show you trust him trust him he means it when he says that he has planned good for you live in the enjoyment of the knowledge that his son has come and found you do not be unbelieving but believing for this god does indeed justify the wicked let's pray heavenly father thank you for helping us and taking us back to this glorious book to let us see things the way that we should because we do indeed try to live in retreat from the life of faith and constantly we are shown again and again how needful and dependent like a little child we are upon you and your grace and the righteousness of your son thank you for such a glorious salvation today and thank you for encouraging us may this message so humble us that we hear what the psalmist says since there is forgiveness with you therefore you are feared may that overcome our hearts and the knowledge of your love in christ Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.