God's Love and Grace in Hagar's Struggles

"Sarah decides to take matters into her own hands she comes up with a way of a child being birthed verse 1 Sarah had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar you ask the question how was it that Sarah had an Egyptian female servant I think the answer to that most likely lies in genesis in chapter 12 remember a couple of weeks ago we followed the story where Abraham and Sarah go down to Egypt because there was a famine in Canaan they had then practiced a deception in which Abraham had said that Sarah was his sister it all went terribly wrong and Sarah was taken into Pharaoh's Palace as a candidate to become his wife and thinking that Abraham was Sarah's sister the book of Genesis tells us that the Pharaoh plied Ibrahim with many gifts in fact we read in Genesis 1216 that for Sarah's sake he dealt well with Abraham and he gave him sheep and oxen and male donkeys and male servants and female servants so in Egypt female servants were given to Abraham by the Pharaoh himself and therefore I think there's good reason to believe that Hagar became Sarah's servant because she was given to Abraham by Pharaoh when he was in Egypt with that background verse 2 tells us that Sarah said to Abraham now behold the Lord has prevented me from bearing children go in to my servant it may be that I shall obtain children by her and Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah now the outline of this story I think is very simple Sarah wants to have a child she gives her servant Hagar to Abraham Abraham agrees to this plan Hagar conceives and this already fractured family is now plunged into a web of conflicting loyalties and hidden resentments today what I want to do very simply is to offer to you three sketches from the life of Hagar I want you to see her in the Bible as emotionally abandoned spiritually wounded and then deeply deeply deeply loved deeply loved let's begin here then emotionally abandoned if he gar was given to Abraham by Pharaoh we may assume that Hagar was in some position within the royal palace in Egypt and remember that federal was out to impress Ibrahim and so I don't think that he gar was likely a low-level servant I think we can assume that Hagar was a very impressive lady indeed but I want you to think about this here she is we may reasonably assume in the court of Pharaoh and what does Pharaoh do Pharaoh gives her up and now she finds herself with Abraham she comes from Pharaoh's Palace and how she finds herself think about this in Abraham's tent most people dream of going from a tent to a palace this woman's gone the opposite way she it seems was in a palace and now she ends up in a tent it seems like her life is going in the wrong direction and not only did farrell give her up but we find in verse 3 that after she served sarah well Sarah gave her up Sarah Abraham's wife two Kia car the Egyptian her servant and gave her to Abraham her why her husband as a wife now this would not have been as surprising to Hagar as perhaps it is to us the ancient laws that pertained in various cultures in Mesopotamia at the time give regulations in regard to this kind of we would say surrogacy but this was never the way with the people of God from the beginning when God brought Adam and Eve together the purpose of God was that marriage should be between one man and one woman but what we have here then is is well-meaning people and they are going outside of this way of the Lord and they find in a story that the result of it is not what they had hoped now what we have here is an emotional triangle and there are two women in Abraham's life and here we have a man and he finds himself torn between his love for his wife on the one and and his great desire for a child on the other and the story unfolds in a way that is not surprising to us as we read it Hagar resents Sarah verse 4 when she saw that she had conceived here Eggar looked with contempt upon Sarah and then Sarah in turn she blames Abraham and wants him to suffer she says may the wrong that has been done to me be on you verse 5 and then Abraham just wants the whole situation to go away he responds in perhaps this predictable way he says behold your servant is in your power of our six do with her as you please in other words he says not up to me nothing to do with me it's all up to you how to deal with it so now what's happening Abraham gives her up and he's the father of her child he has responsibility for her but he doesn't stand up for her he just gives a rock in the same way as Pharaoh had given it up in the same way as Sarah had given it up there's a pattern in this woman's life no one commits to her she just pushed around from pillar to post as other people's convenience seems to determine what what happens in her life nobody cares for in a way that is deep and is committed and is lasting and then we read verse 6 that Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar and you can imagine though the blame and the jealousy and the hurt that is beginning to fester within these triangulated relationships in this home and he gars your heart goes out to her doesn't it her life becomes impossible and and therefore it's not surprising for us to read in verse 6 that Hagar fled from Sarah and so we find her at the midpoint of the chapter she's alone she is carrying this child and there she is in this most dangerous place in the world time the desert now let's translate this into our world today this is clearly a story for any woman who feels that she has been as it were a pawn moved around on the board of other people's lives it's a story for any man who feels taken for granted sort of meal ticket for an ungrateful family who don't know and don't seem to care what it takes it's a story for the young person whose father gave you up whose mother gave you up who's taken little or no interest in you show no real commitment to you this is a story for the person who has never felt most deeply loved he gotta think of it this way Hagar was never first in anybody's life she related to different people but was never first in anyone's life nobody had ever got close enough to he got to to know who she really was and to understand what she was really thinking and what she really felt there was no one at the end of the day in the various phases of her life on whom she could count not even the man who was the father of the child that she was carrying I want you to see that little sketch of Hagar emotionally abandoned second sketch I want you to see he God in the Bible here spiritually wounded and you know just a little sketch with regards to her spiritual experience and some of us will relate to this as we related to the first sketch think about Sarah's spiritual experience she would have grown up worshipping idols as indeed abraham himself did until the Lord made himself known to Abraham remember that at this time in the history of the world there is only one extended family that has the knowledge of God only one to whom God had made himself known to Abraham and through your offspring all the nations on earth will be blessed in timeless one family indeed becomes a great nation but at this point in the story there is one family on the face of the earth to whom God has made himself known and with whom God has made a covenant I will bless you I will make you a blessing it will be through you Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed now I think what happens and it is really very wonderful in the grace of God Sara hiigara is brought into this believing family here's a woman from another country another culture and in a remarkable series of events she now finds herself in the family circle to which the promise of God has been given and as she comes into the circle and begins to serve Sara she would have learned from Sara and she would have learned from Abraham about the God who made the heavens and the earth about the God who loves undeserving people about the God who would redeem me a rebel world and bless a rebel world through a son who would be born by a miracle of grace she learns about this good and everything that she knows about this God she has learned from Abraham or she has learned it from Sara I try to picture her with the extended family out there where they're living and and they're living in tents and they're sitting around the campfire in an evening and there's Abraham and he prays and he guards listening your Sara and perhaps she sings and other people begin to join in the song with her and and Hagar becomes part of that too she's been like an adopted daughter brought into the family of faith now think about what happens next everything that she has learned about God she has learned from two people and now the two people from which she has learned everything she knows about God horribly abused her she discovers that two people who know God are desperately flawed believers and think about it that must have been devastating for Hagar absolutely devastating what good thoughts can she have about Abraham and Sarah's God when Abraham and Sarah through whom she has learned about God have treated her like this and so this is a story for every person who has learned about God but now struggles with faith because of what you have seen in people who believe many children who grow up in a Christian home struggle with this at some point very often in teenage years when you were young you thought your parents were absolutely marvelous nothing your dad could not do or your mother you thought they could do no wrong they were your heroes when you were very small then as you grow you begin to see the cracks in their lives your mother talks about faith and then she seems to be fraught with worry and you think what's all that all about your father talks about following Christ but you can see he's not particularly happy and you say well no what's all that all about your parents are believers but you're beginning to see that there are fractures in their life and and and you say huh how make sense of this you know some questions some of you know what this is like someone you look to someone you have trusted someone you have respected someone who discipled you someone who had great influence in your life and you've discovered their feet of clay well Hagar story is precisely for you try to imagine Hagar when the only believers she knew used her in the way that they did how can this woman ever come to believe everything that she knows about God has been filtered through these two it's a massive barrier to overcome and it's not surprising that she therefore runs from the family of faith she runs out oh and Sarah she runs out on Abraham and she's running out on God the God that they had failed so badly by the way isn't it wonderful how powerfully the Bible speaks right into the reality of our lives today all over these suburbs and all over this city there are thousands and thousands of people whose experience of life has been to be emotionally abandoned it is to be spiritually wounded and the Bible speaks right into that reality today here's the third thing and it's very wonderful so let's move on to it quickly and once in this third sketch to paint a picture for you of Hagar from the Bible this emotionally abandoned woman this this spiritually wounded woman I want you to see Hagar deeply deeply loved there are some wonderful glimpses of the love of God that come to us right here in this story here's the first God finding lost people that's his love look at verse 7 the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness the spring on the way - sure now again here we have God taking a visible form the angel of the Lord not a human form this time as we saw last week but God taking the form of a visible angel the angel of the Lord is indeed God himself in visible form and the reason that I say that is in verse 13 it's quite clear there do you see that we read that she called the name of the Lord for capital letters again Yahweh who spoke to her the Lord who sees God himself spoke to her directly personally this emotionally abandoned woman the spiritually wounded woman this woman who is is in such a situation of need and of desperation and the almighty eternal God makes himself visibly known to her pre the incarnation of Christ in this figure of the angel of the Lord that so so wonderfully points forward to our Lord Jesus Christ by the way all the way through this story this this woman in need in the desert by the spring it just makes you think all the time about John in chapter 4 where you have our Lord Jesus Christ coming to another woman the woman of Samaria and opening up the reality of her life and surrounding her with the love of God himself it is almost like a prefiguration of everything that happens in John's Gospel and chapter 4 in the coming of Jesus and here we have it in the Old Testament here in this appearance of the angel of the Lord notice the angel of the Lord found her verse 7 love da Hagar would never have found her way to God but God in His mercy found his way to her Friends of God waited for us to find him none of us would ever get there you wouldn't got that I wouldn't have got there the lost sheep don't find the Good Shepherd the Good Shepherd finds the law sheep and that's Grace and it's very striking to me that God steps into he gars life she'd learned about God she knew all this stuff about God that she'd heard from Abram and and Sarah and then then rejected but but now she comes to an encounter with the Living God for herself it's marvelous and it happens that the most unexpected of times I mean what kind of stated mind is she in to have an encounter with God and she's running from believers she's running from God she is angry she is resentful she has suffered this great injustice and you know what it feels like when you suffered an injustice there's a turmoil that's going on inside her Harley feels like she's in a place where she's likely to hear the voice of God and yet it proved to be the great turning point of her life why because God is reaching out to this woman well the love she has never known in all of her life before notice how God deals with her there's a question there's a command and there's a promise do you see the question there verse 8 he said - he said he got servant of Sarah where have you come from and where are you going can you imagine God made visible intercepting your life today and asking you these two questions : you put your name in there where have you come from and where are you going and you think of how these questions speak into Hagar s life where she come from she's running from faith she's running from the people of God she's running from the very place that God had set her down he listened to this question of God into your life today where have you come from you learned about God so someone's here today and having learned about God you're on a path that's moving away from him leaving him once you were serving God now your heart is cold towards him something has changed within you where have you come from where are you going where does the path down which you are going now end that's a huge question yours here you're on a path away from faith away from the people of God the question God asked her is where does that path end your if you're moving away from the Lord today I'm not asking that question and relates to in relation to where does that path take you tomorrow or next week or next month or even next year or even 10 years from now or even when you die I'm asking where that path takes you the other side of the Resurrection and beyond that the other side of the moment where you and I and everyone will stand in the presence of the Almighty Himself where are you going where does the path you were on now lead Hagar the path you are on is not the path that leads to heaven and very wonderfully Hagar seems to be awakened in a new way and she has a sense of God and and and the question now opens our up to a command that God's gives her one command and it was a very difficult one the angel of the Lord said to her verse 9 return to your mistress and submit to her is that not amazing God calls her to do the one thing in the world that was probably harder than anything else for her to do o God command me to do anything but not that Oh God anywhere but not there Oh God anyone but not her Hagar when you have taken the wrong path there is only one thing for you to do you return to your mistress yes it's a fractured home yes it has been a place of wrongs but it is the safest place for you right now it is the place where God is known and it is the place you need to be I wonder just applying that little point here is there somebody here today and you are right on the edge because of your disillusionment with the church you're on your way out from the people of God Satan's put it into your mind of course that you can just have a private faith and that will be fine but you are as it were leaving the Bride of Christ you are distancing yourself from other believers you've seen their fracturing there are no picture-perfect families there no picture-perfect churches either Bride of Christ as many warts scarred in many many ways but she is the Bride of Christ and one day she will be made beautiful and you want to be part of her then then there's a promise verse 10 the angel of the Lord also said to her I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude extraordinary blessing - to Hagar has come from right outside and she's been brought into the circle of blessing and she's experienced so much pain even there but but but now there's a blessing that is coming particularly to her right from the hand of God Hagar walk with God in faith and in obedience and however hard your life may be good will come of it blessing will flow from it Hagar you will also be able to say if you will walk with God surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever Hagar is deeply loved the first way that she knows she is loved is the God finds her doesn't abandon every financier and then we're given this wonderful snapshot of the love of God that God God hears her because God not only finds lost people he he hears suffering people and this is something very wonderful here I don't want you to miss in verse 11 the angel of the Lord said to her behold you are pregnant and shall bear a son you shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction now notice what it says it does not say the Lord has listened to your prayer and that's significant because up to this point in the story there is absolutely no indication whatever that hagar had prayed to God at all indeed why would she why would you ever pray to a god you're trying to run away from but God had listened to her affliction think about this God fears tears as well as prayers you know it says in some fifty six and verse aids a beautiful verse picturing someone who is restless and cannot sleep at night because their mind and their heart are in such turmoil and the psalmist says oh god you have kept count of my tossings put my tears in your bottle are they not written in your book you have never shed a tear over anything that is not completely known to God he hears suffering people in fact the name Ishmael the name that's to be given to the boy to be born to her literally means God has heard and since he turned out to be a difficult boy this must have been a rather appropriate name I mean can you imagine it as this single mother raises her boy every time she calls out his name she's reminded that God hears you know it smell a smell Oh God is hurt God is hurt God is hurt he got his deeply love because God found her because God hurt her there is no pain in your life that is hidden from the Almighty and she is deeply loved because God sees her look at verse 13 she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her you are a god of seeing for she said truly here I have seen him who looks after me what an extraordinary statement from this woman I have seen him who looks after me she had never been able to say that about anyone else in all of her life you know she says I've seen him who looks after me and she says I want to ascribe this name to the Lord that you are the God who sees me you are the god of seeing Spurgeon has some wonderful words on this that I've just paraphrased here because they were so moving to me God sees you he says as much as if there was nobody else in the world for him to look at he says the infinite mind of God is able to grasp a million objects at once and yet to set itself as much upon one as if there was nothing else but that one you are looked at by God as much as if throughout space there were not another creature but yourself suppose the stars were blotted out in darkness suppose the angels were all dead suppose the glorified spirits in heaven were all gone and you are left alone the last person and there is God looking at you God looks at you as if you were the only being his hand has ever made you are the particular object of his attention at this and every moment and you know God who sees you knows you better than you know yourself just to me a very very wonderful thought it says in one of the Psalms who can discern his errors who can actually understand his his own heart the the the heart is deceitful jeremiah says in another place and is desperately wicked who can understand it the Apostle Paul says IIIi don't understand myself i I want to do one thing I find myself doing another there's a there's a complexity within me that I do not fully understand and and here's this God who sees me and he knows what's going on inside this heart and the soul better than I understand it myself it's amazing it's absolutely fascinating to me that he GARP makes this wonderful statement about God's all-seeing and all-knowing she says it immediately after the prophecy that is made about Ishmael and I want you to notice the connection God says verse 12 he shall be a wild donkey of a man is not a phrase I mean you get the picture here your little boys going to be a wild donkey of a man his hands gonna be against everyone and everyone's hands gonna be against it was gonna be constant conflict in his life and I think most parents know what it is to see a reflection of themselves in the struggle of their children would you agree with that those who are parents you look at where your children struggle you see a little reflection of yourselves you know yes I think I recognize where that comes from and I suspect that he giris aw a reflection of herself in the description of Ishmael God says to her he will be a wild donkey of a man his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him and he gar says to herself now that sounds familiar truly you are a God who sees me you know me and you understand me as no one else in this world ever has and the amazing thing and I don't want you to miss this get this the amazing thing is that this all-seeing and all-knowing this eye of God that is constantly upon her is not the seeing of condemnation it is the seeing of everlasting love she has never known love like this and this love is streaming to her at precisely the point where she was running away from God which of course is why she turns how could you run from a love like that it's quite clear from the end of the story then that Hagar did what God had commanded she went back to Abraham and Sarah and we'll pick up the story God willing next week she goes back to the fractured household of faith and verse 15 Hagar bore abraham a son and abraham called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael I want you to notice this and it's the last thing that it's very very important how obedient to God meant living with continued difficulty when when he gone went back there were more problems with Sarah and we'll pick that up in the story later the these two women never really got along and when Ishmael was born he Conner was faced with this daunting challenge of as a single mother raising this boy you as the temperament of a wild donkey and and and in the end she's left to do it alone none of this was easy Matthew Henry says those who have a turbulent spirit often have troublesome lives and that was true for Hagar and that was true for Ishmael this is not a story that ends with and they all lived happily ever after that's the stuff of fairy tales that's the stuff of 1930s Hollywood movies even Hollywood doesn't make movies like that now because it's so far removed from real life but the Bible is for real life the Bible is speaking into the realities of the world in which you and I live today to the ongoing difficulty that was faced by the single mother as it speaks to the ongoing difficulty of perplexed wives as we looked at that last time and flawed fathers and next week we're going to look at troubled son and the message is not come to Jesus and you will live happily ever after that is not the message and it is a travesty for any Christian to pretend that it is so the message is not come to Jesus and you will live heavily happily ever after the message is my grace is sufficient for you that's the message the grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient for you living in the tension of a home where that is little peace the grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient for you to be able to move forward from emotional imbalance and to move forward from spiritual wounding that you have experienced the grace of God is sufficient for you to master the sometimes wild impulses that you find within your own heart and within your own soul and so as we try and place ourselves as we always do in this church under the searchlight of the word of God I am wanting to end by saying today to every person who has ever felt and feels right now emotionally abandoned spiritually wounded I am saying to you and the authority of the Bible from this very chapter that you are deeply loved by God he sees you he hears you he knows you even as you come here today reaches out to find you he sends his son into the world to save you and he draws near to you with the commands to repent and with a promise of blessing that in Jesus Christ His grace is sufficient for you let's pray together father in heaven we ask that you will work your word into the deep places of each of our hearts according to our need and cause it to bear wonderful fruit by the part of your spirit for Jesus sake" [00:04:31]