Ever tried to help God out?
Ever thought God was to slow in answering your prayer, which you believed He had promised ?
Ever thought of ways to hurry things up?
Sarai and Abram were just like us .They did not fully rely on God’s promise.
They tried to bring the promise to pass in their own time ,not God’s time
The promise was clear .The promised child was to be born of Sarah
Sarahs’ Bright Idea
When Sarah did not become pregnant immediately, she had a bright idea, why not have a child by using the maid?
Sara had a maid Hagar, whose name means “hired
This would make things easy all round or would it?
How is it that when we do things our way we often create problems for ourselves and others ?
Neither Sarai nor Abram stopped to check with God about their bright idea.
Was this how the promised child would come?
Today we often run ahead with our life without ever thinking, “What would God think of this?”
How much less trouble would we have, if we stopped and thought how our actions line up with God’s will for our life?
James 1 5 says: If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our loving, giving] God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him.
How or by what methods do we find what God’s best is for our lives?
In Sarai’s day it was an accepted practise for barren women to have a maid bear a child for them.
Today we might liken this to, “Surrogate Motherhood.”
Sarai and Abram thought, “Surely this is the way to get the promised child.”
This was NOT the promise that God had given Abram.
God gave a promise, but they did not yet have the faith to trust him.
It would take time to believe for Abram and Sarai to believe for the miracle that was needed.
Genesis 16:1-2
Sarai, Abram’s wife, hadn’t yet produced a child.
She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, “God has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her.” Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.
Hagar
Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael and began to think that she was smart and “looked down” on Sarai.
Do you think it is easy it to get a wrong attitude to others when we become successful?
She forgot that she was a servant.
She forgot the only reason she was carrying the child was because of Sarah.
Sarai was really upset and treated Hagar badly.
Hagar ran away.
3-4 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place. He slept with Hagar and she got pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress.
5 Sarai told Abram, “It’s all your fault that I’m suffering this abuse. I put my maid in bed with you and the minute she knows she’s pregnant; she treats me like I’m nothing. May God decide which of us is right!”
6 “You decide,” said Abram. “Your maid is your business.”
Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away.
She came to a spring of water and stayed there.
God in his mercy sent an angel to speak to Hagar and told her to return and show respect to Sarai?
“Why should I? She got me into this mess,” she could have thought.
The key to her protection and welfare was to go back and behave herself.
All the people in this story had to learn faith and obedience to God’s ways if they were to have God’s best.
Abram was also learning faith… “Faith without works is dead”… James 2:5
What do think this means?
I am sure Abram would have prayed for Hagar and the unborn child and God heard his prayers .
God told Hagar she would bear a son who would become a father of nations (as he was a son of Abram).
Hagar realised God had spoken to her and named the spring “Beer Lahai Roy” which means
“God-Alive-Sees-Me”
God cared for Hagar . She said “He saw me; and then I saw him!”
He saw Hagar pregnant and in distress.
She responded.
God is like this.
He sees us first and draws us to him and we “see” him and have the opportunity to accept him and what he has for us.
The bible tells us “We love him because he first loved us.”1John 4:19
She returned and gave birth to a son.
7-8 An angel of God found her beside a spring in the desert; it was the spring on the road to Shur. He said, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, what are you doing here?”
She said, “I’m running away from Sarai my mistress.”
9-12 The angel of God said, “Go back to your mistress. Put up with her abuse.” He continued, “I’m going to give you a big family, children past counting.
From this pregnancy, you’ll get a son: Name him Ishmael;
for God heard you, God answered you.
He’ll be a bucking bronco of a man,
a real fighter, fighting and being fought,
Always stirring up trouble,
always at odds with his family.”
13 She answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, “You’re the God who sees me!
“Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!”
14 That’s how that desert spring got named “God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring.” That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15-16 Hagar gave Abram a son. Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave him his son, Ishmael.