You Can Trust in the God Who Sees All Things

The God Who Saw Abram Also Sees Us

For the past several weeks, we’ve been exploring the different ways that God interacted with a man from history, named Abram – also called Abraham. And what we’ve seen over the past several weeks is that God’s dealings with Abraham are intended to show us the God who sees us and  how he relates to his people from age to age. There are certain patterns and precedents that God shows us, in his relationship with Abraham, that are intended to inform and encourage our faith, today.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen how God called Abram out of his idolatry, not because of anything Abram had done – but purely because of God’s intervening kindness. And as Abram began to trust God and follow him – we’ve seen that Abram didn’t do this perfectly from Day One, but little by little, Abram’s faith has been refined. And Abram has received some pretty dramatic confirmations of God’s trustworthiness along the way, as we saw last week.

But this morning, we’ll consider another instance where Abram fails to live out his faith consistently, in Genesis 16. So if you have a Bible nearby, please turn with me to the first book of the Bible – to Genesis, chapter 16. If you’re using one of our church bibles, you can find our text on page 10. Before I read Genesis 16, let’s ask for God to help us:

[Pray/Read Text]

Shortcuts and Self-Reliance

The longer you live, the more life experience you have, the more you tend to realize that shortcuts usually aren’t shorter. If you’re on a hike, and you try to cross through the woods to take a shortcut to another path, you’ll often find yourself tangled up in underbrush, or dodging mudholes. If you get off a busy freeway to get around traffic that’s backed up, it’s quite likely you’ll find that the side roads are just as congested, or filled with stoplights and low speed limits. Sometimes a shortcut over a metal chain-link fence, which you expect to simplify your life, ends up resulting in ripped pants or a trip to Urgent Care to get some stitches. When we takes things into our own hands to find what we think will be a faster way – a better way, we often don’t help ourselves at all.

And this is true in many other areas of life, as well, including our relationship with God. We may sometimes find ourselves discontent and impatient, because it seems like God’s doing his work too slow. His blessings seem to be too long in coming. In seasons of spiritual dullness, we might be tempted to look for some sort of religious experience that we think will be a shortcut to happiness and personal fulfillment. Jesus’s work to build his church through prayer and proclamation of God’s Word – it might seem like it’s not happening fast enough. And we might be tempted to rely on manmade strategies to attract people, and to get them to stay.

Temptations like this aren’t just an issue for Christians today, in the American church. But people throughout history, around the world, have had the same impulses. Even Abram and Sarai, here in Genesis 16 – they get impatient with God, too. They’re discontent in the waiting, and go looking for a shortcut, thinking, perhaps, that they’ll be able to speed God along.

But in our text this morning, we’ll see that relying on human works and wisdom brings problems rather than promised blessings. In verses 1 through 3, we’ll consider how Abram and Sarai give in to the temptation to bypass God. In verses 4 through 6, we’ll consider the troubles caused by Abram and Sarai’s unbelief. And then finally, in verses 7 through 16, we’ll see the tender mercy of the God who sees toward Hagar. These will be my three points as I work through the text: The temptation to bypass God; the troubles caused by unbelief, and the tender mercy of the God who sees.

The Temptation to Bypass God

So first, the temptation to bypass God. In verse 1, we’re told that “Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.” And this was a hard reality for Abram and Sarai to accept. Socially, motherhood contributed to a woman’s respectability. Personally, Abram and Sarai likely wanted the joy of having a child, to hold and to nurture together. And in relation to God, having a child was an indication of the Lord’s blessing – especially in light of the promises God had made to Abram.

Because back in Genesis Chapter 12 – God had promised Abram he would bless him and his offspring. But for more than ten years, now, Abram has had no offspring. Last week we saw how Abram took his uncertainties about this to God, in Genesis 15. And God reconfirmed his commitment to give Abram a son. But even so, the reality of the situation remained: “Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.”

And when faced with this continued delay of God’s blessing, Sarai and Abram both sin against the Lord in how they try to deal with the situation. They essentially sidestep God, and try to find a human solution to their perceived problem. Specifically, Sarai sins against God in her unprincipled pragmatism. And Abram sins in his irresponsible passivity.

Unprincipled Pragmatism

We see Sarai’s unprincipled pragmatism in the first two verses, here. As Sarai’s biological clock has been ticking – as she’s been gradually aging out of normal child-bearing years, she decides she can’t wait for the Lord any longer. So she takes things into her own hands. Verse 1 tells us that Sarai, “… had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.” And in verse 2, Sarai tells Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her.”

The first thing to notice from Sarai’s actions is her lack of confidence in the Lord. She basically blames God for her barrenness in verse 2: “The LORD has prevented me from bearing children.” And when God doesn’t help us in the ways we expect, according to the timeline we want, it’s tempting to develop hard feelings toward God, too. We may begin to view Him as stingy and cold-hearted rather than generous and faithful. Sarai is like that, here. She no longer feels like she can depend on God to see her and help her, and so she turns to herself. She tries to come up with an action plan that will work where God seems to have failed.

And this is the second thing you’ll see about Sarai’s actions here. She embraces a form of pragmatism that takes priority over her relationship with God. As she’s plans out what she’s going to do, her guiding question isn’t, “What will honor the LORD?” or “What does God say the right thing for me to do is?” Instead she’s simply thinking through possibilities of “What do I think will work? What will get me what I want?” And it shouldn’t surprise us – when Sarai’s priorities get flipped upside down like this – when she’s more concerned about living for her goal than she is about living for God – Sarai begins to make moral compromises. She makes foolish decisions for short-term gain that lead to long-term harm.

Sarai’s unprincipled pragmatism becomes apparent in verse 2. She encourages Abram to take her maidservant, Hagar, as a second wife. You’ve maybe noticed in the Bible, polygamy is described on multiple occasions – where a man has more than one wife. But this doesn’t at all mean that God’s Word is endorsing it. In fact, the opposite is true. In virtually all the narratives where we see polygamy taking place, God shows us how dysfunctional and damaging it is.

Instead, marriage should be between one man and one woman. In Matthew 19, Jesus himself affirms that God’s design for marriage, laid out from the very beginning, in Genesis Chapter 2 – that design is the moral pattern that every marriage should follow. And so when Sarai encourages Abram to take her servant as a second wife, to try to have a child by her, the whole idea was unethical. Practically speaking, the plan certainly increased the possibility of Abram having a son. But morally, it went against God’s decrees and his design.

And I’m taking the time, here, to lay out Sarai’s unprincipled pragmatism, because it’s a real danger that everyone one of us faces.

For example, it’s tempting to turn to heavy drinking or smoking to take away our feelings of stress. In the short-term, it may seem to “work.” But in the long-term, you just become more and more enslaved to alcohol and nicotine instead of being freed from your anxieties. On the other hand, when we entrust our stresses and struggles to the Lord, we may not feel immediate relief – but that’s okay. It’s actually a good thing. Because in our seasons of feeling stress and hardship, those often end up being sweet seasons that God uses to draw us closer to him, to rest more securely in his wisdom and power.

Parents, you’ll be tempted with unprincipled pragmatism, too. When your kids are noisy and acting up, you may not feel like engaging in the long, painstaking work of parenting. Even though God calls us to give loving discipline and godly direction to our kids, it may seem easier just to put them in front of a screen. Or it may seem easier to yell at them, and send them to their room. These things may seem like they work, pragmatically, for getting your kids in line. But you’ll be neglecting the good, long road of teaching your kids to live as followers of Christ.

But there’s one more example of unprincipled pragmatism that is especially relevant for this text. In America today, when a couple is unable to have a child, there are certain practices for trying to make that happen that are morally problematic. Most forms of in vitro fertilization result in the conception of many new human beings – many fertilized eggs. But then many of these living beings – the ones that are considered extra – they’re discarded. Their lives are taken from them. Surrogacy also has moral issues, as well as traumatic effects when impregnated women are forced to give the baby they bore to someone else. These manmade strategies seem practical. But they run against God and the goodness of his ways.

Irresponsible Passivity

But, Sarai, with her undisciplined pragmatism, isn’t the only guilty party here. Abram also gives in to the temptation to bypass God, with his irresponsible passivity. Abram, here, had a distinct role, as all husbands do, to lead his wife and home in the ways of the Lord. But Abram fails miserably at this. After Sarai blames God for her barrenness and tells Abram to take Hagar as a second wife, to produce a baby, look what happens in verse 3: “So after Abram had lived ten 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.”

In these first three verses, Abram is passive. He doesn’t question Sarai’s idea. He doesn’t plead with her, to seek the Lord with him in prayer. He doesn’t raise concerns about the ethics of taking a second wife. Instead, in verse 4, we see that Abram goes right along with Sarai.

Something similar happened in the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3. Eve was deceived by Satan. She ate from the forbidden tree, and gave fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate, too. Adam should have stepped in, to protect his wife. Abram should have done the same thing, here, in Genesis 16. But he didn’t take a stand. Instead, he went right along with the plan, to bypass the God who sees, and to use questionable means to get their desired outcome.

This type of passivity is a common temptation for men. I think that we can sometimes assume that if we go along with what our wife wants, then if things don’t turn out well, she can’t blame us for it. We might think of passivity like a self-defense mechanism. Other times, we might do what our wife wants simply because we’re lazy, and we don’t want to think about an issue, to develop an opinion. Or we might embrace passivity – we might not address concerns with our wife – because we want to avoid conflict, and it feels easier to simply give her what she wants.

It’s not clear what motivated Abram’s passivity here. But we’re intended to see that his passivity was harmful. When Abram gave in to Sarai, it was a step in the wrong direction – a step toward trusting in human works and ideas instead of God – a step backward, toward Egypt, instead of a step forward toward God’s promises.

Abram’s descendants, who lived 400 years after him – they were the first ones who had this part of the Bible written down for them. (I’ve mentioned this in previous weeks.) They had just been led out of slavery in Egypt under God’s prophet, Moses. God was finally bringing them to receive the land promised to Abram – to the land of Canaan. But along the way, the people struggled to believe – they didn’t want to wait to see if God’s promises would come. Instead, they wanted to do things their way. They wanted to go back to Egypt.

And turning to Egypt – relying on Egypt – takes on symbolism in the Bible as turning to sin, and relying on human ability. That symbolism is here in our text, too, in Genesis 16. Because the text mentions a key detail, in verses 1 and 3: Hagar was an Egyptian. Abram was faced with a decision, either to trust in God, and the Lord’s ability to bring blessing, or to trust in Egypt, and in human ability to bring blessing. And in Genesis 16, we see that Abram gives in to sin and chooses Egypt.

The Troubles Caused by Unbelief

And a number of specific troubles arise when Abram and Sarai try to make a shortcut for themselves instead of relying on the God who sees everything that’s taking place. This is my second point: the troubles caused by unbelief.

You’ll see that Sarai’s plan, initially, seems to work. Verse 4 tells us that Abram “went in to Hagar, and she conceived.” Abram is finally going to be a dad.

But right away, Sarai begins to see that things aren’t going as planned. Because when Hagar sees that she has conceived, the text says that, “she looked with contempt on her mistress.” I’ve already mentioned the ethical problem of Abram’s polygamy. But in addition to the moral wrongness that’s caused by Abram taking two wives, this passage highlights the insecurity, jealousy, and and rivalry that it fosters. It also causes a complex social and relational dynamic, with Hagar being both a maidservant in the house, and Abram’s child-bearing wife. Sarai wants Hagar’s social status to remain at the level of household servant. Because that’s what she was, and in one respect, that’s what she still is. But in a different respect, Hagar’s status has become much greater, now, by becoming Abram’s wife, and the mother of his first child.

And now Sarai has regrets. And in her anger, bitterness, grief – or whatever those emotions are that she was dealing with, she unleashes her angst on Abram in verse 5. She says, “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 contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!”

It might seem strange to us that Sarai is speaking this way. Because this whole thing was her idea in the first place. Why would she be blaming Abram for it? But this is a very honest and penetrating window into how the human heart works. In the heat of the moment – in our anger or grief – we often don’t want to take blame for things, either. We see ourselves as victims. When we replay events and conversations in our heads, we come up with reasons why it was okay to shout when we shouted, or why it was okay to blame when we blamed, or why it was okay to make bad choices when we made bad choices. Sarai is doing something like that here.

And when our life isn’t lined up rightly with what God wants, and we know it – that’s when we’ll be most tempted to act the same way. We won’t want to admit to people that we were wrong. We won’t want to let on to people that we were acting in unbelief. Instead, we’ll feel pressure to defend ourselves, and to double down on insisting that we are in the right.

And again, Abram gives in to Sarai in a way that’s shameful. He tells Sarai in verse 6, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” There’s an aspect of this that’s shameful, simply because Abram, again, is expressing passivity here. He’s simply telling Sarai, “Fine, do what you want about it.” Abram isn’t active in finding a healthy solution.

But it’s also shameful because of what happens next. Sarai rationalizes to herself that it’s okay to afflict and mistreat Hagar – she deals harshly with her, as we see at the end of verse 6. There’s no indication that this involved physical abuse. But it’s still clear here that Sarai made life miserable for Hagar. And what did Abram do about it? Nothing. Remember, Hagar is his wife now! And yet he does nothing to defend her! Even though Hagar is carrying his child. Abram stands back and lets it happen. And when Hagar decides she doesn’t want to put up with it any more, she runs away.

Sarai’s great plan to make life great, to get a child, to do things her way instead of God’s way – it leads to misery and chaos. Relying on our own works and wisdom will not bring us more rapidly or richly into God’s blessing. Instead, our shortcuts lead to dead ends. What we need most isn’t to list out reasons why our mistakes were justifiable. But what we need most is to return to the Lord, and to admit our ongoing dependence on him.

The Tender Mercy of the God who Sees

Interestingly, we do see an example of repentance and returning to the Lord, here in our passage. But the person who turns back isn’t Abram or Sarai. Instead, the person who seeks to be realigned with the Lord, here, is actually Hagar. And this happens, because God sees Hagar, and he pursues her – he draws near to her to care for her in a tender way. This brings us to my final point, The Tender Mercy of the God who Sees.

In verse 7, we’re told that Hagar is in the wilderness, on the way to Shur. Shur was a region near to Egypt. Hagar was likely trying to get back to her homeland. But before she can there, the angel of the LORD finds her there.

This is the very first time that “the angel of the LORD” is mentioned in the Bible. And it’s a bit of a misleading expression, because there’s reason to believe that “the angel of the LORD” actually isn’t an angel at all – at least, not in the way that we ordinarily think of angels. Because when we think of angels, we usually think of the many created spiritual beings who are servants of God. But the angel of the LORD isn’t a created being in this case. The angel of the LORD is the LORD himself, taking on the form of a messenger or representative.

Look again, carefully, in our text. Verse 11 says that the angel of the LORD is speaking to Hagar – but then in verse 13, we see that Hagar calls the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing.” Hagar recognizes here – it isn’t just an angel speaking to her, but it’s the LORD himself. And she goes on to add, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” The God who sees, is the God who has stooped down in a form that is seeable – much in the same way that the divine Son of God took on human flesh, to dwell among us.

In fact, many theologians in the past have understood the angel of the LORD to be the divine Son. Even before he took on a human nature in his incarnation, the Son foreshadowed what he planned to do by taking on a temporary human-like form, appearing from time to time as the “angel of the LORD.”

But what’s interesting here, is the very first person to be visited by the LORD like this, as he’s in this humble, visible form – it isn’t wealthy, influential Abram, with all his servants and livestock. It isn’t Abram’s attractive, aristocratic wife Sarai. But it’s Hagar, an afflicted, pregnant servant girl who’s homeless and destitute. God draws attention to the person, here, who’s viewed as having the lowest status and the least significance – and he confirms that he is a God who sees people like that.

Even when you feel low, and worthless – like you have no status, God is a God who sees. Out of his tender care, He sees you in your sorrow and affliction. In verses 10 and 11, he gives words of comfort to Hagar, explaining that he’ll give her a safe pregnancy, a healthy son, and many offspring. And God tells her to name her son Ishmael, which means “God hears,” because He, the LORD, has listened to her affliction.

And we’re supposed to understand in all this, if our LORD listens to those who are weakest, if he knows the sufferings of those who are least and littlest – he’s a God who sees you and I, too, even at our lowest points. And he brings us news that’s even better – not about the birth of Ishmael, but news about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who saves his people from their sins and gives eternal life..

But God doesn’t just see our sorrow and affliction. In God’s tender mercy, he also sees our wrongdoing and foolishness, and he calls us out of it. Look what he says to Hagar in verse 8. The angel of the Lord asks, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” And Hagar responds, “I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarai.” And in verse 9, the angel of the LORD – our LORD himself – he responds in a way that you might find surprising – maybe even offensive. He tells Hagar, “Return to your mistress and submit to her!”

And the reason why these words seem so shocking to us, is because, as Americans, we’re inclined to see Hagar as nothing other than an innocent victim. It seems obvious to us that Abram’s wrongs and Sarai’s wrongs are greater than the wrongs committed by Hagar – and that’s probably true! But the Lord himself understands that Hagar isn’t just a victim, but she’s a villain in the story, as well. She contributed to the problem, too. We saw this back in verse 4. When she saw she had conceived, Hagar “looked with contempt on her mistress.” She dishonored Sarai and her authority as the mistress of the house, (even though, morally, the LORD urges his people to honor authority in the home and in society). And in addition to this, Hagar dishonored Sarai as a human being, made in God’s image. In both respects, Hagar’s contempt was wrong, and an way of dishonoring God himself.

So when the Lord is calling Hagar to go back, here, he isn’t telling her to go back with the same attitude, to keep butting heads with Sarai. But he’s telling her to go back and “submit to her mistress” instead of continuing to hold her mistress in contempt. The LORD is telling Hagar to confess her wrongs, to apologize, and to be reconciled.

And the Lord is tender in his mercy, by calling us to do this. Because in our pride, and in our bitterness, we often want to point the finger at other people, to say it’s their fault. They’re causing all the problems, so they need to take the first step to apologize. But whenever we’re in conflict with someone else, whether we’re just 1% of the problem or 100% – that’s irrelevant – the LORD encourages you and I to be honest about our wrongs, and as much as it depends on us, to take steps toward resolution.

Frankly, this is part of what it means for us to be a part of the church – a part of the household of God. It shouldn’t be lost upon us, that at this point in history, the assembly of God’s people – the church – it basically consisted of Abram’s household. That’s it. And from the very beginning of the Church, you’ll see that the Church has hurt people. The church has sinners in it. And you and I can be honest in recognizing here, that Hagar was legitimately hurt by the Church.

But as Hagar is running away, thinking that she’ll be better off if she can just get away from God’s people, the LORD stops her. He urges her to go back, not because Abram and Sarai have their lives cleaned up. Because they don’t. But he urges her to return because the Church is where God is going to continue his special work, to reveal himself, to strengthen our faith, and to bring about deliverance for his people.

Now by this, I’m not saying that if you’ve been hurt by a specific local church, that has poor leadership, or that’s teaching people to rely on human works or pragmatic strategies to get God’s blessing – I’m not saying that you need to go back to that same local church, necessarily. But bringing yourself under Christ and his Church is an important part of God’s will for us. The Bible presents it as an essential part of his design, for how he intends to bless his people.

So if you’ve been at odds with God for a while, and you’ve been suspicious or angry at God’s people – the solution won’t ever be to run off into the wilderness, to go back to Egypt. But the Lord calls you back to himself, to acknowledge whatever pride or problem might be in your heart. And he calls you to be joined to his people, tangibly, in His Church. And he does this, not because he wants to afflict you and I more, but because he wants to bless us. He wants to work by His Spirit, through His Word, to keep us and care for us. The God who sees us, calls us back into the company of his people, for our good.

We’re supposed to walk away from Genesis 16, then, with the same conclusion that Hagar came to. God, in his tender mercy, is a God who sees. He sees our foolishness and sin, and the empty attempts of men to bless themselves with self-reliance. And he also sees our affliction. In our wandering, the LORD comes down and pursues us. And he calls us back to himself, into the household of faith, to bless us. As Hagar listens to God, and returns, the Lord cares for her in the household of faith – and he will care for us, as well. So let’s rely on the God who sees us and his grace – not on our own cleverness, or our own timetable. But let’s rely on the God who sees us, and who saves us from our sins. Please pray with me: