søndag 9. mars 2014

Genesis 16: Fools, and the One who Sees.

Genesis 16

Have you heard the saying “To err is human, to forgive, divine”? It was written by Alexander Pope, an English poet from around 1700. To err – to make mistakes – is so very very human, isn’t it?

Debby told me a few days ago about a little article Paul Tripp wrote on the wisdom of Christ and the foolishness of men. He basically says this: “This may offend you, but you’re fool. Because of sin you’re a fool. Don’t believe me? Look at your life: you eat more than you should and are surprised when you put on weight. You spend more money than you should and are surprised when you have financial problems. You treat other people badly – and then are hurt when they ignore you or freeze you out.”

Oh my. I am a fool!

But don’t worry, God knows. He’s very good at rescuing fools. Even the “heroes of the faith” like Abram and Sarai are fools. They were certainly utterly foolish in today’s passage!

1. Eden and the fall

We start by reminding ourselves of Genesis 15. What a great chapter! The Lord’s promise renewed to Abram: 15:4–6 Then the LORD said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” 5 Then the LORD took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” 6 And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.

Righteous Abram, living in faith under the blessing of God. He talks to God in the cool of the day, and God meets with him. It’s idyllic, it’s restful, it’s like the garden of Eden all over again. Man and God together. Wonderful.

And then just like in the garden, the woman is tempted to sin, twisting God’s word – and she gives in to temptation, ignores God, and creates her own solution to her problem instead of God’s solution. Then she comes to the man and says: here is my solution, and he listens to her instead of God, calling her solution “good” and God’s solution therefore “bad”.

How often do we do this! God’s solution seems too hard, or too vague, or too slow in coming, and so we jump up on the throne, take the crown of RULER OF THE WORLD (at least, my world) upon our heads, and come up with our own solution. We ignore his words, and create our own truths. Working well isn’t it?

Sarai’s problem was God’s word seemed too vague for her. “you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.”
But he said that to Abram. Does that really include me? It can’t include me. I’m barren. If he meant me then he would have said something wouldn’t he.” You can imagine her sitting there, month after month, perhaps year after year (the passage is unclear as to how long Sarai waited before becoming impatient) – these thoughts going round and round in her mind. Worry is a choking disease, stealing our joy, making us miserable and upset.

Worry is a universal human problem, but it seems to be a particular burden for women. Debby takes a walk – a power walk - around Tinnemyra most days, and she says without fail the women walking there are walking like this: with worried expressions on their faces. Worry reveals that I don’t trust God. Worry is saying “I am in control, and I don’t know what to do”. Remember Jesus’ comforting words in Matt 6:32-33 your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. He knows. He’s in control. Trust Him.

Don’t be like Sarai. Sarai gave in to her worries, and, instead of taking her concerns to God, she came up with her own plan.

It’s interesting to compare chapters 15 and 16 – in fact the author seems to invite us to do so. In both chapters there is doubt about God’s promise. In both chapters the problem is “I have no son”. But there’s a big difference. In chapter 15 Abram takes his doubt to the right place – to God. And the result? God reaffirmed his covenant (promise), and v6 Abram believed the Lord and the Lord counted him as righteous.
But in chapter 16 Sarai didn’t go to God, but came up with her own solution, her own way of solving the problem. She allows her worry to flow over into bitterness and says v2“The LORD has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.”
Sarai was bitter because she had no children. She allowed her “right” to have a child to get in the way of her relationship with God. She was impatient for the blessings of God, and found a shortcut.

And Abram? Well, he listens to his wife in her sin, just like Adam listened to Eve in her sin. Adam and Abram, failures to lead, failures to be a good husband and call their wives to repent and point them back to God Almighty. That is your job if you are a husband! You are responsible to God for leading your family. Lead well, by God’s grace! And don’t be like Abram. “Hey Abram, have adulterous sex with Hagar over there! It’s fine with me.” “Mmmm, OKAY!” Abram, thinking with his penis! And it’s a fine mess they get themselves into.

From Sarai comes jealousy, anger, bitterness, leading to abuse of her servant. Our “hero” Abram is revealed to be an adulterer, and a coward who tries to avoid his responsibility. Relationships are fractured, and the weak, Hagar and her unborn son, are abused.

How foolish we are when we try to “help God out”. When we are not willing to be patient. When he says no and we say yes. I want what I want and I want it now! It’s my right to… well what are you struggling with now? Is it your right to be married? Is it your right to have a child? Is it your right to have a career? Or a job you enjoy rather than one you don’t? Or even any job? Do you think you have a claim against God? You can come to him and say “you owe me”.

How often do I think like that? Standing before Almighty God with all my “rights” wrapped up in my own self-importance, demanding from God what I think he should give me. If you’re like me, say to yourself now along with me “You fool”. YOU FOOOL! YOU FOOOL! How dare you! Who told you you had rights? We have no rights except this: to serve God. That is our “right”. We belong to him. What he says, we do. Hagar met the Lord, he comforted her, promised he would bless her, but he says v9 “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority”.
You can imagine Hagar’s struggle with that command. Seriously? Don’t you know what’s been going on?
Hagar, obey.

Daniel obey. We belong to God. Our lives are his.
What right are you clinging on to that’s getting in the way of your relationship with God? Let it go.

From chapter 15 to 16: from Eden to the Fall. Before we move on to the next section I want to spend some time on an area where we a very tempted to think that God’s word is bad and our word is good.

2. The glories of sexual sin

I’ve called this point the “glories” of sexual sin because, well, that’s what we so often think. Our society certainly does! It preaches that sex is good, except sex in marriage: that’s boring and bad, says our world. Teenage sex, adultery, homosexual sex, one-night-stands, pornography, and on and on – all “good” the world declares.
God says sex between a husband and his wife is glorious – have sex often, he commands – but any other form of sex is evil. Why? Firstly, because he says it is, and he’s God. Secondly, because any other form of sex damages us: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Sex is powerful. It is one of our primal urges. We are created as sexual beings, created to become “one flesh” and to “be fruitful and multiply”. God made sex. He made sex before the Fall. Sex is good. Good sex is good. Sex between a husband and his wife is good: it unites them, joins them together, strengthens their relationship. It is a deep way to say “we are together. We are one. I am yours and you are mine. I love you.” It honours our bodies, created by God.

But when we take that and twist it – when we give ourselves away to other people who are not our wives or husbands. It hurts. Deeply. We wound ourselves, we wound others. We dishonour our bodies.

When Abram takes Hagar as his “extra” wife, a replacement in order to have a child, he was doing something completely acceptable, completely normal in that society. It was socially acceptable. But what disastrous consequences!

In our society watching pornography – that’s watching other people having sex – is seen as perfectly normal. But it twists our ideas about sex. It’s important that the children are here listening to this because they’re seeing these sexual images already, at school on their classmates phones, at friends houses on the TV or openly displayed in the house. The message of porn is that girls are nothing more than sex objects for boys, and that boys are basically nothing more than penises! That’s what our children are learning. That’s what we learn when we watch porn.

If you are watching porn, stop it! You are sinning against God, saying what he has declared evil, you are declaring good. Look to your wife (or husband) to satisfy your sexual desires! And if you’re not married – stop it! What kind of husband do you think you’ll be if you spend all your time giving in to sexual temptation? A bad one, and a bully in the bedroom. So many husbands are watching porn and abusing their wives in the bedroom trying to imitate what they see. Don’t do it.

You see, girls are not sex objects, and boys are not just penises. We are both glorious, created in the image of God Almighty to glorify his name. We are not animals, but kings and queens. As 1 Cor 6:18-20 says “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.”

Honour God with your body. And honour the bodies of others. Don’t treat people like objects. Abram and Sarai did that. They treated Hagar like an object, a sex object to be used for their pleasure.

We can often fall into the trap of thinking that the “heroes” in the Bible are holy men, and whatever they do is right. That is not true at all. Abram and Sarai here thought what they were doing was right, that their sexual sin would have no consequences. Oh how wrong they were. They were unholy.

Look at the huge problems Abram’s adultery causes. Hagar thinks she’s all that and starts to treat Sarai with contempt. Sarai is full of jealously and anger and bitterness, and blames her husband. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt” Abram’s now stuck between these two women, and doesn’t know what to do. So like any man in this situation he… runs away! 6 Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.”. And Sarai does. She treats Hagar exactly the way she wants to, pouring out all of her anger and jealousy on her poor servant. 6 Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away. Where to? To the desert, probably to die. Hagar would rather die than be with Sarai any more.

Sex with no strings attached? You think that you can do whatever you want and it won’t matter? Learn from Abram. It matters.

1 Cor 6:19 You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.

3. The God who sees

So far chapter 16 has been rather depressing. Rebellion against God’s word, adultery, broken relationships and the devastation of sin, and abuse of the weak and dependant.
Hagar is an Egyptian, a foreigner – the story points this out twice (in v1 and 3). She is part of “all nations” who were going to be “blessed through Abram”. (Remember God’s promise in 12:3?). But Abram is here not being a blessing, but a curse. Poor Hagar is used and then discarded. No honour is given to her.

She was not “seen” by Sarai when Sarai offered her to Abram. She was just a tool to be used, an object, a replacement womb for Sarai’s broken one. Abram did not “see” Hagar either. She was just a sex object, a tool to satisfy his lust, and a womb to provide him with a son.
She was not “seen” by Sarai when she was pregnant. She was just an object for Sarai’s hatred and jealousy and bitterness. And she was not “seen” by Abram when he just ignored her abuse at the hands of his wife.

But there is one who sees. There is one who hears. Beer-lahai-roi Hagar calls the well in the wilderness where the Lord found her: 14 Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). And her son was to be called 11 Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the LORD has heard your cry of distress.

Hagar, on the run, rejected, abused, lost and alone. No-one cares. No-one came looking for her. Except God. He heard her. He saw her.

Note that he did not wave a magic wand to make everything better. He sent her back into the same situation. Sarai was still bitter. Abram was still a fool. But you know who was different?
But Hagar was different. She had met the Lord. V13 Hagar used another name to refer to the LORD, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?”

He is the God who sees. He is the one who saw our helplessness and reached down to save us. He is the one who saw our desperate need, and rescued us. He is the one who can cover our sexual shame. Jesus, the one who sees.

He saw you and I here today. He saw us and loved us. Like foolish sheep with no shepherd. Like debtors with no way to pay our debt. Like dead men with no way to be resurrected. He saw us.
And he humbled himself – the Great Son of Heaven humbled himself to be born in a stable, to grow up as a peasant, to be rejected by his own people, to feel the nails pierce his skin, to face the anger of his own Father at the sins – OUR sins – that he was carrying on the cross: to die in our place.
He did that because he is the God who sees. The God who hears our distress. Because he is the God who saves.

Like Abram and Sarai we are fools. We have gone our own way, rejected his words, called good bad and bad good. We have demanded our “rights” and turned our back on our King. We have rebelled sexually, turning a good thing into a horror, damaging ourselves, each other, and our children.
And yet God sees us and still loves us. He loves us enough to take our pain and sin, our sexual evil, everything we’ve ever done wrong and will still do wrong – he took it, because he sees us. Praise God, for he is a God of mercy and grace!

If anyone would like counselling after the service, if you’re struggling with any of these things we’ve been talking about or need help in making a difficult decision, please come an talk to me afterwards so we can make an appointment to deal with it.

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