The Peril of Spiritual Shortcuts

Tonight's story is a very, very applicable one. It teaches us one of the most important lessons in the Christian life. If you get tonights story - and you take it to heart - it can save you a lifetime of heartache. So I beg you to listen.

It's not a pretty story. It doesn't paint our hero in a very flattering light. It's not the kind of Bible story you tell your kids before bedtime. But it's a story that teaches a profound spiritual lesson that we all need to learn.

Let's read our text and we'll break it down.

"[Gen 16:1-16 KJV] 1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name [was] Hagar. 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong [be] upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee. 6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid [is] in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. 7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. 10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou [art] with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man; his hand [will be] against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 13 And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? 14 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, [it is] between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. 16 And Abram [was] fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram."

Let's not beat around the bush. Let's jump right in and address...

1. The Crime Abram had a child with Sarai's handmaid.

It wasn't his idea. He probably had doubts about it. But He still did it.

They were getting old - really old. Sarai was past the point of having kids. Desperation was setting in. So Sarai comes to Abram and says "I've got a fix for this. You can have a child with my maiden - Hagar." And Abram says "OK." And the deed is done.

At no point do they seek God's will on this. At no point to they get God's permission for this. They just go out and do it. They take matters into their own hands and they make a big, big mess.

So let's look at that mess for a second. Let's look at...

2. The Consequences This one little act of sin, had all kinds of unforseen consequences.

I had a preacher growing up who used to say all the time:

Sin takes you farther than you want to go. Sin costs more than you want to pay. Sin keeps you longer than you want to stay.

That same preacher ended up cheating on his wife, ruining his good name, losing the respect of his kids and grandkids, splitting a church into a million pieces, and tearing at least two families apart. I wish he listened to his own preaching.

But here Abram is going to learn this lesson. Let me give you four consequences he faces:

A. Family life is torn apart. It all starts so innocent - it's Sarai's suggestion. But oh how it spirals out of control.

As soon as Hagar has conceived there is this hatred between Hagar and Sarai. Hagar get's proud.

One preacher said "Maybe Hagar started smirking and rubbing her belly everytime that Sarai came into the room." It's a mess.

So What does Sarai do? She loses it! First, she get's mad at Abram. She goes to him and says "My wrong be upon thee." In other words she says "This is all your fault!" It may have been my idea - but it's your fault. Huh?

So Abram says to Sarai - ok. We blew it. Do whatever you want with Hagar and I'll back you up.

So Sarai goes to Hagar and just really lets her have it. The Bible says Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face

So now Abram has a pregnant second wife who is running away and an angry and vengful first wife who is mad at him.

His family life is in tatters.

The second consequence is...

B. A young girl and her son's life is ruined. Hagar isn't faultless in this story. She was proud to Sarai. But she's definitely the victim here. In this culture, she didn't have much say so in the thing. Now, she's damaged goods. She's bearing a son who will be a second rate son. She's got the lady of the house (and her boss) extremely mad at her.

You would run away too. Thats what people do when they are being mistreated and she was definitely mistreated and her family and her hopes were ruined.

But I also want to mention the third consequence:

C. A race is born that is still causing problems today. Ishmael became the father of the Arab race. Really, more than any other people group, the Arab race is still causing problems today.

Now, that doesn't mean God can't save Arabic people. It doesn't mean that they aren't the mission field. It just means that God's chosen people - the jews - and the arabs have a special hate for each other and the whole thing could have been avoided were it not for this seemingly innocent sin in Genesis 16.

So that's the consequences. They are huge.

Let's look at...

3. The Causes I think the natural question is: What caused all of this?

How could Abram go from the tower of faith we see in chapters 14 and 15 to the mess we see in chapter 16?

I mean, in chapter 14 he's battling the armies and talking to Malchizedek. In chapter 15 he's communing with God and establishing a covenant.

In chapter 16, he's having a relationship God never intended for him to have and a child God never intended for him to have.

What happened? There are a lot of causes for this miss but let me give you three of them:

A. Capitulation of leadership. Look at verse 2:

" 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai"

Abraham was supposed to be the spiritual leader of his household. But here he just says "Yes dear." He doesn't take a stand. He lets Sarai make the decisions and run the show and he pays the consequences.

None of this would have happened had Abraham had the backbone to stand up to his wife.

Now, I want to be clear - men, we ought to listen to our wives. But it is our responsablity to provide spiritual leadership in the home and when our wives are suggesting something outside of God's will we have to say no. That's not right. We aren't doing that.

Ephesians 5:22-23 says:

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body."

Abraham failed to take spiritual leadership here and he paid dearly for it.

A second cause is:

B. Worldly thinking. Notice what Sarai says to Abram:

"I pray thee, go in unto my maid,: it may be that I may obtain children by her."

What Sarai was suggesting was that she have children by proxy. Legally, Hagar's child was going to be her child.

Now, where do you think she got this idea? The law of the land at that time was called "The code of Hamarabi" and we can still read it today and it references a situation just like this. So probably a big part of this was "Everybodies doing it." It was worldly thinking.

Listen folks, our morality cannot come from the world. It has to come from God's word. Our world sees nothing wrong with homosexuality. It sees nothing wrong with premarital sex. It sees nothing wrong with a little lying. It sees nothing wrong with... fill in the blank. But we aren't children of this world - we are citizens of heaven and our morality is God's morality.

So run from worldly thinking because it will hurt you.

One more cause and probably the main cause was:

C. Lack of faith. Here is what it came down to - Sarai and Abraham both showed a lack of faith in God's ability and intentions to do what God said He was going to do. They said in their hearts "God, I know you said we would be the parents of many nations - but that is impossible, so you must mean we should..."

It was a lack of faith. God did what God always planned to do. Isaac was born to Sarai - not to Hagar or anyone else. God always wanted it to be a miracle. But Abraham and Sarai didn't believe.

We've looked at both the causes and the consequences of this sin. But I want us to look at it agian and think about...

4. The Cautions In other words - what can we learn from this little episode that will keep us from similar sins? I've got four things:

First,

A. If you claim to be sinless, you are delusional. Genesis and Romans both say about Abraham "and he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." In other words, Abraham's righteousness wasn't an earned righteousness, it was an imputed righteousness. Abraham isn't the father of faith because he was sinlessly perfect - he's the father of faith because he trusted God and God's sacrifice for Him. He looked forward to the cross of Christ just as we look back at it and it was his faith in God's sacrifice that saved him.

There are people who teach that if you trust Christ and you are really saved - you are going to live perfectly. The flesh is dead. The old man is dead. And if you sin, you have to get saved all over again. I'd like for them to tell that to Abraham - because that's not what we see here. We see Abram believing God and God stamping him with righteousness but that doesn't mean that Abram lived sinlessly from that point forward.

F.B. Meyer - a preacher from the 1800s wrote this about the story. Speaking of the old man he said:

It is absurd to say that it dies once for all in some early stage of the Christian life; and it is perilous to lead men to think so. When men think or boast that it is dead, it peeps out in their very assertions, and laughs at the success of its efforts to blind them to its presence. This is the masterpiece of its art: to cajole its dupes into thinking that it is dead. Bands of thieves always like to secure the insertion of a paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that they have left the neighborhood, because in the false security which is induced by the announcement, they are more able to carry out their plans of pillage.

Every one of these guys sinned. They weren't perfect. You won't be either. That's not an excuse. We should still try to live perfectly. But if you think you are on some kind of spiritual high ground you are deluding yourself and are about to fall off a spiritual cliff.

Along these same lines - this story is a warning that:

B. Even the best people have problems. Hebrews 11:11 says:

"Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised."

Sara is given to us as an example of faith! And Sara, on this very issue, made a huge mess in Genesis 16.

Listen folks, this story of ours isn't the story of a bunch of heroic people boldly and faithfully serving God - it's the story of a bunch of broken people feebly and weakly using the little bit of faith that they have and God reaching way out to make up the distance.

You may make a mistake. No. Write it down. You will. When it happens dust yourself off, repent of it, ask God for forgiveness and keep following him.

Getting to the point, a third caution is:

C. Don't get ahead of God's will. (His timetable isn't yours.) God wanted Abraham to have a son. God just didn't want Abraham to have a son yet. Abraham jumped ahead. He took a spiritual shortcut and paid the price for it.

Listen, if you don't learn anything else from this lesson learn this lesson. Please. Don't run ahead of God. I've seen this happen so many times.

Some young person thinks "I know God wants me to have a wife or a husband" and they start to get desperate and...five years later they aren't in church. You know it. You've seen it.

Some father thinks "I know God wants us to be financially taken care of" and he gets desperate so he goes and makes a stupid move and puts his family in jeopardy.

I know a guy who was maneuvering to become a pastor and it just wasn't time yet. He tried to force it and now he's not even in church. He made a mess.

David didn't get to be king after he killed Goliath - God made him wait for a really long time afterwards. Moses didn't deliver his people when he killed that Egyptian. He still had 40 years in the wilderness.

Sometimes - it's easier for us to hear "no" than it is for us to hear "wait" but God still says "wait" to us quite often.

His ways are perfect and His timing is perfect. So don't rush it. Don't force it.

Along these same lines is this last warning:

D. Don't do God's work in your flesh. (His ways aren't yours.) God wanted Abram to have a son - just not that way. Not with Hagar. God wanted him to have a son God's way. Abram tried to go out and force God's will to come to pass faster and he made a mess.

Don't try to force God's will. Don't try to manipulate God's will. Don't try to make God's will happen in the flesh.

So many church splits happen because somebody is trying to make what they think is God's will happen in the flesh. Just trust God. Just follow Him.

That is the main lesson from this story but I want to give you one more point. I don't want to leave you on a sour note.

Write down...

5. The Consolation - God is merciful. I love how this story ends. Hagar runs from Sarai. She's broken. She's down. Her life is ruined.

And the angel of the Lord meets her at a well and gives her this promise:

"I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude."

Then in verse 11 He says "Thou shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction."

Ishmael means "God hears."

They made a mess of things. And it's easy to look at this story and just chew Hagar up. But God looked at Hagar with compassion and heard her cries and had mercy on her.

We have a great God you know that? Let's trust Him. Don't run ahead of Him. Don't try to do His work in the flesh. Just trust Him. It's not easy - but the consequences of not doing it are so, so severe.

Let's stand for invitation and prayer.