The Small Faith of Abram (Genesis 16:1-16)
The Small Faith of Abram
Genesis 16:1-16
April 6, 2014
As you know we have been the last several weeks
Studying the life of this man named Abram.
And we’ve seen a great parallel to the truth of God’s salvation.
Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;”
And while that verse is truly depicted in every life that gets saved,
It is not found clearer anywhere than in Abram’s life.
Abram was first off a man of grace.
And now he is just becoming a man of faith.
In fact last week as we studied chapter 15
We finally saw Abram give God the faith that God was looking for.
Genesis 15:6 “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
That is not to say that Abram had no faith before that point, for he did.
• It took faith to leave Ur
• It took faith to enter Canaan
• It took faith to stay there
• It took faith to separate from Lot
• It took faith to turn down the King of Sodom
Abram had faith.
But until Genesis 15 he did not have saving faith.
That is to say that whatever Abram’s faith was,
It was not a faith great enough to cause God to justify him.
That is until chapter 15
On that day, Abram placed the trust of his whole heart on God.
So Abram has given his whole heart to God.
• He is a man of faith
• He is a saved man
• He is a follower of God Most High
But DO NOT ASSUME that Abram is now a finished product.
After all, many of you in here have also surrendered your whole heart to God, and placed your faith in Him, but you also know that you are not yet a finished product.
Faith must first be GIVEN
And then faith must be GROWN
The goal is to move from being a person of faith
To a person of great faith
It is a reality that our faith starts small and must be grown.
Just listen to the various encounters that Jesus had with His disciples.
Did they love Him? Yes
Did they trust Him? Yes
Where they chosen by Him? Yes
But they were far from a finished product.
TURN TO: Matthew 8:23-27
There is a familiar story.
Matthew is relating Jesus’ power over fallen nature.
Jesus calmed the storm with a spoken word.
But we also find a measuring point with the disciples.
• They had seen Jesus turn water to wine
• They had seen Jesus cleanse a leper
• They had seen Jesus cast out demons
• They had seen Jesus heal Peter’s mother-in-law
But still at this point they only had “little faith”
And Jesus not only exposes that but rebukes them for it.
TURN TO: Matthew 14:28-33
You remember this one as well.
Jesus is walking on water and Peter wants in on it.
Peter walks out to Jesus, but gets overwhelmed by the circumstances and begins to sink, crying out to Jesus.
And again we get a benchmark, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
The disciples were giving Jesus some of what He wanted,
They just weren’t giving Him enough of it.
TURN TO: Matthew 16:5-12
There you can actually pick up on the frustrating tone of Jesus.
Not only does He reveal again their “little faith”
But He also reveals how unnecessary that little faith is.
By now, having witnessed all they had witnessed,
Their faith should have been greater, but it wasn’t.
It is obvious that Jesus is extremely interested in the faith of these men.
TURN TO: Matthew 17:14-20
Again you have Jesus exposing the most glaring deficiency of His disciples and that is that their faith is small.
Now, simultaneous to Jesus exposing the disciple’s little faith,
He also took opportunity to praise the great faith around Him.
TURN TO: Matthew 8:5-10
• There is the centurion and Jesus purposely praised him
TURN TO: Matthew 15:21-28
• There again, is great faith, and again from an unlikely source.
Are you getting the point?
Jesus is working on the faith of His disciples.
He is taking them from men of little faith
And turning them in to men of great faith.
TURN TO: Luke 22:31-34
There Jesus tells Peter specifically of the plan.
I have prayed for you.
I want your faith to endure.
I want your faith to be great.
And I show you all those just to be consistent with you
To make sure you understand that God first brings us to faith,
And then He works to make that faith great.
HE GROWS OUR FAITH.
And that is where we are in Genesis 16.
Does Abram have faith? Yes
But it is little faith.
Now, we know where Abram is headed.
Genesis 22:9-14 “Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”
That is where Abram is headed.
And that is GREAT faith!
Hebrews 11:17-19 “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.”
So Abram is headed to great faith.
Right now he has little faith.
• Let me show you that little faith.
• Let me show you why it is little.
• And let me show you what God is going to do in order to grow it.
There are 5 points to this chapter.
#1 THE CIRCUMSTANCE
Genesis 16:1
Well we all know about excuses.
We’ve all made them in the past.
And that is what we have here.
It reminds us that we don’t exhibit weak faith because we want to.
We exhibit weak faith because of circumstances we don’t understand.
• The disciples were in a storm…
• Peter was sinking in the waves…
• The demon wasn’t coming out of the boy…
And here, it had been ten years and still no son.
See down in verse 3, “After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan…”
When you realize a decade had passed between chapters 15 & 16
We can better understand the dilemma Abram and Sarai were in.
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children…”
• Abram only had one wife, that was Sarai
• God had promised Abram a son from his own body.
• But ten years of trying had yielded no success.
Now that was only half of the circumstance.
Here was the other half: “and she had an Egyptian made whose name was Hagar.”
Sarai could look in the mirror and see that she was getting nowhere.
However, when she looked over her soldier she saw a possible solution.
And, bear in mind that God had yet to specify
That the promised seed was coming through Sarai.
God had merely said that the seed would come through Abram.
Now certainly, since God is opposed to adultery, Sarai should have known that as long as she lived, she was also part of the promise.
But ten years of trying had caused her to consider that maybe God was going to use another woman to bring about the fulfillment of the promise.
Sarai is in a tough circumstance
And that is fertile ground for weak faith to show up.
The Circumstance
#2 THE CONSPIRACY
Genesis 16:2-3
• Well, Sarai hasn’t been successful in a decade…
• Hagar looks like a suitable option to Sarai…
(2-3) “So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.”
Now I know that is just about as heinous as it can be to you and me.
And I’m not trying to make light of this.
What Abram and Sarai did here was polygamy, adultery, fornication
It was sin and heinous in the sight of God.
However, it was the common practice of the culture of their day.
It was definitely wrong, but let me confidently say that
It probably didn’t seem as wrong to them as it does to you.
TAKE GLUTTONY FOR EXAMPLE
A big deal to us? No
A big deal to Abram? Yes
I point that out because I want you to understand that it was not that hard for Sarai to come to this decision – she only had to look around her.
Everyone around her was already doing this sort of thing,
So it was not a stretch in her mind to do the same.
And “Abram listened to the voice of Sarai”
In a moment of weakness they chose sin.
And incidentally, if you want the point to this story,
The New Testament gives us that point.
Galatians 4:21-31 “Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. For it is written, “REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR; FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.” And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? “CAST OUT THE BONDWOMAN AND HER SON, FOR THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN SHALL NOT BE AN HEIR WITH THE SON OF THE FREE WOMAN.” So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman.”
According to Paul this story depicts the age old decision
That we all make many times in our life.
Will we walk by faith or will we walk by the flesh?
SMALL FAITH IS INDICATED WHEN WE TOO QUICKLY
RESULT TO THE FLESH FOR THE ANSWER
What Abram is doing here is trying to secure the promise of God
By his own fleshly ability.
The New Testament correlation is when someone tries to obtain God’s promise of salvation through their own human efforts.
Salvation is God’s doing.
He offers it, He grants it, He secures it, He performs it
It is NOT accomplished through works of the flesh.
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
When we try to usher in God’s promises through our own strength,
That is the flesh and that is weak faith.
That is precisely what Abram was doing.
• He knew the promise of God…
• He believed the promise of God…
• He desired the promise of God…
He just tried to obtain it according to his flesh and not his faith.
It is safe to say that Abram is still a work in progress
(Aren’t we all?)
The Circumstance, The Conspiracy
#3 THE CONSEQUENCE
Genesis 16:4-5
This passage is not primarily about the regret of sin, but it easily could be.
For you can easily see that sin never pays off like you expect.
What seemed to be a brilliant idea and an effective way
To usher in the promise turned out to have less than favorable results.
(4) “He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight.”
I doubt Sarai saw this one coming.
• One day Hagar was a more than compliant servant.
• But Hagar ambitiously dreamed of something more.
And when she was promoted to status of wife, and then able to conceive,
She developed a disdain for Sarai.
In Hagar’s mind she now had more claim on Abram than Sarai did.
We aren’t there yet in the story of Genesis,
But this isn’t much different than the feud between Rachel and Leah.
Both of those ladies tried to win the heart of their husband by conceiving children.
We hear statements from Leah like:
Genesis 29:34 “She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.”
It was very much about status and rank.
• And in Hagar’s mind she now outranked Sarai.
• In Hagar’s mind she was now more important.
She carried Abram’s offspring, Sarai did not.
And Hagar began to despise Sarai.
And if you will notice Sarai was none too happy.
(5) “And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
One would do good to ask
If their little plan had turned out like they hoped?
One could surely see that Abram did not think this thing through,
And now he is caught in the cross hairs of Sarai.
IT DIDN’T WORK OUT AS PLANNED.
This is how sin works
(And this is not new)
Do you see the parallels to the garden?
• Woman is convinced she is missing something…
• It is God’s fault that she is missing it…
• A simple yet sinful solution is offered…
• The husband consents…
• And then we get an undesirable result…
The scheme of sin doesn’t ever change much, does it?
I can assure you that walking by the flesh
Will not have the desired effect you are searching for.
The Circumstance, The Conspiracy, The Consequence
#4 THE COVER UP
Genesis 16:6
Well, when you make a mistake,
Most of us just desire to get out from under it as quickly as possible.
And that is precisely what Sarai does.
(6) “But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly…”
In case you missed it, what just happened there
Is that Abram chose Sarai over Hagar.
That was all the authority Sarai needed.
Hagar carried Abram’s son, but Sarai carried Abram’s heart.
And Sarai rode that advantage to its fullest extent.
She took back her place of prominence over Hagar.
And the result?
Hagar “fled from her presence”
So let’s take a little inventory of where we’ve come.
• We have circumstances we don’t understand
• We have a decision to sin and walk by the flesh
• That decision brought about unfavorable circumstances
• And so they did everything they could to remove those circumstances
And so at this point do you see Abram’s little faith?
And do you see why it is little?
Abram believed in the Lord
But you and I can easily see that Abram is far from a man of great faith.
Abram is still very much a man of flesh.
He solves his problems with fleshly solutions,
And then tries to eliminate the consequences of those bad decisions.
That is a vicious cycle of bondage.
Follow the flesh – reap the consequence – use the flesh to solve it
But it looks like Abram’s problem is solved, for Hagar just bolted.
But is it over?
No, not by a longshot.
GOD IS ABOUT TO GROW ABRAM’S SMALL FAITH
The Circumstance, The Conspiracy, The Consequence, The Cover Up
#5 THE CORRECTION
Genesis 16:7-16
Now if you spend much time trying to figure out the point of Moses,
This can be a tough part of the story.
I was particularly curious
• Why God spared Hagar…
• Why God promised to bless Ishmael…
• And mostly, why God was so adamant that Hagar go back…
In my way of thinking, many problems could be solved if
Hagar had died in the wilderness and that child had never been born.
After all, we’d be right back on track with Abram and Sarai
Waiting for the fulfillment of the promise.
But instead, God goes after Hagar
(7-8) “Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”
Incidentally this is the first appearance of “the angel of the LORD”
Since it is clear that this is in fact God, many believe this to be a Christophony
(a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus)
And here God pursues Hagar.
He is “on the way to Shur” (that is back to Egypt)
Just for curiosity sake, where do you suppose Sarai picked up Hagar?
Hagar is headed home back to Egypt, and God comes and finds her.
“Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?”
Notice God specifically calls her “Sarai’s made” not “Abram’s wife”
God is reminding Hagar of the importance of submission.
You are Sarai’s made and you don’t have the right to flee
Just because you don’t like your circumstances.
And Hagar says, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”
But as you will see, that is not ok with God.
(9) “Then the angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.”
Submission matters to God, and God is sending Hagar back.
BUT THAT IS PECULIAR THAT GOD WOULD DO THAT.
WHY?
Because in just a few chapters
God is going to command that they send Hagar away.
Genesis 21:8-14 “The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.” The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. “And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.” So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.”
Why did God bring her back,
If all along He knew He was going to have the drive her out?
Because this story isn’t about Hagar,
It is about God using Hagar to grow Abram’s faith.
And that is seen in the coming promises.
(10-12) “Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” The angel of the LORD said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. “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 will live to the east of all his brothers.”
God makes a promise to Hagar that rivals the promise made to Abram.
“descendants…too many to count”
And here is the point.
“And you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael”
“Ishmael” means “God Hears”
Now, this boy is not going to be like Isaac, he’s going to be a fighter and a man of division, and a man at odds with others and separate from Israel.
God is not going to let this man share in Abram’s inheritance,
But it is very important that Hagar take this boy named “God Hears”
Back to Abram.
Then look at the second part.
(13-14) “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.”
So here Hagar names God “A God who sees”
And she named the well where she had stopped “Beer-lahai-roi”
Which means “The Well of the Living One who sees me”
And then you will notice that Hagar
Returned to Abram and Sarai and had the son.
(15-16) “So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.”
And we know that Hagar told the story to Abram.
We know that because Abram named the boy
As the Lord had commanded Hagar.
NOW FOLLOW THE STORY.
Why did Sarai give Hagar to Abram to begin with?
Because she could have no kids and it had been ten years.
Why did Abram agree?
Because Sarai could have no kids and it had been ten years.
Who did they blame for this problem?
God
(2) “the Lord has prevented me from bearing children”
So these two had agreed that God had abandoned Sarai.
(That was their thought)
But then (after all the mess) Hagar returns to Sarai in submission (really was God who spoke) and brings with her a living reminder.
• She comes with a child named “God Hears”
• And she comes with a story of how “God sees”
And for the next 14 years Abram and Sarai would have a living testimony in their midst named “God sees”
It had been ten years since the promise.
It will be 13 more until its fulfillment.
Do you think they would ever be tempted to walk by the flesh again?
Sure they would
But God had a testimony to teach them to walk by faith and not the flesh.
The point to all this is that when we come to Christ,
We don’t start out with great faith.
We start out with little faith
We start out with small faith
If truth be told we are still pretty attached to the flesh
And God goes to work on us to grow our faith
And turn our small faith into great faith.
How does He do that?
(I’m sure in several ways)
But one of the ways (which we see here) is by living reminders of past failures, to teach us that the flesh is never the best solution.
So when you are discouraged
Because your past failures seem to pop up in front of you.
Don’t let them drive you to despair.
Let them do in you what God intends.
Let them teach you to walk in faith next time.
That is how God takes a person of little faith and begins to grow it.
Until we get to the point where we don’t just trust God for salvation, but we trust Him for everything.
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
