FATHER ABRAHAM (pt. 4)

Faith isn’t a straight line of perfect performance; it’s a messy journey of relying entirely on God’s grace.

When we manufacture a “Plan B” to help God out, we don’t fix our problems—we tend to multiply them… BUT: Our unfaithfulness cannot derail God’s faithfulness and grace.

When have you stepped away from God’s will, or at the very least, not even asked what His will is?

Here's your invitation to surrender & give up your Plan B.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to the New Beginnings Church Podcast from Delaware, Ohio. To learn more about New Beginnings Church, visit us online at DelawareNewBeginnings.com. Today's message is from Pastor David Forth.

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We're going to continue talking about Abraham for a few more weeks. As I was sitting with the series over the last week, I went, man, there's some stories I still want to talk about in here. So you're going to have to deal with Abraham for a few more weeks. This is our theme throughout this. But our faith is in a straight line of perfect performance. It's a messy journey of relying entirely on God's grace. Right? Messy. Messy. It's like having a messy house. And then God comes over and he says, Clean up your room, David. It's what he does with us. He helps us clean up a room. And some of that mess, some of us really struggle with, and that's in the way of patience. That mess of patience where God wants us to do something. Now, I don't want us just to think of regular life choices here. I want us to think or talk about way more this week more about spiritually. But we're impatient with God's plan, and so we make a plan B. Right? Our obedience and our relationship with God, when we look at it that way, when we manufacture a plan B to help God out. Any of you ever tried to help God out before? Everybody raise your hand. When we manufacture a plan B to help God out, we don't fix our problems. We tend to multiply them. Amen? Anybody ever done that? But, but, this is our this is our knowledge, this is our faith, that our unfaithfulness cannot derail God's faithfulness and grace. There's nothing we can do that God will turn around and walk away from us, is basically what we're saying here. So, how are your waiting skills? How is your patience? What would he say? Would you hurry up? Lord, we pray for Jim this morning. We're thankful Sandy didn't leave him in Alaska. I don't know about you, but there's times in our house, some of you are like Mr. Fixit or Mrs. Fixit. You can fix anything. I cannot. So when something breaks in our house, I want a professional to do it. The problem I have is when the professional says, two weeks out. Now, fortunately that hasn't happened with our air yet this year, yet. Yet. But you know, if your air conditioning's out and it's 90 degrees and they say we're two weeks away and everybody's two weeks out, and you don't know anybody else that can come help you, what are you gonna do? Well, I might give it a shot because there's nothing that duct tape can't fix. There's nothing that a hot glue gun and super glue can fix. There is an as scene on TV for that. Terry's back here just wincing, going, you've seen enough of that, haven't you? Half those repairs and stuff like that. Plan A for me as a professional, plan B is me. In fact, I shouldn't even be plan B. I should be like double B. Double Z. Thank you, Tracy. Always got something to say. For me, when I do plan B, it becomes more expensive than the original cost because I try to fix it and I break something else. Or sometimes what we do is I don't need this expensive part. I can just use this and it becomes more expensive when it doesn't work and it creates more problems. You know, if you're gonna put some of that tape around your water pipes and thinking it's gonna stop it like they show on TV with a boat in it, you're in trouble. Temporary fix, not permanent fix. Today this is kind of I see what Abram and Sarai do. They become impatient and they manufacture a plan B to, if you will, help God out, to help his promise come about. And it doesn't fix their problem, but it multiplies it. But their unfaithfulness could not derail God's faithfulness and grace to them and even Hagar that we're gonna talk about here. So let's walk through this together. We're gonna be in Genesis chapter 16 this morning. If you want to follow along in your Bible, it should be on the screen as well. Uh, and last week we talked about God's promise with Abraham that he was gonna have a son, and there was gonna be the numbers in this, you know, the stars in the sky, the numbers. What was Abram's fear? Do you remember that his line would come from a servant? It wasn't gonna come through Sarai. He said, I don't want my my heir to be Eliezer. I don't want my my all my you know um my life, my to be in the hands of the line of a servant that's with us because that was part of the culture. We'll talk about that a little bit here in a minute. And so, with that in mind, we are, you're gonna hear we're a few years out from what happened last week, and we're gonna see that now panic comes in the waiting. That in the waiting, panic seems to have reared its ugly head with Sarai. And I think there's times in our waiting on God that panic happens as well, and we want to create a plan B. Let's read the first three verses of Genesis 16, 1 to 3. Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, so she still has no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar. So she said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my slave, and perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai, his wife, took her Egyptian slave Hagar, gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. I guess we're just up to verse three there, and I went into four, and that's okay. Uh, verse three has some telling information here. It's been ten years. It's been ten years since they've been in the land of Canaan. So they've been ten years of God's promise, ten years of waiting, ten years of preparing, ten years of wondering, ten years of hoping, and nothing. How do you remember how old Abra Abram was when we started this? 75. So for 10 years since he got there, we know he's well into his 80s, and they give us his age at the end of our scripture here of 87 years old when Hagar's son is and his son is born. And so you can say that maybe Sarah's clock has stopped. Older. I mean, how many of you want to have kids in your 70s? Anyone? Any any takers? Any takers? Nope. I didn't think so. Just the grandkids. Let them come and then go home. Right? And in that waiting, I think we can see through scripture, or at least uh imagine, if you will, that there is some grief, that there's some panic, and there's definitely some blame. Here, here, she she blames God. The Lord has kept me. Now, there may be some truth in that, because God's timing isn't my timing, it's not your timing. And so there's some blame, and there's some truth there, but you know, the Lord has kept me. The Lord has kept me. And I wonder how long those words echoed in her mind over years, because it's not typically that we just wake up one day and we go, we got to do a plan B. There's usually a slow change to that or a slow fade into going to leaving plan A behind and going into plan B. And so the Lord has kept me. And in her in her grief, in her panic, it she devises a plan B. And mind you, it's a culturally acceptable plan B, because in a marriage, the provision is the the wife is to provide an heir for the husband. And if the wife is barren, then she could have a slave bear that child in order for the line to continue, for there to be an heir, which, by the way, was what? Not what Abram wanted. Remember last week? He didn't want that. He's like, I feel like everything's gonna go through the slave. And God says, No, this is the promise, you're gonna have a son. So she devised this culturally acceptable plan B. And so you could say, impatient, lacking in faith, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram to be his wife. All right? And Abram, rather than remembering God's promise, or maybe he remembered God's promise and there was doubt there, I don't know. But rather than remembering and leading in faith, what does Abram do? He agrees. He agrees. When panic sets in, we act. Sometimes when panic sets in, we act. We can become compulsive in our decisions. Uh, in in um, in the world of sales and retail, they want compulsive buyers. They want people to come in and buy their item and then worry about the back end if they have to bring it back. It's all about compulsion. And sometimes panic does that because when you think about shopping for things, this is the best sale ever. It's a type of panic. I've got to get it now because I may not be able to save two dollars again. That's what they're hoping for at Kroger and all these retail places, right? So this panic sets in. We can become compulsive. We can be compulsive with a lot of things in our lives, especially relationally. Oh, they hurt me. Now, depending on the type of hurt, on if you want them out of the life or not, but we sometimes we don't take time to try to repair it. I think we've all tried to force a door closed in our life. Or to force one open because plan A is not working when it comes to life. And I think we've done it spiritually as well in some ways. Does God really want me to believe that? Does God really want to think that I shouldn't allow that? Does God really I I think it's okay. That's a plan B spiritually when we hear what the truth is in scripture and go, well, culture's telling me something else. And I and I think sometimes we create a plan B because we don't want to follow his plan A spiritually. And so I think we've all tried to force a door closed or force one open, only to realize that plan B wasn't a great decision. Maybe it wasn't a wrong decision, but it certainly was not the wisest decision. Spiritually, relationally, Abram at this moment was not very wise. He didn't lead his wife and his family that the way he should have. Life needs plan B's when we talk about life. I always have a plan B for something. If something doesn't work out, I need to know how to get around it, maneuver, detour, right? Your GPS is good at detours. Spiritually, and when we're talking about relationally with God, our spiritual shortcuts, our spiritual plan Bs can actually cause separation between us and God. Because that's what sin does. It separates, it separates us from the love of God. And so our plan B's cause separation, but holiness, when we talk holiness, that means that we are allowing God to finish what He has already begun. And when we say yes to Jesus and we believe in Jesus and we allow Jesus to change our hearts because we have repented and said we're turning away from our old lives. Sometimes it gets hard and we go, holiness, holy cow! That hurts, that's hard. That's not what I expected. Holiness means letting God finish what he has begun. We let God continue through his plan and not our plan. Panic invaded the waiting of Sarai and Abram. You could argue that panic invaded the faith of them as well. And Abram and Sarai quickly found out that when you force your own way, when you force a plan B, the success of plan B can immediately give way to consequences and even regret. Let's read verses four through six. He, Abram, slept with Hagar and she conceived when she knew she was pregnant. This is Hagar, she began to despise her mistress. Now let's not misunderstand what mistress means here. In the translation of this word, it means lady of the house, it means queen. Sarai was the lady of the house. She was the top person. You don't mess with Sarai. Okay? So she began, Hagar began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. Of course. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me. And what she's saying here is may the Lord show us who's wrong. Spouses, when you get in a fight, that's how you end a fight. May the Lord show us who's wrong. May the Lord judge us. Verse 6 Your slave is in your hands, Abram said. Do with her whatever you think best. Then Sarai mistreated Hagar, so she fled from her. Hagar fled from the house. Plan B works. It worked for them. Hagar became pregnant. But what did it also do? Cause pain. This is the pain of a shortcut. It destroyed relationships. It was destroying the relationship between Sarai and Hagar, and it destroyed this relationship between Sarai and her servant, her slave, Hagar. And we can see what happens when this plan B comes in that Sarai and Sarai thought would fix everything. Pride enters Hagar's heart. Can you see it? You couldn't have a baby, but I could. You couldn't get the job done, but I did. I'm able to have the line. The line's gonna be through my child now. This made Sarah bitter. Bitter. And she she blamed everybody else, but it was her decision. But this bitterness just consumes Sarai. And Abram, the father of the house, the leader of the family. What does he do? Does he fix it? He deflects all the responsibility. She's your slave, she's your servant. You do what you want with her. You take care of it. This plan B creates a ripple effect of collateral damage that will span lifetimes, generations. This son that Hagar will have, his name's Ishmael, he becomes the father, if you will, the the Arabs and what we call the Islamic religion today. Abram, we we know he eventually has Isaac, and Isaac is the seed of the Jewish people, which we know has spanned conflict for lifetimes. Ishmael, and I don't mean to put this as like a some kind of label on Ishmael, but Ishmael is the promise forced by a plan B. Isaac is a promise, is the promise fulfilled. And that's not to say Ishmael is a bad guy, but we can see that through they forced a plan B instead of sticking with plan A. And what you'll see is in Galatians 4, in your bulletin on the back, if you go through the weekly study, tomorrow you're gonna go through Galatians 4, where Paul talks about the symbolism between Ishmael and Isaac through Hagar and these sons. So I want to encourage you, if you do any of them, look at that and sit with that a little bit. But I want to speak to Hagar here a moment and give her a little justice here because in reality she had no choice. She's a slave from Egypt. This is what she had to do. She had to obey, she had to do what she was told to do, and she's paying the price. She goes from this possible longtime servant. I don't know what her and Sarai's relationship was before this. I I would probably presume that it was better than it is now. Um, but so she goes from this longtime servant who who Sarai chose and entrusted to carry Abram's baby, to sharing a husband with the lady of the house, to becoming pregnant, to her relationships becoming up-ended, to running away, to becoming homeless, collateral damage all from a plan B because they decided to deviate from God's plan A. I've learned there typically isn't a fix that is both cheap and good. Amen. Not in today's world. I've tried knockoff replacement parts at half the price and ended up ruining the entire thing, whether it was expensive or non-expensive, ruining the entire thing. I I kind of think this is what Abram and Sarai did. They wanted to fix God's promise. They wanted God's promise to come to pass easier and faster, less stressful, with less time because they're getting older, and ended up breaking a relationship. Ended up causing pain. And when we step out of God's will in our spiritual lives with God, when we step out of God's will, we step away from our relationship with Him when we sin, which in turn then can deplete our relationships with each other. Why is that? Because we're no longer aligned with our Creator. We're no longer aligned with our God. We we no longer believe that his plan is greater than our planned. We're no longer following his plan, we're no longer following his commands, we are no longer even following his covenant just for our own plan B to get things done the way we want to get done. But right in the middle of the mess, right in the middle of the mess, we discover that God doesn't walk away from anyone damaged from a plan B. His presence is in our wilderness and our pain. His presence is in our wilderness and our pain. And we see this through how God responds to Hagar after all this has transpired. Let's read through verses 17 through 16. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert. I love that. The angel of the Lord found Hagar. What's that tell you? He was searching. He was searching. He found Hagar near a spirit spring in the desert. It was the spring that is beside the road to Shore. And he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai, she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, Go back to your mistress. Turn around. Go back to your mistress and submit to her. The angel added, I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count. The angel of the Lord also said to her, You are now pregnant, and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, which means God hears. For the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against Everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her. You are the God who sees me. That's Elroy. For she said, I have now seen the one who sees me. That is why the well was called Bier Laharoy. It is still there between Kadesh and Bared. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. So Hagar flees into the desert. She runs. She's out of there. She's tired of Sarai's mistreatment. I'm sure it was awful. She's not only a victim of, if you will, abuse, the power of abuse, but also collateral damage from a plan B. Abram doesn't run after her. Sarai doesn't run after her. Who runs after her? God runs after her. And he meets her there. He sees her and he hears her. And I think it's important for us to note that God didn't go to Abraham first. Notice that? He didn't go to Sarai first. He began with the one that he didn't have this personal covenant with. He began with the one that was hurt. He began with the one that we would call the least. God pursued her. I think. I think that when Sarai said, May God judge between you and me, this was her answer. Because God pursued Hagar. Why? God already had a covenant with Abraham. God already had a promise with Abraham. Doesn't it sound like a lot with Jesus' ministry? Doesn't it sound like I mean we we read from Matthew about mercy and not the righteous, but those who need sick and healed? This is just like this Jesus does this. And and and in this conversation that God has with Hagar, he asked this beautiful question. And this is these are questions we should hold on to because these are core relational questions. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Maybe if we rephrase that, we can say, what is happening? Or what has happened? What is your response? What has happened? Where are you going? How can I help? Core relational questions. And Hagar. She's amazed by this. And she declares. She gives God a name, Elroy. She gives the place a name, Bier Laharoy, the well of the living one who sees me. Elroy, the God who sees me. A lot of things that I hear in this world is I wish people would just see me. I wish people would just hear me. I don't need to be fixed. I just want to be known. And in that moment, God didn't treat her as an Egyptian slave. He treated her as a beloved. And he blessed her. He said, return. Return. Submit. Oh, I don't like that word, submit. God says, return, submit. Trust me. Trust me. Trust in my plan. Trust in plan A. Trust in my promise. I'm going to give you descendants that are too numerous to bear. And because you are under my covenant, you're under my promise, you're under my protection. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that wonderful? That God would chase after what some people would say so low. That's because God doesn't see us as low. He sees us as his own. And so we can look at Abram and we can look at this story of Sarai. And I think it would be really easy for us to kind of be a little judgmental here. We could go, how could they be so foolish? How could they be so foolish? God gave them his promise, you know, face to face, mouth to ear. How could they be so foolish? Why would they do that? I don't know. When was the last time we had doubt over something smaller? Or maybe uh the question would be this why does it matter? We know how the story ends. Why does this matter what happened with Ishmael with Hagar and Ishmael? Why does this happen? We know Abram's faith comes later. We we know it all comes through. We know how it ends. Well, at least most of us know how it ends, maybe not all of us, because we'd miss seeing the mess. And we'd miss seeing God within the mess. If we're honest, this is our story too. That we have made a mess of things. I think it's important to remember that the devil is patient. He's patient, so we have to be on guard for that slow downward slope into plan B from God's plan. Remember, this is ten years. It wasn't that a week after God promised this to Abram that uh Sarai goes, What hasn't happened yet? Ten years. I don't know about you. I have my limits and things in life. She had her limit, if you will. When we get tired of waiting for God to move, sometimes we try to manage the situation ourselves and it creates a mess. But this is the beautiful truth of God's covenantal grace. Our unfaithfulness cannot derail God's faithfulness and grace. Abram and Sarai sinned and yet God didn't tear up the covenant. God didn't go and pack up and find another family. He stayed true to his word. He stayed true to his promise. Every day we sin, we fall short. God doesn't tear up his covenant, he stays true. He offers hope. He hasn't written you off. He hasn't written any of us off. His grace runs, runs after us, and follows us into the wilderness to save us even from our plan B. He calls us to believe and to follow him. It's that good shepherd. It's that Psalm 23. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of darkness, I will fear no evil. Right? Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Follows us into the wilderness and gives us hope and a way out. So where are you impatient with God right now? Is there something in your life where you may be impatient with God right now? Maybe that impatience might have or is tempting you to compromise your integrity, then compromise your faith, your finances, even your beliefs, just for a win. Just for something to go well the way you want to? Maybe we can just ask this question. When have you stepped away from God's will? Or at the very least, when have you not even asked what his will is? And maybe, maybe that's the part we fall short on. We don't believe in God's plan. How much are we asking what his plan is? How much are we asking what his will is? Because when we don't do God's will, especially spiritually, sometimes someone pays the price for our impatience. There's collateral damage. We want our family and friends to have faith, right? But sometimes there's collateral damage when we press our faith in a way that's going to push them away than to draw them in. We want our church to grow. We want to be a light in our community. The question is, is by whose plan? Is it God's plan or is it my plan? See, when we try to outplan God, we usually end up hurting ourselves and even the ones that we love, our family, our friends, and even our community. And so this morning, I want you to, I want to invite you to surrender one specific thing this morning. I want you to surrender your plan B. Personally, I want you to surrender your plan B. In the context of new beginnings and the way we're going and visioning out, we gotta get rid of plan B. And sometimes plan B is to go back to the way we were instead of the place where God is asking us to go. So I want us to give up our plan B, the way you think your soul needs tended to, and allow God to tend to your soul the way he wants to. Whatever pushed you to create plan B with God, cast it aside. Those difficult circumstances, those painful relationships, finances, doubts, future sickness, anything that created panic in a plan B and not trusting in God. And here's why: because Jesus sees you. Jesus hears you, Jesus understands you, Jesus lived just as you are living. He experienced life the way you experienced life. He loves you, he's with you. Give him your plan B and follow him in his plan A. Matthew 11, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 28, I am with you always, even when? To the end of the world. Let's give it all to God this morning. Let's give our plan Bs. Let's stop trying to outplan the God who sees us, the God who hears us, the God who loves us, the God who saves us, and fall into the arms of the God who wants an intimate, passionate, life-changing relationship with you.

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Thanks for listening to the New Beginnings Church podcast. For all our messages, sermon notes, and the latest updates, visit DelawareNewBeginnings.com. We'll see you next week.