Genesis 16-17

Thomas Agnew

Genesis: Promise, Peril & Provision • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

Genesis 16:1–18:33

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1. How does the context inform the meaning of this passage? Please consider: a) the literary context (passages before and after the passage), b) the historical context (circumstances of the audience), and c) the biblical context (citations/allusions or historical connections to other books that the author is making).

Literary Context -

10 years post initial promise of God’s blessing to Abram ()

Abram’s fear and despair was increasing - Will my inheritance (God’s promises) pass to his slave (likely an Egyptian Slave)

Chapter 15 - God Establishing Covenant w/ Abram & He believes and is credited righteousness.

God will provide an heir through Abram’s own body, a slave will not be his heir. (Romans 8)

Historical Context -

Moses is writing to the wandering Israelites who are wondering if their former enslavement was a better option for them

The implications of Egypt - (Babylon)

Biblical Context -

God’s unfolding covenantal relationship with his promised people.

Redemptive Arc - Movement from slavery to sonship.

2. How has the author organized this passage? Please a) show the structure in sections with verse references and b) explain what strategies you used to see this structure.

- Abram and Sarai’s sin of fast-tracking God’s plans.

- God’s love all for all people - including the non-elect

- God reaffirms his covenant with the aging Abram

- God calls Abraham to mark himself and all male children in his home as his covenant people through circumcision.

- The Danger of Abraham enslaved belief that Ishmael would suffice as his promised heir.

- Abraham obeys the Lord and has his household circumcised.

3. Drawing on your work to this point, state the author’s aim for his audience (in one short sentence).

Abram and Sarai’s attempt to fast track God’s promises are the same as Eve’s attempt to do the same. They are fulfilled through the covenant faithfulness of his people to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

4. What parts of this passage connect to the gospel of Jesus Christ? What part of the gospel is in view?

Our Bent toward Sinful Fulfillment - Sarai and Abram’s offering of Ishmael

Covenant Fulfillment - Jesus is the end of the mark of Circumcision - Jesus is the faithful covenant keeper that secures all the promises of God.

5. Drawing on your work to this point, what conclusion will you argue to your audience (in one short sentence)? What applications will you make for your audience?

MAIN ARGUMENT -

Gospel faithfulness does not come through fast-tracking mission through any means necessary, but through the covenant faithfulness through ordinary means.

APPLICATIONS

Fast Tracking Mission through World Means is always short sighted

Mission through World Means often times ends with hurt people

God mends the broken hearts of those hurt by God’s Covenant people

Faith in Jesus Alone empowers covenantal obedience and piety.

God people will be faithful when we embrace a life of piety through the ordinary means of grace.

6. What is your sermon title and your preaching outline?

TITLE:

EMBRACING THE UNHURRIED PATH OF GOSPEL FAITHFULNESS

PREACHING OUTLINE:

The Danger & Consequences of Fast-tracking God’s Promises ()

The Sure Ground of God’s Covenantal Relationship with His people ()

The Primacy of Covenantal Faithfulness of God’s People ()

Introduction/Illustration

Amanda and I are nearing 14 years of marriage in August. In that 14 years, we have been homeowners nearly 12 years of that. I would say that homeownership comes with its lessons. One of the ones that I learned is this: Short cuts never work when you own a home. I hate painting my house actually. I get in a hurry, I make a mess and make mistakes along the way. The last time I painted out home, I sent Amanda and the boys to Knoxville for a few days so I could attempt to not hurry myself. But what happened was I got more and more rushed, I cut corners and took short cuts and now our house needs a new paint job again.

Main Theme Gospel faithfulness does not come through fast-tracking mission through any means necessary, but through the covenant faithfulness through ordinary means.

Main Theme

Gospel faithfulness does not come through fast-tracking mission through any means necessary, but through the covenant faithfulness through ordinary means.

The Sure Ground of God’s Covenantal Relationship with His people ()

The Primacy of Covenantal Faithfulness of God’s People

()

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY

How to Read Genesis – Tremper Longman III

Living in the Gap between Promise & Realtiy – Ian Duguid

Preaching Christ from Genesis – Sidney Greidanus

Context

The primal cry of Abram’s heart we found in was his concern that he had no heir and that if God didn’t do anything, then a slave in his household would be the heir to the promises. (Deal with the idea of slave?)

Struggle to move from slavery to sonship - This will help us understand what is really unfolding here in between Abram/Sarai and their God.

The Danger & Consequences of Fast Tracking God’s Promises ()

Explaining the Text (V.1-6)

There is the tendency in the human heart to take short cuts, to fast track our visions in life. This is certainly true in the life of God’s people. There is an important observance that we find in v.1-5. It is eerily similar to a similar and the all too family sequence we find in .

RATIONALIZATION: We find that Sarai, like Eve, concede to their earthly position instead of trusting in the Word of God to them. She rationalizes with her present barren state in light of what God has told her…this was the same rationalization that Eve capitulated to as well.

The path of slavery is the most reasonable pathway forward

CAPITULATION BY SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

INDIGNATION - All the players play a role here - Hagar became contemptible, Sarai’s hurt is shifted to Abram as its source, Abram is indignantly passive with Sarai as way to deal with his wife’s pain!

The main point we should see from these first 6 verses is that we are predisposed to relive the fall each day just like our first parents, Adam and Eve. As one our brothers here this morning put it to me, we get in a hurry because we believe God is limited in his resources without us. ‘Surely, He must have set before him the paint, brush and canvas before he can deliver the work of art?’

APPLICATION

Fast Tracking Mission through World Means is always short sighted - The dangers and consequences are numerous!

Think about the places we tend to try to fast track God’s mission or purposes in our lives. There are 2 primary spheres we function in according the creation account:

Where are the places we tend to try to fast track God’s mission or purposes in our lives. There are 2 primary spheres we function in according the creation account:

Our Vocation

Our jobs are a big piece of baring the image of God in the world. - God gave Adam and Eve the mandate to be his regents, stewards on the earth. The idea is to pursue flourishing. Our vocations are a big piece of how we bring flouishing (Shalom) to the world.

Sadly, our jobs tend to function to build our own kingdoms rather than the Kingdom of God. So we get impatient with a job because we don’t make the money we think we should so we tempted to jump from one job to the next instead of a long obedience in the same direction. Or on the other side, We can tend to enslave ourselves to our work, never able to unplug at home.

Because of this, we short fuse sanctification in our lives. We see little fruit of holiness. Eugene Peterson says it this way, “There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.”

Mainstream Christianity and the church in the west is eat up with the compulsion to provide experience rather than disciplining one another to live a patient and long obedience in the same direction.

Our steady vocations that contribute to the common good are huge piece to this long obedience

Our Family - Same is true here...

God commanded Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth. The idea is to bear children and instruct them in the ways of the Lord. The Early church saw one of the primary ways we evangelize the world is through the steady work of child bearing and home discipleship.

Again, sadly, we shift our focuses as parents on experience here as well. Creating social media acceptable moments that appear to show how happy and healthy your family is is not the goal of biblical witness.

Its the transparent ugliness of bearing with the sins of your spouse and they with you and yielding to the humbling power of the Spirit in our lives to raise children in spite of ourselves.

Join me as I learn to this one important lesson (THAT I HAVE NOT LEARNED YET). My calling as a parent is not to give my kids everything they want (or everything the world says they need), but to give them everything they actually need. JEsus and a dad who shows up in spite of his own daily short comings!

Our Congregation

The journey that calls us to take from slaves to sonship is a beautiful mess.

But even beautiful messes have consequences…Lets look at the rest of chapter 16 together

Explaining the Text (V.7-16)

Hagar had her issues and she plays her part in this disfunction, but the way Abram and Sarai treated her was nothing short of sinful and abusive. We are not sure how she came to leave Egypt with Abram but perhaps it was Abram’s hope in the promises that God would reveal. But now, she is in the real life moment and nothing about his life shows her his hope in God’s promises. She feels used and abused (and she was ya’ll).

She does the same thing that Abram and Sarai do. She puts her hope in her former slavery! She is heading home, on the outer border of the Promise Land and her native homeland.

BUT GOD INTERVENES and ministers to her. Our God is a God who is committed to his covenant of Redemption but he is also a God who cares deeply for all people in the world as well!

Again, his question “where have you come from and where are you going?” is not a geographic question. It’s an engagement with her heart.

He makes promises with her and her son but he also instructs her to not run away but to go back.

IMPORTANT!!!! - This is not a theological ground to encourage people to stay in abusive situations. Every situation is different and it take wise and prudent spiritual leadership to address each situation. I have seen people use this verse as justification that abused women should stay with an abusive husband. First of all, it is dangerous when we lift ideas like that from narratives. It’s dangerous when we take “descriptions” from the Bible and shape them into prescriptions. This is not a command to all of God’s people. This is a command to a specific person in a specific context.

What’s really important in this text is “where she is running off to.”

I briefly noted last week that Egypt represents for Moses in Genesis a desire to run back to our slavery in sin! This was what he was writing to in the wandering Israelites!

God promises extend to anyone who would receive him by faith. Perhaps, this is exactly what happens for Hagar. BUt we also know that Ismael would be a thorn in the side of Israel for many generations to come. Many modern day muslims claim Abrahamic lineage through the line of Ishmael.

APPLICATION

Be careful that in our zeal for mission and biblical faithfulness that we end up hurting people in the process.

I have met SOOOOO many people who are not in church today because of the misguided (not always intentional) impulses of church leaders and members. Many will never darken the door of a church again!

I have met pastors wives and children who saw their dad sell his heart to grow a church or pursue a mission only to love the heart of his wife and kids.

God loves the broken hearted, the abused and the sorrowful! No one is outside the scope of God’s electing love!

If you are here this morning and you are skeptical about this church. You may have good reasons for that…the church is filled with messy sinners and sometimes we hurt others. BUT the same God who loves us unconditionally is also there to nurse your broken heart. Perhaps, He will use your hurt to draw you to Jesus!

The Sure Ground of God Covenantal Promises ()

Explaining the Text

All of what we see transpire in is a result of not trusting in the sure Ground of God’s covenantal promises! ALL OF THEM! I noted it last week and I want to note again this week. God’s covenant with Abraham was one that HE ALONE establishes on the basis of his own righteousness.

The sting and mess from Abram’s decisions in are not match for his grace!

Now, This is 13 years later and Abram’s life, in spite of his efforts and personal manipulations to fast track God’s plans seem to be ho-humming along. He needs a reminder of what God said he would do!

Notice in how God engages Abram

God comes to Abram again and he says these words, “I am God almighty! Live in my presence and be blameless.”

Abram is hardly blameless and his actions do not show a deep faith in God’s promises as we have seen.

Blameless is not “sinless” - “It means to live in such a way “that every single step is made with reference to God and every day experiences him close at hand.” And like Noah, Abram is to be blameless. The Hebrew word translated “blameless” does not mean “sinless” but “whole”: “It signifies complete, unqualified surrender.”16 Abram is to be wholly devoted to God, his King. - Greidanus

It means to live in such a way “that every single step is made with reference to God and every day experiences him close at hand.” And like Noah, Abram is to be blameless. The Hebrew word translated “blameless” does not mean “sinless” but “whole”: “It signifies complete, unqualified surrender.”16 Abram is to be wholly devoted to God, his King.

Greidanus, S. (2007). Preaching Christ from Genesis: Foundations for Expository Sermons (p. 169). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Notice the “I’s and my’s” of - For God, the starting point to Abram’s blamelessness is not Abram…It’s Himself...

“Here is MY covenant with you

“I will make you the Father of a great nations”

“I will make you extremely fruitful” - Abram’s life doesn’t look very fruitful.

“I will confirm my covenant with you”

“I will give you the land...”

MY MY MY!

BUT THE ESSENCE OF THE COVENANT - “I will be your God and the God of your offspring.”

The offsprings, as we noted, is not the genetic offspring…after all Ishmael was of the genetic offspring. But the promised offsprings…promised seed. MEANING that God has 1 people! Not two…There is no unilateral everlasting covenant with the ethnic people of Israel as some have supposed but rather what we have already noted in - Seed of faith who are the seed of Promise. [Sorry to let down my dispensational friends out there…the Biblical evidence is clear!

APPLICATION

The pathway to Abram’s (and our) obedience isFIRST through the covenantal obedience of God…namely the obedience of the Son to do the Father’s will, established before the foundations of the earth, to be an atonement for a chosen people for God.

We need to expose a deep fear that exists in the human heart. IT’S THE FEAR OF GRACE - The mindset goes like this: If we focus too much on grace, then we leave the door open to a license to sin. We might take holiness for granted.

But the Bible takes an entirely different perspective - A person who have drunk deep from the well of grace finds himself loving God’s Law as David does in ! Longing to do good works as in , and readying ourselves for action as Peter commands in 1 Peter 1:13

Our usefulness in the redemptive plans of God start with a deep pondering of passages like

;

sits on the heels of Pauls grief over still living with body, mind and sometimes heart that still loves sin! Then he gives us these glorious words: “Therefore there is now NO condemnations for those who are in Christ Jesus....WHY?

Because we are sons…heirs of God and therefore we are longer obligated to the flesh as we once were.

We are princes and princesses like Kings and Queens in Narnia!

A true prince and princess doesn’t sit idly by but gets engaged in the work of the Kingdom! The Primacy of the Obedience & Good Works of God’s People ()

The Primacy of the Obedience & Good Works of God’s People ()

If we are to be free from our slavery, we must embrace our sonship. That is the only pathway to lasting joy in our long obedience in the same direction.

It this and this alone help us understand the role circumcision in God’s relationship with Abraham.

Explaining the Text

The Primacy of the Covenantal Faithfulness of God’s People.

EXPLANATION OF THE TEXT

Vs. 9-16 - God now turns to Abraham, his new inherited name now. He commands him to “Keep my covenant”. In other words, you must be a distinct and faithful people in the world. We have already made the case that it is God alone who bears the weight of his relationship with us so....

WHAT DOES IT MEANS THAT ABRAHAM IS CALLED TO KEEP THE COVENANT NOW? - Is God guilty of double speak? NO!

God is setting a people aside for himself. What was most important to God was NOT their good work (not yet at least, but Sinai is coming) but rather their devotion to Him as their God. Circumcision does not ESTABLISH the covenant…God has already done that. RATHER, it marks them as members of the covenant.

Likewise, this is why baptism matters. It sets us aside as God’s people who believed by faith.

APPLICATION

God’s people will be most faithful when we embrace a life of piety through the ordinary means of grace.

Seems to be this is most simply outlined in Matthew 28

Go -

Baptize

Teach -

In the same we tend to over complicate family and vocation as spheres for personal fulfilment…we make them about us

We do the same with the church. We turn the church into an over marketed FOOD COURT where we are able to choose what best fits us…our wants.

What music I like best

What buildings I like best

What programs…kids ministries or youth ministries or small group ministries we like best.

This does not mean that the church is ONLY to be about teaching and mission. We are to be engaged in renewal efforts…flourishing efforts…justice efforts, most of which will come through ordinary rhythms of the membership of the congregation.

CLOSING/FINISH LINE

We have made a number applications that I will leave with you to wrestle with and apply as the Spirit leads. But I would be remiss if I didn’t take at least a couple minutes to lift out hearts to the high plains of God’s mysterious grace.

After God commands Abraham to circumcise himself and every male in his household, he has this internal moment we see in v. 17 where he laughs and wonders why Ishmael might not suffice.

The question is similar to a question in our hearts about the mysterious electing love of God. Why Isaac and not Ishmael? Later, why Jacob and not Esau?

Is God fickle? Is he capricious in his sovereign activity? Why is Ishmael less than Isaac?

ANSWER: Only one results from the mysterious, super natural sovereign work in a 99 year old, dried up old man and a lifetime barren 90 year old woman. ONLY one demonstrates the magnitude of God’s power and glory.

GOD’S GRACE EXISTS ON TWO PLAINS

COMMON GRACE - He does indeed love, care and provide for Ishmael, as he does for the entire human race!

Berkof - “[Common grace] curbs the destructive power of sin, maintains in a measure the moral order of the universe, thus making an orderly life possible, distributes in varying degrees gifts and talents among men, promotes the development of science and art, and showers untold blessings upon the children of men.”

SOVEREIGN GRACE - Yet is is clear that God loves the Isaac and the all the promised see uniquely and specially.

Berkof - God in His sovereign grace has chosen to save those on whom He has set His love (). They are picked out of the stream of helpless men and women cascading into hell. This is a humbling truth and should result in immense gratitude on our part. Why did God bestow His sovereign grace on believers? Not because we deserve salvation but to demonstrate “the riches of His glory” (). Our only proper response is to proclaim, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” ().

CONCLUSION:

Today, as we finish and prepare for the Lord’s Table, let us be encouraged to embrace the unhurried life of God’s sovereign grace.