Renewing Her Belief

 Renewing Her Belief

Women in Covenant Series

Jocelyn Pang. 20/4/2018

RENEWING HER BELIEF

Genesis 16:1-15

Refresher: God’s Promise to Abraham

Abram was in Haran when God called him to leave Ur of the Chaldeans for Canaan, the promised land, and made a covenant with him.

Gen 12:1-3  Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

What a promise! Not just a promise of fame and divine protection, but a physical and spiritual blessing that comes with an earthshaking responsibility and significance:

• he will be the father of a great nation
• his nation will be a blessing to all people of the earth (through his descendant, the Messiah)

 Abram was 75 years old when he received the promise. Eleven years later, there was no sign of the promise unfolding. He was 86. Sarai was 75.

See also Gen 13:16

The Study: Two Women, Two Faiths

1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 

3 So, after Abram chad lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 

5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. 

7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 

10 The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the LORD said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” 13 So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. 

15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

Observation

1. Why do you think Sarai did what she did?

Sarah had it all – stunning beauty (Gen 12:14-15) and power as wife of influential man. The thorn in her side is she couldn’t have children, a  reproach to her womanhood

• time is running out for; she was getting anxious, pressured and impatient - tribal chief’s wife with a huge responsibility to fulfill
• maybe disappointed in herself, felt she let husband down, let God down?
• perhaps God didn’t have her in his plan; maybe God thot she’s too old to have child
• needed to make it right,  do her part to help God – “God helps those who help themselves”?
• fear of losing her status, what if Abraham finds his own woman, she had to take control

2. What was Sarai’s perception of God? Where else do we see this?

• God was aloof, silent, even cruel to deprive her of such an important thing
• maybe God forgot to include her in His plan; after all, God did not mention her in His plan for Abram
• maybe God needs some help there
• what she didn’t do was to seek God when is doubt; instead she blamed God for her infertility (Gen 16:2)
• Gen 18:12 She laughed when God told her she was going to have a baby

3. What do we know about Hagar from the bible? Do you think she worshipped the God of Abram?

• Egyptian slave given by Pharoah to Abraham
• A nobody in a foreign land,  no say, no authority
• Bible didn’t say if she had any knowledge of God in her life, perhaps she did living in Abram’s household but likely no personal relationship with God

4. What was Hagar’s discovery about God?

• fortunes changed when she became pregnant with Abram’s child
• suddenly, new found role and importance
• got carried away by her new status, offended her mistress, or perhaps Sarai’s inadequacy led to sensitivity
• in her moment of abandonment and desperation, she discovered she was not alone
• her encounter with the angel made her realised she was being watched over by a “God of seeing” Gen 16:13, who call her by name and looked after her and had a plan for her.

5. God said to her: Return to your mistress and submit to her. Why do you think God told her that?

• go back to your unhappy circumstance even if you dread it
• in this season of your life, this is how I am going to provide for you
• in your difficult circumstance, you are going to learn to depend on me
• because I have a purpose for you too: God’s promise and reassurance for her (Gen 16:10)
• God: Hagar, Servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where you going? (Gen 16:8) – her answer showed she knew where she came from but not where she is going but the God of seeing knew!
• and she trusted and obeyed without question!

 6. God had made promises to both Sarai and Hagar about their offspring. How were their responses different?

Sarai

• not ignorant about God’s promise to Abram
• but  lacked trust in God’s plan and timing
• wanted to help God to keep His promise to Abram
• even blamed God
• thought it’s sensible plan to ensure Abram’s line
• did not believe God would keep his promise and she was part of the promise
• maybe not so much doubting what  God could do, more  if God would do it through her
• small view of God

Hagar

• life-changing encounter with God
• God’s question in Geb 16:8 “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going” gave her both purpose and promise for her future
• her response: total obedience and submission – she returned to humble herself and submit to Sarai, trusting in God’s promise

Self-reflection

1. What are some obstacles that stand in the way of your belief of God?

• lies we believe about God
• limited view of god
• fear of God’s will – what if it’s something I don’t want
• I am not good enough/guilty/doesn’t love me as much, God won’t do it for me

 2. What will you do to have this fresh encounter with God and to be anchored in His truth? 

• know God better through reading his word; seek fresh encounter with Him every day
• seek Him daily through prayer and communing with Him
• new encounters from old experiences, what He has done for us

Summary

1. Lies can warp our view of God and hold us back from experiencing an abundant life with him. Unbelief can be crippling,  causing us to feel helpless, anxious, even hopeless. Or it can cause us to be run ahead of God. Often our unbelief is due to certain lies we believe about God. Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s book Lies Women Believe lists some common lies we believe about God:

            God is not really good

            God doesn’t love me

            God is not really enough

            God is just like my father

            God should fix my problem

Lie Sarai believed in: God is not really good, she did not trust that God had a good plan for her too, not just Abram.

Lie that Hagar believed in: I am a nobody, God did not really love her. Her encounter told her God is a seeing God and “truly here I have seen him who looks after me”.

2. Renewing our belief in God requires a fresh encounter with God and believing who He really is. Both belief and faith requires us to be anchored in the truth about God so that we have a right perspective of who He is and what He is capable of.

Prayer

Pray for each other to renew our belief in God. Pray that lies that have been believed will be replace by God’s truth.