Let your church draw you to Jesus, not to itself. That's what the Roman Catholics did for the last several hundred years. They taught everybody to do a church. No, I want to tie my family to Jesus. And when they're in the NICU, they know that God is still faithful. When they go to the mortuary, they know that God is still faithful. I've watched them follow little caskets. I've watched them follow teenagers' caskets. I've watched them sit there and the songs be sung, does Jesus care? And grieving widows, broken-hearted moms and dads tell you, oh yes, He cares, I know He cares. Why? They were tied to Jesus. You don't need to go to this world's counselors and philosophers because they're as mixed up as you are. Can somebody help me? Okay? Every member of this church who in their life has gone that route somewhere down the road, every member without fail has sat down with me and said, Preacher, they were in worse shape than I was, and all I learned in that session was more ways to be evil. So the wisdom of this world is not wisdom at all, and it will destroy you. So let the Lord help you here this morning. I'm saying all this to say, Hagar is a very complicated character. And if you are a sincere Bible student, and you read many authors, and you compare Scripture with Scripture, and all of this, Everything that I'm going to say about Hagar is not going to completely resonate with you, but let me just say something. There are some very real truths we can get out of this lady's life. Look in verse 9b. I want to look first at Hagar's faith. I want to look at Hagar's faith. Again, don't hold me to this. And if you disagree or if you've read differently and studied differently and come up to a different conclusion, don't write off the entire message. But I read after one author who said, it was a Jewish author who looked at the Bible through Jewish eyes. And when you're looking at the story of Abraham, that would be a smart thing to do. And he said there is a very real possibility that Hagar was in the court. One author even said, the daughter of Pharaoh. And that when Abram and his caravan went down into Egypt and God miraculously delivered Abram and his family, when he lied about his wife, they said Hagar, this is what a Jewish writer said, Hagar saw the testimony and said, their God is not like our God. I know what they do to foreign women in this culture, and nothing but the hand of their one true God could have spared his wife from what she had coming. And they say that she avowed God to be her God at that point in time. I have no idea if that's true. It may just be Jewish legend, but let me tell you something, it sure gave me something to think about. So here's what I want you to see in 9b. Go to thy mistress and submit thyself. Your journey of faith is going to start with one thing. Submission. You say, Brother Raines, I joined the church. I didn't ask you if you joined the church. I turned over a new leaf. I didn't ask you if you turned over a new leaf. Your faith walk is going to start with submission to an almighty God. Alec, come here. Preacher Raines, come here. Stand right there. Stand right there. Please, sir. How old were you when you got saved? Twenty-five. Already rode hard and put up wet. Wicked life. Hated the life, listen to me, hated the life he had been raised in and said, I'll never do that. And at 25 found himself on that very road. You are powerless against the sin nature. No AA, no NA. No program this world has. No filial love in your heart for your precious, dear, old, sainted mom. None of that is enough. Thank God for the prayers of a mother. But none of that in and of itself is enough to straighten your life out and to change the mess that you were born with. So at 25, he hated everything he had been raised in, and that despite his own best intentions and well-laid plans was going down that same road, his mom and daddy, both sets of grandparents were praying for him before he was ever born. You follow me? But they've both got a journey. And both of those journeys started with one thing, submission to an Almighty God. Alec came to me early last year. He'd been talking to me and his mom and dad for two years. And he came to me one Sunday. His lip was quivering. He said, Preacher, if I add one thing to what you said, you raise your hand and say that won't be disrespect. I want to get it right, okay? He said, Preacher, I feel like I'm at a fork in the road. Seven years old. He said, this is God's way. This is the devil's way. And there's a voice inside my heart. I hear God calling me to come His way. And I hear the devil saying, no, don't go God's way, come my way. Did I get it right? I said, which way you want to go? He said, I want to live for Jesus. He said, I want to be saved. I want to know God. I want to live for God. I want to do what the Bible teaches. I called his daddy over there. I said, tell your daddy what you just told me. He told his daddy. Me and his daddy standing there like this. You say, Brother Raines, why'd you do that? You should have led him in a prayer. Salvation's not hard, but it is serious. And we called his mom over there. We said, tell your mom what you just told us. He told her. We all three looked at each other. I said, I think he needs to talk to God now. I said, Alec, why don't you just tell God what you just told all three of us. Fell right there on that altar and started talking to God. You wouldn't believe. You can be seated, thank you. You can be seated, thank you. You wouldn't believe, Ms. Gloria, what he'll come up to me after church. I've never said a word, never said this one time. Matthew, he'll come up to me sometimes after church, and he'll say, Brother Raines, you was preaching on this today, and it reminded me of the story of Achan. in the Bible when he stole all those goods and all of his family was destroyed, he'll say, our sin affects other people than us, doesn't it? I say, yeah, it sure does. Thank you, preacher. I ought to be thanking him. You follow what I'm saying? What's that, Brother Bragg? That's the witness of the Spirit. So I want to ask you, Brother PJ, I want to ask everybody in here this morning, did your faith walk, did your journey, did your relationship with God start with a point of submission when you said, I am a sinner, you are the Savior, and without you I can do nothing? You might not have said those words, but is that what was in your heart? Was it? Our churches are filled with people that they've gone to Sunday school, they've gone to vacation Bible school, they've gone to teen camp, they've gone to some rally and got worked up, they've seen some kind of presentation and their emotions were stirred, but there was never a point of submission and recognition of my lost sinful condition and the acknowledgement that He is the only Savior and if He doesn't save me, I'm going to hell. Because I'm a sinner. I was born a sinner. In sin did my mother conceive me. It doesn't mean that the act of conception was sinful. It's not what he's saying. He's saying from the very moment there was life, when those cells came together and there was life, I was a sinner doomed and damned. I've got two of the sweetest granddaughters God ever gave a man. And both of them are liars. Adam's a new daddy. He said, Dad, they're born with personality. He said, they're born with a strong will. He said, we're trying to help her tend to her needs. He said, she'll take that, she's preemie now, she'll take that little scrawny hand and push us away. I said, what do you do? He said, I ain't doing nothing yet. He said, she's got me wrapped around her little finger. We're born with a self will. We're born stubborn. We're born selfish. We got to go be with her folks yesterday for a few hours and celebrate everything, birthdays, Mother's Day. We celebrated in advance, okay? And we're sitting with them and we're driving and we're talking about marriage and our marriage and our children. And I said, honey, here's the problem. I said, we're both selfish. I said, any problem we've ever had is because two selfish people came together and we think we're all that. We ain't all that. And we've got to lay that at the foot of the cross and acknowledge that we are dirt and we are dust and without Him we can do nothing. It was a point of surrender. Look at 11b where she said, The Lord hath heard my affliction in your walk of faith. in your journey with Christ, in your spiritual growth, you're just going to in simple faith submit to Him. You've seen His witness in others. You've heard the Word. You've been convicted of the Holy Spirit. And in childlike faith, you fall before Him. But there will come a time in your life when you will hear His voice. John says, My sheep know My voice. And if you're lost here this morning, I promise you, if you will submit to Him in childlike faith, it will not be long until the voice of God will speak to you. It is not weird. It is not mystical. It is not creepy. It is not scary. Anybody that you've heard say, the voice of God, and they start acting real goofy, just write them off. You'll be strange to this world. But let me tell you something, there's nothing strange, creepy, or weird about it. It is very, very real. And she heard His voice. And then look at 13b. Thou, God, seest me. If you'll bow to Him in childlike faith, you'll begin to hear His voice and you'll respond to His voice. Now let me tell you something, Brother Robert. If there's anything better than my wife's voice, it's my wife's presence. I love to hear a voice, but I hear a voice over a phone and her being very many thousands of miles away. What's better than a voice? The actual presence. And Hagar said, I hear Him. He hears me. We're communicating. And then she said in 13b, Thou God seest me. She said, You're not just listening to me. You see me. Here's what I want you to get out of that. Your walk of faith is going to be a journey step by step. Some of you are wanting to see some things, and you're not listening to Him. I'm going to stay there longer than I said I would. You're wanting Him to do great and mighty things in your life. You're wanting to see. That's a little more tangible. You're wanting to see something. No, He's wanting to teach you how to walk by faith, and then He's going to show you some things. Let that soak for a minute. Some of you are getting the cart before the horse. You're wanting this great, amazing, mighty, miraculous walk with God. Listen to me carefully. And you're not in His Word. You're not hearing His voice. You're not listening to Him. Take that baby step. Declan is not running the Hendersonville 5K this fall. Now, he'll learn to walk later this year. Did you know that? Oh, life gets fun then. He's learning to walk. He's not running a 5K. Nobody expects him to. Somebody's wanting to run 5Ks and Jesus is trying to teach you how to walk. Have you grown any in the last 75 years of walking with Jesus? Did you start out with baby steps? Amen. It's a journey. It's a process. Her faith. Go to chapter 21. I want you to look at her fear. We saw her faith. It was a journey. It was a process. It was step-by-step. Oh my, there's so much in there. I could preach there for a week. Hebrews. He said some of you need to do the first works. Any of you baseball players? Let me see a hand. Don't be ashamed. If you knock it out of the stands, And you get to home, and the first base ump raises his hand with all due respect to the head ump and says, miss first base. If it went out of the stadium, does that run count? You gotta touch the base. Y'all with me? Some of us are wanting to run home runs, we're skipping first base. You better walk with God. You better get in His Word. Amen? Look in Genesis 21. Look at 14. Abram rose early in the morning, took bread, a bottle of water, gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, the child, and sent her away. He's in his teens now. The wording is such that we don't quite get that, but he's well into his teens. Isaac was born 14 years after he was born, and now he's already been weaned. And they nursed them for several years. So Ishmael could have been 16, 17, 18 at this point, okay? I just wanted you to get that. Look at the middle of verse 14. The child sent her away. She departed wandering the wilderness of Beersheba. The water was spent in the bottle. She cast the child under one of the shrubs. She went and sat down over against him a good way off, as it were, a bow shot. Let me not see the death of the child. She sat over against him and lifted up her voice and wept. God heard the voice of, what's the word? Who's crying? Mama. Whose voice did he hear? The lad. The angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, said, what aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not. God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, hold him in thy hand. I will make of him a great nation. Listen to me. I'm preaching to the parents for a minute. What was her fear? She feared losing her son. And despite her very best efforts and all of her intentions and all of her work in His behalf, there came a point where he had to call on God Himself. Your goal is not to raise them to need you for the next 40 years. Y'all with me? That's not your goal. Spiritually, that's not our goal. Our goal is to raise them to be able to walk with God, to be able to hear His voice, to be able to go to the Word, Seth, and get something out of it, and give it to others. That's why you boys bless me when you get up there. Justin read about the holiness of God. three weeks ago, and that whole service all day long was about the holiness of God. Somebody probably thought, well, he didn't say a whole lot that day. He mostly read some scriptures, and he never popped the pulpit one time. Nobody had a word from God. God uses all kinds of different personalities. What I want our young people, what I want my children, what I want your children doing is learning to listen to His voice despite Hagar's best efforts, all of her strength, all of her best laid plans were, what did the Bible say? Spent. Empty. Gone. Nothing. She set him under a bush. She went over here, put some distance there. She said, it's too painful to watch. I don't want to watch my child die here in this desert heat and sand. And she's crying out to God, and God speaks to her and says, I've heard the voice of the lad. Parents, listen. while she was praying and she was crying. Do you know what? I know Ishmael is the father of the people who hate God's people, but let me tell you something. You've got to see what's going on in this passage. Ishmael cried out to God. Do you ever desire to be Ishmael as a sermon illustration? Was that your lifelong goal? No. He said, I've heard the voice of the lad. I pray for my children. I pray for my granddaughters. But let me tell you something, I want them calling on God themselves. And her fear, her greatest fear, it came to pass. This child that I longed for and that God gave me, and I know I didn't respond properly when I found out. I was expecting, guess what? I haven't always responded properly. She said, but God is taking this child. And then God sends that angel again and says, I've heard the voice of the lad. Go to Galatians 4. Parents, listen to me. While you're turning, listen to me. You better time to Jesus. Aaron, thank you for telling Morgan to come up to me and say, good preaching. That's respect. And everybody my age and older was taught tremendous respect for the things of God. Are you all with me? That's good. Nothing wrong with that. It doesn't puff me up. It humbles me. I don't know if he's listening. I'm glad he says good preaching. but I want him tying him to Jesus, not the preacher. You tie him to a preacher, and the preacher has to get up in front of the church one day and say, this is the hardest thing I've ever done, but I let my guard down. Y'all with me? This thing's serious for me. It's so serious. Your life is a vapor. We were driving over the mountain yesterday coming home and my wife says, she said, I see my parents going downhill. I hate to think about our children watching us go downhill. Life's a vapor. Life is a vapor. And I want you tying your children, don't tie them to a church. That church may break their heart. Tell them to love church. Get them here every time the doors are open. Come to cleanings. Come to workings. Go to teen camp. Do all of that. But let your church draw you to Jesus, not to itself. Are you all with me? That's what the Roman Catholics did for the last several hundred years. They taught everybody to do a church. No, I want to tie my family to Jesus. And when they're in the NICU, they know that God is still faithful. When they go to the mortuary, they know that God is still faithful. I've watched them follow little caskets. I've watched them follow teenagers' caskets. I've watched them sit there and the songs be sung, Does Jesus Care?, and Grieving Widows. brokenhearted moms and dads say, oh yes, He cares. I know He cares. Why? They were tied to Jesus. Look in Galatians 4. Look at verse 22. It is written, Abraham had two sons, one by a bondmaid, that was Hagar, the other by a free woman, that was Sarai, Sarah. He that was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh. He was the free woman, was of promise. which things are an allegory, a picture, a type, a lesson for us to learn from. These are the two covenants. We have an old covenant and a new covenant. The one from Mount Sinai. What did Moses get on Mount Sinai? Tell me. The law. The Ten Commandments. The law. which gendereth bondage, which is to Agar." That's Hagar. This Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is... Listen to me carefully. If you don't, you'll misunderstand me. Number one, her faith. Number two, her fear. Number three, her failure. And there's lots of good things in here about Hagar. She was incomplete. She's a picture of the law. And I want you to look to the book you're in. Go to chapter 2. And by failure, I mean incomplete. Look at chapter 2. Please get this. Look at verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, Hagar represents the law. Hagar represents Sinai. Hagar represents the first covenant. Verse 16 of chapter 2 in Galatians tells me, a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Christ. Let your mind go back to Genesis chapter 16. The Bible said you're going to have a son and he will be a wild man, praying yourself to be the best businessman, soldier, philanthropist, nurse, law enforcement, firefighter, school teacher, Train yourself to be the best of anything, whatever you set your mind on. Let me say something. That's the works of the flesh. That's Cain in Genesis offering to God the works of his hands. And by the works of the flesh shall no man be justified. I can't work enough to get Him to love me. I can't be good enough to get Him to accept me. Because the Bible says, even the good I do is done with a selfish motive, and therefore it's sin. The plowing of the wicked is sin. You ever said this, I can't do nothing right? It's not good English, but I think we all know what it reflects. You ever said that? Truer words were never spoken. We can't. Who did a devotion recently on, without me you can do nothing. He must increase, we must decrease. Here was Hagar's failure. Despite her best efforts, despite the fact that she tried to teach him, she made sure that he had good role models in his life, at the end of the day she raised a wild man. And every one of us are wild at heart. Every one of us are a rebel against the Holy God. Even if we do 99 things that he says to do on one of them, we're going to try to twist it so we can put our signature on it. Look at the youngest child in here and give them a job to do. And at the end of the day, they're going to put their little flavor to it. and you know which ones of you enjoyed it more than the others. Some of us snuck a word, some of us sneaked and did it, and some of you were open. Did you see that? I did most of what you told me to do, but I did this last one my way. Somebody help me. She raised a wild man. And I want to ask everybody here, I'm not talking about child raising anymore. I'm talking to each of us individually. Are you a wild man? Are you doing it your way? Are you submitted to God and doing it His way? Have you been born again? Have you been washed in the blood? Are you a new creature in Christ Jesus? Does the Word speak to you? I've got to ask you, is that profession, that testimony you're holding on to, did it change you? Or was it just one more of many religious encounters you've had, and all of them have come up zero? Our churches are filling up with people. They've got religious experiences that they could write in a book, and their heart and their lives have never been changed. They've not been made a new creature in Christ Jesus. They don't long for God. They don't hunger for the things of God. They've got religion, but they don't have a relationship. Hagar did a lot of things right as a mother. but she couldn't change Ishmael's heart. Is your heart changed here today? If God's dealt with you, when we stand, if you'd come, we'd take a Bible and point you to Jesus. Amen.