I always consider CTRC like my second home church. So this morning, if you would turn to Genesis chapter 16, and we'll be reading the whole chapter. Now, Creston told me that you guys were in Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 recently. So I'm just going to make the assumption that I don't have to explain too much of the context. But we're going to read this whole chapter, and we're going to see another episode in Abraham and Sarah's life. Now, in this chapter, they're called Abram and Sarai. But most of the time, we say Abraham and Sarah. So I'll just keep calling them that because I don't want to confuse myself. So let's read the whole chapter beginning in Genesis chapter 16 in verse 1. It says, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 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. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 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. 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. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 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. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. 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. 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. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of seeing. So she said, truly, here I have seen him who looks after me. Therefore, the well was called Bela Haroi. It lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram's son. And Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Amen. Amen. Now, it may come as no surprise to you, but Americans are very impatient people. We don't like to wait on anything. Now, I'm not American, but I've been here for so long, I kind of consider myself as an American now. But Americans are very impatient. When I was prepping for the sermon, I was looking up a couple of stats on just how impatient Americans are. Now, check this out. 96% of Americans will knowingly consume extremely hot food or drink that burns their mouths. Almost every single American is willing to burn their mouth because they can't wait for the food to cool down. 63% do so frequently. More than half of Americans hang up the phone after being on hold one minute or less. 71% of Americans frequently exceed the speed limit to get to their destination faster. Now, how many people broke the speed limit on their way to church this morning? Nearly a third of Americans, ages 18 to 24, wait less than one second before bypassing a slow walker. One more. Millennials, and I'm considered a millennial. I think the oldest millennials are in their 40s now. Millennials check their phones on average of eight times when waiting to hear back from someone they've dated. And for most people, it's probably more. Now, impatience isn't just an American problem. It's not something that only Americans struggle with. The biblical patriarchs themselves, the prophets, the apostles, these men that are supposed to be examples of the faith to us, they all struggled to wait, to be patient for the realization of the promises of God. Look at, for example, in Psalm chapter 13, Now, verse one, this is David, and David is saying, how long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Now, David's desires were right, but David is expressing some sort of impatience with the providence of God, right? See, waiting for God to bless your life, to experience the full joy, the full realization of the promises of God in your life is probably one of the biggest problems Christians struggle with. Now, this morning, our text, Genesis 16, shows us four things that I'm gonna discuss briefly. I can't talk about everything in the chapter, but I'm gonna talk about four things. Now, the first is that God assures you, God assures every single believer that you will receive his promises. Secondly, God's promises cannot be obtained through our works. You can't work enough to obtain God's promises. Thirdly, God's promises cannot be obtained through our wisdom. And then lastly, I'm gonna talk about how God's promises can only be obtained through dependence upon Christ alone. Now, let's start with the first, and that's that God assures you, every single one of you that is a Christian, God assures you that you will receive his promises. The life of a believer begins with the certainty of God's promises. It doesn't begin with doubt. It doesn't begin with frustration or ignorance of the word of God, but it begins with the belief in the truth in the word of God. In Genesis chapter 12, just to get a brief context of where Abraham was at and what he believed. In Genesis chapter 12, God first called Abraham and promised him that he would become a great nation. I'm gonna read that really briefly. Genesis chapter 12, verse one. Now the Lord said to Abraham, 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. And then in Genesis chapter 13, God sort of extends these promises a little bit. He expounds on these promises that he made to Abram in Genesis chapter 12. And he promises Abraham land and descendants. Genesis 13 and verse 14, for example, the Lord said to Abram, after Lot has separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are. northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. So Abraham had promises of a great name, of land, of children, He had promises of prosperity, of becoming great. And then in Genesis 15, now we're not gonna read Genesis 15, but we know in Genesis 15, the Lord, he confirmed all these promises to Abraham by an oath. And he told Abraham to cut up the animals. And then Abraham saw this vision where the flame and the smoking pot was going through the carcasses of the animals. And so God was confirming to Abraham that the same thing that was done to those animals would be done to God himself if he failed to fulfill his promises. So God confirmed the promises to Abraham by an oath. And then what does it say in Genesis 15 of verse six? And he believed the Lord. Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness. So Abraham didn't forsake his homeland. He didn't leave everyone, all his family behind without any assurances that God would bless him. Abraham left everything. He forsook everything because he was assured that God would bless him. Abraham had no reason to doubt or to live in fear that God wouldn't fulfill his promises. He received direct revelation from God, and that revelation was confirmed to him by visible signs. Abraham had assurance that he was old. He was childless. The promises in no way were dependent on the merits or the capabilities of Abraham. But the certainty of the promises were based on the very word of God himself. God's promises were sure because of his own character. So when Abraham heard these promises, And when his wife, because I'm sure she heard these promises too, you can't imagine how happy they were. You can't imagine how joyful they were to hear these promises. But now, look again in Genesis 16, verse one. It says, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. So there was a promise of children, of offspring, but Sarai had no children. And then again in verse three, so after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan. So Abraham was 10 years in the land of Canaan without any sort of evidence of the fulfillment of the promises of God. They were old and they were barren and there was no tangible expression or realization of the promises of God in their life for 10 years, 10 whole years. The beginning of verse two says, and Sarai said to Abram, behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Because Sarai understood that it is the Lord who blesses anyone with children. And it is the Lord who withholds children from women. Now, Abraham was a wealthy man. Abraham was struggling in the land of Canaan. He was extremely wealthy. But life in Canaan was not like what Abraham expected. It was not. See, Abraham had expected an immediate fulfillment of the promises of God. And that didn't happen. So Abraham was waiting. And he was waiting. And for 10 years, Abraham is waiting to experience the blessing of God. He's waiting. Now, brothers and sisters, this is the same thing that we experience in the Christian life. See, when you first receive the Word of God, when you receive it with true faith, you receive it with a degree of confidence. Now, your assurance isn't as bold and as robust as it can be, but you do receive the Word of God with some degree of confidence, right? You truly believe that if you repent of your sins and you trust in the atoning work of Jesus Christ, you are saved. You believe that. You believe that Christ died for you. You believe that you're a new creation in Christ. You believe that the Holy Spirit now indwells you, and it indwells you as a down payment of the full inheritance that you're gonna receive in glory. Ephesians chapter one of verse 14 says of the Holy Spirit that he is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. to the praise of his glory. And now you're free from sin. You're living as a Christian. You're assured of the promises of God to you. And now you're free from the bondage and the power of sin. And now you're going to start producing fruit, right? Everything's going to be joyful. You're going to have peace. You're going to be righteous. You're going to kill sin. You're going to mortify sin in your life. You're going to experience blessings. Your marriage is going to improve. You're going to start making more money. Your children are going to be obedient. They're going to listen to everything that you say. Your friends, your relationship with your friends is going to improve. Your personal life, your devotions, reading the Bible, praying, you're going to be on fire for the Lord. This is what we expect the Christian life to look like. But then reality hits you. It hits you. And you realize that God's providence is mysterious. Sometimes it's confusing. See, the providence of God is not like an equation. And you put in your inputs on this end and on the next end, you get the result of the equation. It's not easy to figure out what the Lord is going to do in your life. And so you're three years into being a Christian. You're five years, 10 years, some of you maybe 20 years into being a Christian. and you know the promises of God, and you believe in the promises of God, and you have the assurance of the word of God in your mind, but you don't experience the reality of the promises of God in your life. That's where every Christian finds themselves. So you're still struggling with the same sins. You're years into being a Christian, and you're struggling with the same sins. There's little spiritual fruit, little joy, little peace, little righteousness in your life. You believe what God says about marriage, what he says about your family, what God says about your home life, about church, but for whatever reason, you find your life to be chaotic at best. Prayer seems to be nothing. You pray, and you pray, and you pray, and it's like you don't get any answers for your prayers. Bible reading is dry, it's lifeless. Everybody starts their Bible reading plan for about two months until they hit Leviticus, right? And they're done after that. Bible reading is dry, it's lifeless. Now, there are two particular temptations in the lives of every believer waiting to experience the reality of God's promises. Two temptations. Number one, there's the temptation to take things to your own hands and to try to obtain the promises of God for yourself. And then secondly, there is the temptation to depend on your own wisdom and ignore the clarity of the word of God. These two temptations are common to every believer. And they are expressions of sin and doubt, unbelief in our lives. And this is exactly what Abraham and Sarah is doing in this text. Now let's look again, let's look for the first time actually, at how the promises of God cannot be obtained through our works. I'll read verse two again. And Sarai said to Abram, behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. Now, Sarah lived in a vastly different culture than we'll be living today. The ancient Near Eastern culture was extremely different. So in Sarah's time, to have lots of children was to be blessed. That was a sign of God's divine favor on you if you had children. And this is actually confirmed by the Bible itself. Psalm chapter 127 verse three says, behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. So to have lots of children, to have a fruitful household was a sign of divine favor. And then Sarah is thinking the opposite of it is true as well. The fact that she was barren was a sign of God's curse, of his dissatisfaction, his disfavor. Now, even though the patriarchs lived way longer than what we live today, Sarah was still a 76-year-old woman. This was an old woman, an old woman who was childless. And so Sarah knew that God had promised Abraham a seed. She was his only wife at the time. And she knew that God had promised Abraham children, that in his seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. So now Sarah's thought had to be that, I'm old, I can't have children. God has promised my husband children. Well, I need to figure out some way to make sure that my husband receives this blessing. I gotta figure out a way to do this, because I can't have children anymore. So now Sarah looks at Hagar, her slave. So Sarah wasn't being strange. She wasn't some old perverted lady who wanted to do something weird so her husband could have a good time. See, in that culture, it was common for a mistress to claim the child of her slave if she was barren. That was a common thing in that Middle Eastern culture. So Sarah probably thought, that the Lord said that in Abram's seed, that the nations of the earth would be blessed. But he never said that that seed had to come from Sarah. So she probably thought, I need to make sure that my husband receives this blessing. Now, Sarah's saying it, but it's somewhat understandable. There's something about what she did that's almost commendable, because she wants her husband to be blessed. She wants her husband to receive these promises. She's not being strange. although she's saint. And now we know Sarah's plan didn't work. We know the result of it. And we'll talk about the consequences of her and Abraham's actions in a moment. But I want to continue to examine the heart motivations of Sarah. See, Sarah was under the false impression that she could bring about the plan of God if she put in more effort. If she tried harder, she could bring about the plan of God. As Sarah's actions reveals a temptation of the human heart that is common to everyone, me and you. It is the temptation to think that the reason you are not experiencing the blessing of God in your life is because you're not trying hard enough. That is a temptation that is common to all of us, that the promises of God in your life and in my life is dependent upon my performance. See, like Sarah, you know what the Word of God says. You know what the Word of God calls you to do in the church, and in your home, and in your friendships with your children. You understand that. And you try to do it as faithfully as you can. And you patiently, you wait on the Lord to bless your life, to reward you for your faithfulness, but you don't see any difference in your life. Everything stays the same. And so you start to think that you must be a terrible Christian and that you're not putting in enough effort to earn God's blessing in your life. Now, here's my brief encouragement to you before we move on. It is that, and you know this, if you're a Christian, you know this. It is that God's promises to you are in no way dependent upon your effort. None of them. See, the gospel call is one of turning away from sin. You turn away from sin and you turn your face towards Jesus Christ. And what Jesus Christ is calling you to do is to trust him and to rest in him, to rest. Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, one of my favorite texts. Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Look how Jesus describes his yoke. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You see, church, Jesus is not calling you to a life of drudgery and toil in order to experience the promises of God in your life. Jesus is not calling you to anxiety and stress to experience his blessing. There was a time in my life, briefly, I mean recently, where I felt like my life was falling apart. Everything in my life was just going wrong, everything. And I had convinced myself that if I became a good enough Christian, if I prayed hard enough, if I read my Bible enough, if I fasted enough, I remember sometimes I would fast for up to a week, If I went to church enough, if I did all these things, if my performance was perfect, or at least near perfect, that I could somehow change the course of events in my life. I could somehow convince God to start blessing me. I could change things in my life. Now, I quickly came to realize that the gospel center of life, a life that is focused around the promise and the provision of God for undeserving sinners like you and me, that gospel center of life, you have to be convinced that there is nothing that you can do to merit the promises of God for your life. Nothing. You can never work enough. you could never perform good enough to ever merit one promise of God for your life. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, he says this, how many of our sleepless hours might be traced to our untrusting and disordered minds? They slumber sweetly whom faith rocks to sleep. No pillow so soft as a promise. no cover so warm as an assured interest in Christ. So brothers and sisters, when you try to obtain the promises of God by your works, when you try to do so, you not only reveal your unbelief, you not only reveal the pride in your heart, but that sort of thinking actually results in disaster for your life. And we're gonna get to those consequences soon. But thirdly, I want to talk about how the promises of God cannot be obtained through our wisdom. See, Abraham's response to Sarah shows how absurd it is. It's crazy. It's silly to think that we can't experience the blessing of God by trusting in our own wisdom. What was Abraham's response to his wife when Sarah came in? Look again at verse two. The last part of verse two says, and Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. He listened to her. Now, where have we seen this same pattern in Genesis? With Adam, right? Adam did the same thing. When Eve came to Adam and she offered him the fruit, it says that Adam listened to his wife. And now here is Abraham repeating the same mistake. The same sin that cursed all of humanity is sin and darkness and misery. Here is Abraham repeating the same mistake. He's doing the exact same thing. And Abraham was passive in this situation. But why? Why? When we read about the character of Abraham, Abraham was a punk. Abraham was no pushover. Remember when those pagan kings, they kidnapped Lot, and they carried Lot off? What did Abraham do? Well, he strapped up, and he get 300 of his trained men in his household. It says they were trained in his household, so he must have trained them. And he went after those men. He killed them, and he got Lot back. And then Abraham received a direct oath-based promise from God that he would be given a son. Abraham's faith in God's provision should have been way stronger than his wife, much stronger. So it doesn't make sense why Abraham was so passive. As the covenant head of his household, Abraham was responsible for ensuring the obedience of everyone under him. Everyone under his roof was accountable to Abraham. See, this should be, as a side note, this should be a reminder to us as men, as fathers, as husbands, that God has called you, not your wives, to protect and lead your families in obedience to Christ. He's called you. Now, of course, we do that in love and we do that in humility, but God has called the man to protect and lead their homes in submission to Christ. And so, men, this means becoming actively involved in the affairs of your home. You're the captain of the ship. The ship goes where you steer it. You have to be the leader. You have to be involved in all of the activities of your home, from the education to the finances, to the spiritual nourishment of your wife and of your children, the responsibility is on your shoulders. And guess what, brothers? This means oftentimes you have to be a leader who isn't willing to sacrifice obedience for short-term peace. You know, some men, all they want is peace. They just wanna come home and they want peace. And they're willing to sacrifice anything to get their family to leave them alone. But brothers, this is saying. One commentator on this text, I thought his comment was funny. He said, many brave men have valiantly stood before onrushing spears, but have faltered before the unhappiness of their lives. Some men would rather die than make their wives unhappy. Now, Abraham wasn't stupid. Abraham wasn't a stupid man. See, Abraham wanted to see the fulfillment of God's promises in his life just as much as Sarah. So Abraham consented to Sarah's plan because he trusted in his own wisdom. He thought it was probably a good idea. I want the promises in my life too. So what my wife is suggesting, it sounds good. It sounds good. Now you gotta ask yourself, this is Abraham who's receiving direct revelation from God. Why didn't Abraham just ask God what he wanted him to do? He could have just gone to God. God, is this something that I should do? Should I take Hagar as my wife and have a baby with Hagar? But the truth is, Abraham had already made up his mind, just like Adam. Abraham had already decided to ignore the revelation of God and decide for himself what was right and wrong. He had already made up his mind and committed to depend upon his own wisdom. And see, you commit, you and me, we commit the same sin as Abraham. Whenever we're confronted by a trial, by some sort of difficulty in our lives, and we turn to ourselves and to the world instead of the word of God. You see, brothers and sisters, before you seek the advice of Google or your mom or your best friend or Facebook or whatever other social media platform is out there, the Bible directs us by command and by example, by seeing the failures of our forefathers, that we ought to seek the word of God first, not to depend upon our own wisdom, Now, I mentioned before that we were gonna come back and see the consequences of Abraham and Sarah's actions. Let's talk about that briefly. Look at verses four and six again with me, Genesis 16. And he, this is Abram, he went into Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 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. 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 him. So now, Hagar was treated like an object, and given to Abraham, the marriage union between Abraham and Sarah was violated by introducing another woman into that union. And then Hagar's pregnancy resulted in chaos in Abraham's home. Hagar started to look down on her mistress. You calling me the slave, but I'm the one who just put the baby. God is favoring me and not you. So she's starting to look down on her mistress. Then Sarah blames Abraham for the plan that she came up with. Sarah is saying, may the wrong done to me be on you. But it was her plan. And then she decides to oppress Hagar so badly that she fled. She ran away. And then look how verse 12 describes Ishmael. Look how it describes the baby. It says, 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." In other words, the Ishmaelites, those who descend from Ishmael, those who descended from this union that should have never happened, these people became the thorn in the side of the people of God. They were wild people. They were a curse to the people of God. And so, brothers and sisters, the consequences of sin, the consequences of compromising on the word of God and trying to make your own way, trying to figure out your own way to achieve blessing and happiness in your life, the consequences of that are always devastating. Always. Brothers and sisters, how many Christians find themselves worse off because they became impatient with the providence of God, and they tried to come up with their own solution. How many Christians regret disobeying the word of God and being impatient? And you see, it's often those small compromises, those tiny sins that plant the seeds for some of the biggest disasters in the Christian life. Remember, Abraham's sin wasn't that big of a deal in this culture. In that culture, to take a slave woman and have a baby with her, and that baby be encountered as the child of your actual wife, that wasn't considered a sin. That was considered culturally acceptable. There are things that the world suggests to you that unbelievers think is not that big of a deal. It's not that big of a deal. compromising on who you talk to as a Christian or for anyone that's singular or who you date. It's okay to date an unbeliever. It's okay to flirt with that person at your job. God wants you to be happy. God wants you to have a good time, to have a joyful life. It's okay to compromise on what you watch. Why is it a big deal if you watch this movie with these kinds of activities in it? It's okay to listen to the bad music. It's okay to twerk a little bit and go to the club and have a good time and get a little bit drunk. God wants you to have fun. God wants you to let loose. But now as we see in our text, that pursuing God's peace, pursuing prosperity and divine blessings by the power of the flesh will never work. It'll never work. Now we've talked about how not to obtain the promises of God, not by your own works and not by wisdom, but how do you obtain God's promises? My last point. Brothers and sisters, fourthly, that the promises of God are obtained through dependence on Christ alone. You see in this last scene that this verse 7 through 16 in our text is that the narrative starts to focus on Hagar. Now verse 7 says that Hagar was on the way to Shur. Now, Shurah was a place near Egypt. So evidently, Hagar, the Egyptian, was on her way probably back to Egypt. She's going home. She's not dealing with Sarah anymore. She's going home. She was rejected by Abraham. She was abused by her mistress. Now she has a child that nobody even wants. So Hagar's going home. And then the angel of the Lord encounters her. The angel of the Lord finds her as she's wandering in the wilderness. Now, we don't know exactly who the angel of the Lord is, but the angel of the Lord appears several times in the Old Testament. He appears to Jacob and to Moses. He led the Israelites in the wilderness. The angel of the Lord is this mysterious character who appears very frequently in the Old Testament. Now we don't know exactly who it is, but notice in verse 13 that Hagar addresses the angel of the Lord as Yahweh. In verse 13, Hagar says, it says, so she called the name of the Lord. Now this is the angel. She called the name of the Lord. Now in your text, that Lord might be in capital letters. So this is the name of God himself who spoke to her. You are a God of sin. So the angel who spoke to her, Hagar called that angel Yahweh. She called that angel God. Now, since it is the ministry of the second person of the Trinity, it is the ministry of Jesus Christ to appear in human form and reveal the nature of God to us, I think Although I'm not dogmatic about this, I think this is a pre-incarnate. This is Christ, not so much being an actual human, but appearing as a human to Hagar. And if it is Christ, brothers and sisters, doesn't this text remind you of how Jesus approached the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4? Remember, in that instance, just like it is with Hagar, Jesus' intention is to approach a sinner, a sinner that is deemed worthless, a sinner that is low, she is lost, and his intention is to convict that sinner of their need for salvation. And Jesus' question to Hagar in Genesis 16 is essentially, what are you doing, Hagar? What are you doing? And notice in verse eight that Hagar says where she's coming from, but she never says where she's going. She never says where she's going. So Hagar is so lost and desperate, she probably doesn't even have a fully thought out plan. She has no idea where she's going. And then the Lord tells Hagar two things in the text. He says to return and to submit. to your mistress. And then he sweetens the part in verse 10. And he says, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. So in response to Hagar's obedience and submission, there will be a blessing. Now, what God was asking of Hagar was hard. He's asking Hagar to return to a potentially oppressive situation, to an abusive situation. But he wants Hagar to understand that if she depends on him, then regardless of the circumstances, regardless of whatever obstacles she faces, he will provide for her. Now brothers and sisters, many of you have problems and difficulties and situations in your life that make you want to run away, just like Hagar. You want to run away. See, sin convinces you that life would be easier if you just get away. You see this in church discipline all the time. I see it in my church. Whenever someone, they do something wrong, and the church disciplines them. They get corrected several times, and the church disciplines them. What do they always do? They run. They run. They don't want to talk to anyone. They're gone. They're gone. And they go back to their old way of life Sin always convinces us that the easiest thing to do is to run away from our problems, to run away from accountability, to run away from submission. But now, Jesus's call to you is the same as his call to Hagar. Two directions, because if you stay in the wilderness of sin, you will die. If you stay wandering around aimlessly, you're gonna die. And Jesus' call to you is number one, repent and obey. Repent and obey in whatever capacity God has called you in. That's what Jesus is calling you to. And then the second thing that he is calling you to do is to cast yourself upon Christ alone, who has obtained every single promise of God on your behalf. to repent and obey and to trust Him, to trust Him. And trusting Him doesn't mean life is going to get easier. God is probably, He's calling you to trust Him in the midst of a situation that is hard. You don't understand how God is going to work it out. But such is the nature of the Christian life that you have no power, no wisdom in and of yourself. And you are called to cast yourself upon Jesus Christ alone for the realization of divine blessing in your life. Now notice the characterization of God in the text. Verse 11 says, God listens to affliction. He is a God of seeing. He is a God who looks after me. Because a lot of time when we're in the midst of trials, it's easy to think that God doesn't care. He's not listening to me. He doesn't see what I'm going through. He's not looking after me. He doesn't have my best interests at heart. In fact, maybe he hates me. Maybe this is punishment. But when you are confronted by the grace of God, you are gonna worship God the same way that Hagar is worshiping God in this text. The Virgin again says that, though Abram should not encourage her, and Sarai should not acknowledge her, yet the Lord's eyes would be upon Hagar, and God's favor was preparing great things for her. See, every person who is a true born-again believer If you are a true Christian, you too have been confronted by the grace of God. You were at one time lost in the wilderness of sin. Now God found you. He initiated contact with you. You didn't find God. He found you and he approached you and he opened up your eyes to see your need for Christ. He opened up your eyes to see your need for the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now that you're a Christian, you're confronted by the perplexities of life. There are all these things, these difficulties, and these trials going on in your life, and you're wondering where God is in your life. But now the text is telling us that God hears all of your prayers. Every single prayer that you make to God, in tears and pain, God hears it. God sees all of your afflictions as a Christian. and God is looking after you, despite however you feel, God is looking after you even now. But the word commands us, brothers and sisters, the instruction, the imperative to us today, is that in order to experience the power of God, in order to experience the blessing of God in your life, you must submit yourself completely to him and cast yourself in utter dependence upon Jesus Christ. I wrap up with this, brothers and sisters. We see that Abraham and Sarah depended upon their own works and wisdom in order to experience the blessing of God. Now, this is the temptation of every Christian to take the affairs of their life into their own hands and not to trust the Lord to accomplish his work. That's the temptation of everyone. But God's call to us is to resist this temptation, repent of our unbelief, and trust in Jesus Christ alone. For as 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, excuse me, chapter 1 verse 20 says, all the promises of God find their yes in him. I'll end with this. This is one commentator on this text. He said, Christian, Are you contemplating a quick way to obtain what you imagine to be God's will in your most treasured relationship, in a friendship, in a professional pursuit, in your career, in your education, in your ministry? If so, take a deep breath, stand back, take some time, read God's word, think, pray, and obey the revealed will of God. Let's break them.