Grace that is Greater Than our Sin

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Abram’s Anxiety and God’s Covenant Promises

Lord, he remains anxious. You see his anxiety in Genesis chapter 15. After his signal victory over the four kings, the Lord comes to Abram in a vision and says, Fear not, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.

But Abram says in reply, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Behold, you have given me no offspring. To which the Lord replies in verses four and five, Eliezer shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir. And he promises him that his offspring shall be as numerous as the stars in heaven. It is after these words that the scripture accords in Genesis 15 .6, and Abram believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

A full meaning of those words were preached last Sunday from this pulpit. In short, they signify that Abram was forgiven all his sins and fully accepted by God, not by his works, but by believing on him who justifies the ungodly.

And the oath and the covenant that God enters into with Abram right after this, gives Abram a greater assurance that God and God alone will work to fulfill all these promises. And before the day comes to a close at the end of chapter 15, the Lord again promises Abram what has now been said numerous times to him since he left Ur, to your offspring I will give this land.

Now by this time much light has flooded in on Abram. He has believed unconditional promises from God. Promises of blessing, of a promised seed of blessing, of an inheritance. And under oath the great God has covenanted that God alone will do all this for Abram.

What then is there left for Abram to do but through faith and patience inherit the promises, as we are commanded in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 12. If you know the full history of this man, you will know by the grace of God, Abram did through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Sarai and Abram’s Sinful Attempt to Fulfill God’s Promise

But this is not all that he did. He fell again into sin. And if the Genesis chapter 15 account sets before us the brilliant glory of God's covenant faithfulness to man, the first six verses of chapter 16 bring us under the dark clouds of man's sinfulness towards God.

Let us read the first six verses of chapter 16. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had born him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, And 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. So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave 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. Verse 3 says that Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan. But it is written in Genesis chapter 11, verse 30, that before he left Ur, Sarai was barren.

So for more than ten years, Abram, his wife, has not been able to conceive. The great promises of God to Abram all ran through a promised seed. And yet his wife had borne no children. This is exactly what Abram had complained to the Lord about in Genesis chapter 15.

And we have seen how the Lord graciously condescended to his weakness and reaffirmed that your very own son shall be your heir. Yet Sarai is barren still. And now she begins to consider that the promises of God may be advanced if she gives Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to Abram as a wife.

And she says to Abram, Go in to my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So Sarai took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

Now some commentators claim that there was no wrongdoing here, either on Sarai's part or Abram's. They say this practice of a barren wife giving a female servant to her husband was practiced in the ancient Near East.

And Abram and Sarai did nothing sinful here. But our appeal must always be to the Word of God. What do the Scriptures say? Nowhere in the Old or New Testament is such a practice approved of God. What is approved in the Scriptures is found in Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 through 6, where our Lord says, This was no innocent or neutral act.

This was sin. Yes, Sarai was getting old. But still her and Abram had every reason to believe that the Almighty God would fulfill His promise through their marriage union. For from creation, God Himself has established and blessed that one man, one woman union.

But just as Eve sinned by taking the forbidden fruit and giving it to Adam, Sarai sinned by taking her Egyptian servant and giving her to Abram. And just as Adam sinned by passively obeying the voice of his wife Eve, so Abram sinned by passively obeying the voice of his wife Sarai.

We have here, therefore, the record of a fall, about 2 ,000 years after the first great rebellion in the garden. And further, that this unnatural act by Sarai and Abram was a sinful one is proven by all that follows.

When Hagar conceives, she looks with contempt on her mistress. The servant would now elevate herself above her mistress. Hagar now feels entitled to be the primary wife and break free from the yoke of servitude.

So she despises Sarai. And in response to Hagar's contempt of her, Sarai wrongly blames her husband for everything. She cries out for the Lord to judge between Abram and herself, seemingly blind to the fact that she was the one who pushed Hagar into his arms in the first place.

And as for Abram, he continues to govern his house in a passive, detached way. In verse 6, Abram says to Sarai, Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Either he doesn't realize or doesn't care about the harm that Sarai's anger might inflict on Hagar and this child that's in the womb.

But Sarai is quick to take all the liberty that Abram provides her. And the full weight of her anger does fall on Hagar. The end of verse 6 says she deals harshly with her. And Hagar flees, which was probably the natural but not the lawful thing for her to do.

For in Ecclesiastes chapter 10, verse 4, it says, If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest. She should have stayed, but she fled.

And so, just like that, Abram, whose name means exalted father, has lost his son that resides in Hagar's womb. Where is he? Somewhere in the wilderness. Long gone. And his family is filled with confusion, misunderstanding, bitterness, hatred, and strife.

And the effects of all this sin no doubt lay heavily on all of them. Christian, this sad record is illustrative of what sin can do and what it does do in your life. You have believed the promises of God towards you, which all find their yes in Christ Jesus.

Yet sin first arises when you fail to cling to the unconditional promises of God and instead go about trying to make them conditional ones, conditional on your own schemes, inventions, or self-wisdom.

But God will not give His own glory to you. Will the clay shape the potter? All your sinful, carnal scheming to advance the promises of God on your own terms are not His. They only result in misery. And the school of painful experience bears witness to that.

God’s Mercy Toward Hagar in the Wilderness

And this is what the passage before us teaches. I now move on to the response of God in the midst of this sinful mess. He does respond. And He responds with mercy. First, concerning Hagar. In verse 7, the angel of the Lord finds her in the wilderness.

The angel says in verse 8, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from? And where are you going? Hagar answers, I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai. But she doesn't answer where she's going. Maybe she's too ashamed to acknowledge she's going back to Egypt.

Maybe she has no clue where she's going. In any case, the angel says in verse 9,. Then return to your mistress, submit to her. Do not go back to Egypt. Do not stay in this wilderness. Go back to Sarai and serve her.

But the angel has more to say to Hagar. In verse 10, we read, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. Verse 11, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, meaning God hears.

Because the Lord has listened to your affliction. Verse 12, he shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. He shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. Now see here, first of all, that Hagar must go back, not to be elevated above Sarai, or even to be equal to Sarai, but to diligently submit to Sarai.

And the promise in verse 10 that Hagar's offspring will be multiplied does not include the promise that in her offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Rather, the promise given concerning Ishmael in verse 12 indicates that her seed will stand apart from and even be opposed to the seed that God has promised to Abram.

And in Genesis chapter 17 and 21 and Galatians chapter 4, such a separation and opposition is confirmed. For Abram will in due time have another son through his barren wife, Sarai. He will be called Isaac, and God will establish his covenant of promise with him, not with Ishmael.

And so Abram will have two sons, one a child of the promise and one a child merely of the flesh. So Hagar's return to Abram and Sarai should not be taken to somehow signify her inclusion into the covenant of promise that God had made with Abram.

Neither should it be taken to signify her soul's eternal salvation and deliverance. And yet, it is plain to see in this passage that God did mercifully grant Hagar and her child a physical, temporal deliverance.

First of all, the angel of the Lord finds her in the wilderness with no certain prospect of coming out alive. And he promises that she shall bear a son, Ishmael, God hears. Why? Verse 11 tells us the Lord has heard Hagar's affliction.

Secondly, Hagar is commanded to leave the wilderness to return to the house of Abram, the man in whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Yes, she must submit to Sarai in that house. But if truly submissive, there is much reason to believe that such an attitude would greatly soften Sarai's heart towards her.

And thirdly, there is the matter of who found her in the wilderness, who spoke to her there. Four times we are told it was the angel of the Lord. Not an angel, but the angel. Forty-eight times this wonderful person is mentioned in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, however, it is only an angel or angels that are mentioned, never the angel of the Lord. Who was this singular angel then? The scriptures tell us in verse 13, So Hagar called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing, or You are a God who sees me.

And filled with wonder, she exclaims, Truly here I have seen Him who sees me. So the place of meeting ended up being called in verse 14, meaning the well of the living One who sees me. So this angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord who finds her, who hears her affliction, who sees her, is the Lord, the living One.

And Hagar saw Him. Now we know from John 1, verse 18, that no one has ever seen God. And yet the only God who is at the Father's side, the Son of God, He has made Him known. We are therefore led to consider this appearance of the angel to be an appearance of the divine Son of God before He took our human nature upon Himself.

And do not wonder how that could be, for it was Jesus Himself who in the days of His flesh said, Before Abraham was, I am. And it was by Him that all things were created. Even before He took upon Himself our human nature, He was truly, really, and completely a divine person from all eternity.

Now again, does this mean that Hagar was a partaker of God's eternal salvation through Christ? The scriptures do not clearly say one way or another. And I don't think it's very important for us to know the answer either.

It is enough for us to see here the Lord of glory, the God of mercy, finding and hearing and seeing this afflicted, pregnant, Egyptian slave woman in the desert and granting to her a real deliverance from her temporal and her physical misery.

God Restores Abram’s Household Despite Their Sin

But what of Abram and Sarai? Concerning God's response to them, not as much is said in this passage. And yet enough is said to indicate that the Lord is beginning to dispel the dark clouds that have been hanging over them.

For this firstborn child of Abram ends up coming home. And Abram learns from Hagar that the child in her womb will be his son. And he ends up calling the boy the name that the angel had made known to Hagar, Ishmael, God hears.

And at this point, for all Abram and Sarai know, the promises of God could run through Ishmael still. It's not until later on that God reveals yet more of his purposes through Isaac, who is still to come.

Now as for Sarai, her servant Hagar has come back to her to submit to her. And that Hagar truly was submissive after coming back is apparent from the fact that she remains in this family for another 13 years.

She would not have been allowed to stay longer than a day unless she had greatly changed her attitude towards Sarai. So then in looking at chapter 16 as a whole, and the sinful misery that had fallen on all parties, consider the great mercy of God in what he has done here.

He has restored what sin has destroyed. With Hagar's coming back and the birth of Ishmael, the warm rays of God's mercy and goodness begin to shine again on Abram and his household despite their sin. Now the question that remains to be answered here is why?

Christ as the Foundation of God’s Mercy

Why this mercy shown to the couple who are found sinning against God? Why such mercy shown to sinful Hagar in the wilderness? It will not do to merely answer that God is the God of mercy. Praise his name, that is true.

But still this does not explain how it is that God can show mercy. For he is also the God of justice, and he must punish all sin wherever he finds it. The answer as to how and why God shows mercy to sinners, to both Old and New Testament sinners, is found in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 11.

Go there with me. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 11. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is according to the eternal purpose that God has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now 4 ,000 years before Christ came into this world in the flesh, God promised that he as the seed of the woman would crush Satan's head. And listen to me closely now. 2 ,000 years after Adam, God gives promises to Abram that can be seen in a sort of outer shell containing physical, temporal blessings.

A large family tree, the physical land of Canaan. But within this outer shell is found an inner kernel, and in that kernel the same promises to Abram contain all eternal spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.

This is why it is written in Galatians chapter 3 verse 8 that God preached the gospel to Abram when he said, In you shall all the nations be blessed. This is why the Virgin Mary in Luke chapter 1, after learning that the Son of God had come to the world in the flesh, magnifies God for remembering his mercy that he promised to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

And Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, being filled with the Holy Spirit, understood the coming of Jesus into the world in the same way. For Zechariah saw that Christ had come in order to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham.

The Apostle Paul is taken up with the same theme in Romans chapter 15, starting in verse 8. I tell you, he says, I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness. Why?

In order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. All I am saying here is summed up in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20. All the promises of God find their yes in him, in Jesus Christ.

4 ,000 years after Adam and 2 ,000 years after Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs, promises of blessing, mercy, salvation, the indwelling Holy Spirit, resurrection, life, and eternal inheritance and eternal glory.

Jesus Christ secured all these promises for his people by fulfilling the law of God and giving himself a sacrifice for their sins, an actual sacrifice for sins, even all the sins of all who believe on him for pardon and peace and acceptance with God.

And this is how and why God shows mercy to sinners like Abraham and Sarai and Hagar and you and me. Now by the help of God I'll shortly apply this. I speak to those of you who believe on the Son of God.

The Saving Mercy That Sin Cannot Defeat

We have seen from this portion of Scripture what our sins can do. They bring us into blame-shifting, self-exaltation, arrogance, anger, envy, rebellion and violence, contempt, strife within the family, unnatural family relations.

That is just a little portion of what our sins can do. But in the eternal covenant promises of God in and through Christ Jesus, understand that there is also something that our sins cannot do. They cannot prevent the saving purposes of God toward you in Christ Jesus.

They cannot withhold his saving mercies from you. They cannot bring you into condemnation for your sins, for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Do not misunderstand me. Your sins will bring the disciplinary rod of God upon you.

As Abram and Sarai no doubt experienced in this passage, as it is written in Psalm 99, God will avenge your wrongdoings. But he will do all of this out of love to you, Christian, that you might share in his holiness.

His loving-kindness he will never take away from you. The blood of Jesus Christ makes sure of that. Saving mercy is yours, Christian, purchased by the blood of the Savior. No matter how many your sins, no matter how shameful and filthy you feel, whether you committed them five years ago or five seconds ago or later tonight or tomorrow, repentance and saving mercy and grace is yours.

Christ is yours. Yes, your sins are great, and you have reason to say with the Apostle, O wretched man, that so great as your sins are, Christ is infinitely greater. He has borne all your sins in his own body on the tree.

His blood cleanses you from all unrighteousness. Go on then, repenting and believing on him all the day long, through the night watch, all the days of your life. Whoever believes on him shall never be put to shame.

The Call to Unbelievers: From Temporary Mercy to Eternal Salvation

Now to you who are still strangers to God and his Christ, you too have received much mercy at the hand of God. You have received rain from heaven and a warm sun on your back and good food in your stomach, and you currently enjoy a suspended season of God's righteous judgment.

The divine gavel of God has not yet fallen. Your eternal sentence has not yet been determined. Know that this is all mercy towards you, and it too has all been purchased by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For unless he had come to save lost sinners by giving himself for them, there would be no reason for the Holy God to suspend anyone's eternal punishment. So even now, unbeliever, you have Christ to thank for not being at this very moment in eternal torments.

But this mercy towards you is not saving mercy. Saving mercy is that which saves, eternally saves you from your sins. Consider Hagar's meeting with the Lord God in the wilderness again. Her story is one of a mere temporary deliverance, but it still provides an illustration of the true eternal salvation in Christ Jesus.

The Lord Christ has come to this earth to find hell-deserving sinners. He has come to seek and save that which was lost. Are you lost? Where have you come from? Where are you going? No doubt you have been sinned against by many in this world, and no doubt you have given as good as you have gotten.

And you have sinned against the living God. All have sinned and fall infinitely short of the glory of God. But here is the glory of the Gospel. The Lord delights to find and hear and see lost, miserable sinners.

Prayer for the Gospel to Lift Hearts to God

Believe on Jesus Christ, the sin-bearer, the one and only sacrifice for sins. Believe on Him, receive Him, and all saving mercy and all spiritual blessings in Him. Let's pray. I ask, Lord, this is the Gospel coming from the lisping, stammering tongue of a man, but, O Lord, I trust that the man would be forgotten and that hearts should be lifted up unto You.

We thank You for so great salvation. There is no other name under heaven given among man whereby we must be saved. And here he is, drawn near to us again in the Scriptures. O Lord, we praise You, we thank You.

Continue with us now, I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

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We pray that you have been thoroughly blessed by this recording. God bless you and take care.