00:00:01:10 - 00:00:04:22
Genesis 16 one through 16.

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Now Sarai, Abraham's wife, had borne him
no children.

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She had a female Egyptian servant
whose name was Hagar.

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And Sarai said to Abraham.

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Behold, now the Lord has prevented me
from bearing children.

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Go in to my servant.

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It may be that
I shall obtain children by her.

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And Abraham, listen to the voice of Sarai.

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So after Abraham had lived
ten years in the land of Canaan,

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Sarai, Abraham's wife, took Hagar
the Egyptian, her servant,

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and gave her to Abraham,
her husband, as a wife.

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And he went into Hagar, and she conceived.

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And when she saw that she had conceived,
she looked with contempt on her mistress.

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And Sarai said to Abraham,
May the wrong done to me be on you.

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I gave my servant to your embrace.

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And when she saw that she had conceived,
she looked on me with contempt.

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May the Lord judge between you and me.

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But Abraham said to Sarai, behold,
your servant is in your power.

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Do to her as you please.

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Then, sir, I dealt harshly with her,
and she fled from her.

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The angel of the Lord found her
by a spring of water in the wilderness.

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The spring on the way to shore.

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And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai,
where have you come from?

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And where are you going?

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She said, I'm fleeing from my mistress.

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Sarai.

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The angel of the Lord said to her,
return to your mistress and submit to her.

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The angel of the Lord also said to her,
I will surely multiply

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your offspring, so that they cannot
be numbered for multitude.

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And the angel of the Lord said to her,
behold, you are pregnant,

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and shall bear a son.

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You shall call his name Ishmael, because
the Lord has listened to your affliction.

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He shall be a wild donkey of a man.

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His hand against everyone,
and everyone's hand against him.

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And he shall dwell over
against all his kinsmen.

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So she called the name of the Lord
who spoke to her.

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You are a God of seeing.

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For she said, truly here
I have seen him who looks after me.

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Therefore the well was called dear Leroy.

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It lies between Kadesh and Bharat,
and Hagar bore Abraham a son,

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and Abraham called the name of his son,
whom Hagar bore Ishmael.

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Abraham was 86 years old
when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abraham.

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Well, good morning and

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welcome to the weekly gathering of Christ
Community Chapel.

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My name is Zach.

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I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm
so glad you're with us.

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This father's Day weekend.

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I'm excited to continue our sermon series
for the summer.

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We're in week four of a ten week series
where we're looking

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at God, acting in human history
through the family of Abraham,

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making very big promises and keeping them.

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We're actually calling this series
Promises Made, Promises Kept,

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and our hope is over
the course of this summer that by studying

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these stories, we would develop confidence
and an affection for a God

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who is acting in human history
by making promises and keeping them.

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But I do think there's a danger

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the bigger God gets in these stories.

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The bigger
the promises get, the more incredible

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he is and the incredible things
he does in the lives of people.

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There's a danger that for some of us,
if we come in this weekend

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and our stories
are not in a great chapter,

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if we come in, a little cold,

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feeling guilty, ashamed, dirty, distant,

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then a big god like, the bigger he gets,
the more incredible the things he does.

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The smaller we feel.

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The more incredible
he is, the more distance

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we feel between him and us
so that we might say,

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well, God does make promises
and keep them to some people.

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I mean, the way we would say
some people have money

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or some people have good marriages,
healthy families, success.

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That doesn't mean that I do
or that you do.

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The danger is that we would feel like
God is doing incredible things

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in the lives of other people,
but because of our stories,

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our decisions,
that couldn't be true of us.

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So we want to do is kind of hit pause
a little bit and say, well,

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hold on a second.

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Is God still faithful to his promises?

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When we are unfaithful,

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what happens to

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God's promises
when we make a mess of things?

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Does he change? Do they?

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That's the question
we're exploring this weekend.

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We're going to do that
by looking at Genesis 16.

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So if you have a Bible

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and you want to follow along that way,
would you open it to Genesis 16?

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Perfectly okay.

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To take out your phone or your tablet.

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Get there however you can.

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And the verses I reference

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are going to be on the screen behind me,
so don't feel like you have to.

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But if you're here and you're new
and maybe you didn't bring a Bible,

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you're not super familiar
with your Bible with a Bible,

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but you would like to participate
in that way.

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There are Bibles in the pew
in front of you

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or in the back of the room in East Hall,
and those are available for you.

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I actually preach from one of those Bibles
so that I can tell you

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today's reading is on page ten and 11.

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And hey,
if you're new to thinking about God,

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this week was the perfect week
for you to come.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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I can't
wait for what God has to say to you.

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Thanks for being here.

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I am going to use Genesis 16,
of course, to answer the question,

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but I'm also going to weave
in one metaphor throughout the sermon.

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It's a jewelry store, a metaphor.

00:06:03:19 - 00:06:07:06
So my three points actually go like this
I want to talk about the velvet,

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the diamond

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and the proposal, the velvet,
the diamond and the proposal.

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All right, let's dive into point number
one, the velvet.

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I hope you noticed when this passage
was being read

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that it is a pretty ugly chapter.

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There are a lot of really dark things
going on.

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Like if I told you
that I had just consumed some content.

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And here's what it was about.

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It's about a couple struggling
with infertility and turning

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against each other.

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It's about an affair with an employee
that explodes.

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It's about two women
who are rivals and a weak

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man who can't love either one of them.

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It's about chaos and dysfunction.

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You might think I'm
describing a new series on HBO,

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but I'm not.

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That's Genesis 16 two.

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Two things
I want you to see from Genesis 16.

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The first is that it's full of people
hurting people.

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It's full of people hurting people.

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Like, for example,
Sarai comes to her husband

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Abraham, who I will probably, by the way,
refer to as Abraham and Sarah.

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Their names change in the next chapter.

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But, she comes to him and she says,
hey, look, I know God's made this promise

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that we two elderly people
who have struggled

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with infertility are going to have a baby,
but it's just not happening.

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So I have an idea.

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There's a local custom that says,
if you sleep with my slave girl

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and she gets pregnant, since we own her,
we also own her baby.

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So if we do it that way,
maybe she can give you a child

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and that can be our child.

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It's a monstrous thing to say to her
husband.

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It's a monstrous idea to put in his brain.

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It's similar to Eve going to Adam
and saying, here's some fruit,

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you should eat it.

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But of course, Abraham is hurting Sarah.

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I mean, I've been married
for almost 20 years,

00:08:04:33 - 00:08:07:53
and I know when Amy says to me,
how do I look in this dress?

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There's a certain
answer I'm expected to give.

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So when Sarah

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goes to Abraham and she says, hey,
what do you think?

00:08:17:12 - 00:08:19:39
Maybe
you ought to sleep with my slave girl.

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I know she means it,
but I think at least part of her is hoping

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he will say, absolutely not.

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I don't just want a child.

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I want a child with you, Sarah.

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Absolutely not. But he doesn't.

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And then Hagar, of course, the slave girl
who's owned by another human being,

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which, of course is monstrous,
has no say in any of this.

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Abraham and Sarah sin against her,
hurt her by making her do this

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so that they can take the child
if she gets pregnant.

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And then, of course, she's awful
because eventually

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she does get pregnant
and she throws that in Sarah's face.

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Look, you must be defective
because I can give him a child.

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And then Abraham sins against both of them
by being totally unable to lead

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either one of them. Here's the point.

00:09:12:23 - 00:09:16:09
First thing you see in
Genesis 16 is our world

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is full of people hurting people.

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What about you?

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Is your story like mine?

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Are there are some moments
you wish you could get back?

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Some things you wish you hadn't said,

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some things you wish you hadn't done.

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The second thing I want you to see from
Genesis 16, though, is not just that

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people hurt people,
but hurting people hurt people.

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Because one way of reading Genesis 16
is it's full of people hurting others.

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But the other thing is,
there are three main figures in this story

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and they are all themselves hurting.

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Abraham is an elderly man
who has yet to have a son,

00:10:02:45 - 00:10:05:07
and I have to be honest,
I hope you're okay with me saying this.

00:10:05:07 - 00:10:08:34
When I read the story of Abraham,
I often say to God, you know God.

00:10:08:34 - 00:10:12:51
Infertility is one of the hardest things
for any human being to walk through.

00:10:12:51 - 00:10:15:22
I have friends who have been through
that journey.

00:10:15:22 - 00:10:19:48
It's incredibly painful and I can't help
but feel like God in some ways.

00:10:19:48 - 00:10:23:55
You intense to fight Abraham's pain
because he had made his peace

00:10:23:55 - 00:10:25:23
with not having a son.

00:10:25:23 - 00:10:27:52
And then you come in
and you go, you're going to have one.

00:10:27:52 - 00:10:30:12
And every day wakes up going, is it today?

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Is it today? Is it today?

00:10:33:03 - 00:10:34:53
Abraham is hurting.

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Sarah is hurting.

00:10:36:26 - 00:10:38:52
In this culture,
if a couple couldn't get pregnant,

00:10:38:52 - 00:10:42:33
you blamed the woman,
which of course is horrific.

00:10:42:44 - 00:10:44:30
So, Abraham, you imagine the first day

00:10:44:30 - 00:10:46:13
Abraham comes home
and he goes, guess what?

00:10:46:13 - 00:10:48:15
Talk to God today

00:10:48:15 - 00:10:51:15
who has two thumbs
and is getting ready to have a baby.

00:10:54:00 - 00:10:57:00
And then every day,
Sarah can't make that happen.

00:10:57:17 - 00:11:00:34
And then Abraham sleeps with Hagar
and she gets pregnant.

00:11:00:34 - 00:11:05:25
Which means, at least in Sarah's
mind, biologically, she is the problem.

00:11:06:28 - 00:11:08:36
And then, of course, Hagar,

00:11:08:36 - 00:11:11:36
can you imagine
what it's like to be born a slave?

00:11:12:40 - 00:11:14:48
You don't have a future

00:11:14:48 - 00:11:16:38
you don't dream about one day.

00:11:16:38 - 00:11:17:53
There's no one day for you.

00:11:17:53 - 00:11:20:01
You're owned by another human being.

00:11:20:01 - 00:11:20:15
You see,

00:11:20:15 - 00:11:24:18
the Bible tells us that our world isn't
just full of people hurting people.

00:11:24:18 - 00:11:27:48
It's full of hurting
people. What about you?

00:11:30:52 - 00:11:32:54
Your story

00:11:32:54 - 00:11:35:58
full of times people have hurt you.

00:11:37:40 - 00:11:38:29
I want you to.

00:11:38:29 - 00:11:41:03
I want you to see something in the Bible.

00:11:41:03 - 00:11:44:12
We don't need Genesis 16

00:11:44:12 - 00:11:47:21
to tell the incredible story
about what God is doing in Abraham.

00:11:47:21 - 00:11:49:14
You have to understand that
we don't need it.

00:11:49:14 - 00:11:52:10
God can just come to an elderly couple
that is infertile

00:11:52:10 - 00:11:53:31
and say, you're going to have a kid.

00:11:53:31 - 00:11:56:31
Next verse they have a kid and we go, wow.

00:11:59:09 - 00:12:01:22
But the very next thing
after we say, wow, I would be

00:12:01:22 - 00:12:04:55
that would never happen in my story
and in my life.

00:12:05:11 - 00:12:08:09
You see, Genesis 16 is God telling you

00:12:08:09 - 00:12:11:09
he knows the world you live in.

00:12:11:36 - 00:12:13:43
He knows your story. He knows mine.

00:12:13:43 - 00:12:18:35
He knows the world is full
of hurting people who hurt people.

00:12:18:35 - 00:12:24:25
Genesis 16 is God saying
the Bible takes place in the real world

00:12:25:05 - 00:12:27:30
with real people who are hurting, with

00:12:27:30 - 00:12:30:39
real people who are hurting other people.

00:12:30:39 - 00:12:32:58
It takes place in your world

00:12:34:46 - 00:12:36:05
and in mine.

00:12:36:05 - 00:12:39:08
I told you I
was going to use a jewelry store metaphor.

00:12:39:08 - 00:12:42:03
You know, when you walk in a jewelry store
and you look at a case inside the case,

00:12:42:03 - 00:12:45:02
you'll find a lot of this
kind of black velvet,

00:12:46:27 - 00:12:48:42
totally unremarkable on its own, in fact,

00:12:48:42 - 00:12:51:42
not only unremarkable, little depressing.

00:12:52:00 - 00:12:52:46
It's black.

00:12:52:46 - 00:12:53:40
It's void.

00:12:53:40 - 00:12:54:47
It's pointless.

00:12:54:47 - 00:12:55:48
It's meaningless.

00:12:55:48 - 00:12:58:44
That is our world.

00:12:58:44 - 00:13:01:44
The Bible is telling us.

00:13:02:01 - 00:13:04:17
That if you came in this weekend,
you're feeling guilty.

00:13:04:17 - 00:13:06:03
You're feeling dirty.
You're feeling broken.

00:13:06:03 - 00:13:09:24
You're feeling frustrated
internally and externally.

00:13:09:24 - 00:13:13:24
If you came in this weekend having hurt
people, if you came in this weekend,

00:13:13:31 - 00:13:20:01
having been hurt by people,
this chapter of the Bible is for you.

00:13:21:40 - 00:13:26:04
God sees the velvet of your story

00:13:28:03 - 00:13:29:53
and he knows he can't

00:13:29:53 - 00:13:33:41
say one more thing about big promises

00:13:33:52 - 00:13:37:09
until he talks about that.

00:13:39:15 - 00:13:41:25
And that leads me to my second point,

00:13:41:25 - 00:13:44:25
which is to say not just the velvet,

00:13:44:44 - 00:13:46:45
but the diamond in my pocket.

00:13:46:45 - 00:13:50:06
Here I have a totally real
and totally expensive diamond.

00:13:53:59 - 00:13:56:58
You see, the whole reason
jewelry stores have the black velvet is

00:13:56:58 - 00:14:01:28
so that when you put a diamond on it, it
pops, right.

00:14:01:28 - 00:14:04:53
The velvet is intended
to make the diamond shine,

00:14:04:53 - 00:14:08:20
to make sure your attention is drawn
where it needs to be.

00:14:08:20 - 00:14:12:24
And friends, I want you to see that
the Bible tells a story that in a black

00:14:12:37 - 00:14:18:20
velvet world,
the diamond of God's promise sparkles.

00:14:19:02 - 00:14:22:09
And if you're paying attention in Genesis
16, you're saying, well,

00:14:22:09 - 00:14:23:12
what happens now? Right?

00:14:23:12 - 00:14:28:32
What happens to God's faithfulness
when we are unfaithful?

00:14:28:32 - 00:14:30:28
Which is why we have to look ahead

00:14:30:28 - 00:14:34:26
to Genesis 17, where Pastor Joe
will preach on this next week.

00:14:34:26 - 00:14:37:11
But, he can't stop me,
so I'm going to borrow from it.

00:14:38:34 - 00:14:41:07
If you have a Bible, look on page 11,
very next chapter,

00:14:41:07 - 00:14:44:52
Genesis 17, God's
going to have a conversation with Abraham.

00:14:44:52 - 00:14:48:20
And you have to know this happens
right after Genesis 16.

00:14:48:54 - 00:14:49:18
Okay.

00:14:49:18 - 00:14:53:49
Keep in mind the velvet of Genesis 16
is our background.

00:14:53:49 - 00:14:55:17
Here's how that conversation goes.

00:14:55:17 - 00:14:57:29
Pick it up in verse 15.

00:14:57:29 - 00:15:00:28
And God said to Abraham,

00:15:00:34 - 00:15:03:23
as for Sarah, your wife,
you shall not call her

00:15:03:23 - 00:15:06:23
name Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name.

00:15:07:08 - 00:15:11:27
I will bless her, and moreover,
I will give you a son by her.

00:15:12:03 - 00:15:15:38
I will bless her,
and she shall become nations,

00:15:15:58 - 00:15:19:03
kings of people shall come from her.

00:15:19:34 - 00:15:22:46
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed,
and said to himself,

00:15:22:52 - 00:15:26:38
shall a child
be born to a man who is 100 years old?

00:15:26:38 - 00:15:30:12
Shall Sarah,
who is 90 years old, bear a child?

00:15:30:21 - 00:15:34:40
And Abraham said to God,
oh, that Ishmael might live before you.

00:15:34:40 - 00:15:37:27
That's the son
he had with Hagar. By the way.

00:15:39:21 - 00:15:41:16
And God said, no, but,

00:15:41:16 - 00:15:45:13
Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son,
and you shall call his name Isaac.

00:15:45:24 - 00:15:49:03
I will establish my covenant with him
as an everlasting covenant

00:15:49:14 - 00:15:50:40
for his offspring after him.

00:15:50:40 - 00:15:53:17
As for Ishmael, I have heard you.

00:15:53:17 - 00:15:58:05
Behold, I have blessed him, and will make
him fruitful, and multiply him greatly.

00:15:58:14 - 00:16:01:37
He will fathered 12 princes,
and I will make him into a great nation.

00:16:01:46 - 00:16:04:47
But I will establish my covenant
with Isaac, whom

00:16:04:47 - 00:16:08:09
Sarah shall bear to you at this time
next year.

00:16:08:09 - 00:16:12:37
Friends,
we are only 22 verses from Abraham

00:16:12:37 - 00:16:16:47
and Sarah
sending Hagar into the wilderness to die

00:16:18:33 - 00:16:21:49
were 22 verses removed from an affair,

00:16:21:52 - 00:16:26:53
from an explosion,
from chaos, from dysfunction, from velvet.

00:16:26:53 - 00:16:31:24
And within 22 verses, all three people,
Abraham, Sarah and Hagar,

00:16:31:24 - 00:16:35:58
which we'll look at in a minute, have
already received another promise from God.

00:16:38:11 - 00:16:40:54
You know what that means?

00:16:40:54 - 00:16:43:16
It means that God

00:16:43:16 - 00:16:46:16
is establishing relationship with people,

00:16:47:17 - 00:16:50:17
not on the basis of who they are

00:16:50:21 - 00:16:53:04
and what they do,

00:16:53:04 - 00:16:56:01
but on the basis of who he is.

00:16:56:01 - 00:16:59:44
That means God is making promises

00:16:59:44 - 00:17:04:46
and keeping promises to unfaithful people,

00:17:04:53 - 00:17:08:32
hurting people who have hurt people.

00:17:08:32 - 00:17:10:11
That this means two things.

00:17:10:11 - 00:17:12:01
One is if you're here
and you don't know where you're at

00:17:12:01 - 00:17:13:34
with God,
you wouldn't call yourself a Christian.

00:17:13:34 - 00:17:16:59
You know what you call yourself
and you're going, if God is out there

00:17:16:59 - 00:17:20:49
and if God is doing something,
it isn't for people like me.

00:17:20:49 - 00:17:23:51
Genesis 16 is God hitting the pause
button and saying,

00:17:24:13 - 00:17:27:54
I refuse to move forward with the story
until you know how wrong you are.

00:17:30:57 - 00:17:33:57
His Abraham heroic.

00:17:34:24 - 00:17:37:06
Is Sarah virtuous?

00:17:37:06 - 00:17:39:23
Is Hagar innocent?

00:17:39:23 - 00:17:40:20
No, no.

00:17:40:20 - 00:17:46:31
But God is not basing his promises
on the moral performance of people.

00:17:46:31 - 00:17:51:07
By the way, if he was,
no one could ever get a promise.

00:17:51:16 - 00:17:55:41
There are only in this room
and on this stage and holding this

00:17:55:41 - 00:17:59:27
microphone,
hurting people who hurt people.

00:17:59:29 - 00:18:05:04
God is offering you relationship with him,
a future with him

00:18:05:05 - 00:18:08:41
on the basis of his performance,
not yours.

00:18:08:57 - 00:18:11:57
And it has to be that way.

00:18:12:10 - 00:18:13:45
But second, if you're here

00:18:13:45 - 00:18:17:03
and you're a Christian brother
or sister in Christ, how tempting it is

00:18:17:17 - 00:18:20:08
when we do what we ought not

00:18:20:08 - 00:18:23:17
when when we grow spiritually cold.

00:18:23:19 - 00:18:27:47
How tempting it is to lean in to shame
and to stay away from God.

00:18:27:52 - 00:18:31:37
And days become weeks and weeks
become months and months become years.

00:18:31:37 - 00:18:33:28
Some of you haven't been in church
in a while.

00:18:33:28 - 00:18:35:32
Others sit in church every week.

00:18:35:32 - 00:18:37:04
But the off switch is on.

00:18:37:04 - 00:18:41:12
There's no connection with God
because we're too ashamed to admit to him

00:18:41:19 - 00:18:45:06
what we've done for 22 verses after chaos,

00:18:46:43 - 00:18:50:14
he's reminding
them he's going to do everything he said.

00:18:50:14 - 00:18:54:20
Brother, sister in Christ,
why would you stay away another second?

00:18:55:34 - 00:18:58:48
Hasn't
your hope always been his faithfulness?

00:18:58:57 - 00:19:02:47
Has it your hope always been that
against the velvet of your sin

00:19:02:47 - 00:19:07:06
and mine,
the diamond of his promise shines.

00:19:07:51 - 00:19:12:11
And so we have to open ourselves
up to the idea that God is building

00:19:12:12 - 00:19:16:45
relationship on his work, not ours.

00:19:18:24 - 00:19:19:00
Can I know?

00:19:19:00 - 00:19:22:00
I know what you're thinking
because it's what I would be thinking.

00:19:22:00 - 00:19:24:59
You're thinking, well, okay,
for these people,

00:19:26:44 - 00:19:29:22
but how could I ever know?

00:19:29:22 - 00:19:30:28
How could I ever believe?

00:19:30:28 - 00:19:34:02
How could I ever trust
that God is doing that for me?

00:19:34:02 - 00:19:35:25
Well, that's my third point.

00:19:35:25 - 00:19:38:41
Not just the velvet,
not just the diamond, but the proposal.

00:19:39:48 - 00:19:42:46
Because
after all, if you're single and lonely,

00:19:42:46 - 00:19:45:46
a jewelry store
is the most depressing place to be.

00:19:47:26 - 00:19:49:14
The idea that someone out there is

00:19:49:14 - 00:19:52:14
falling in love is not encouraging to you.

00:19:52:27 - 00:19:55:19
Someone reminded me this week
that you can find lots of diamonds for

00:19:55:19 - 00:19:58:19
sale on Facebook Marketplace.

00:19:58:32 - 00:20:01:31
That's not because things went well.

00:20:03:23 - 00:20:04:38
No, a diamond

00:20:04:38 - 00:20:08:45
only becomes special
when someone picks it out for you.

00:20:08:45 - 00:20:12:35
I remember when I was saving
for Amy's engagement ring.

00:20:12:35 - 00:20:13:34
I was working at a bookstore.

00:20:13:34 - 00:20:16:34
I was in college,
and every Friday I would get paid

00:20:16:40 - 00:20:19:48
and I would go to the bank
and I would take out just enough for gas,

00:20:19:48 - 00:20:20:57
and then I would go to the jewelry store.

00:20:20:57 - 00:20:22:48
I must have had it on layaway
or something.

00:20:22:48 - 00:20:27:05
I would give them the rest of my money
week after week after week

00:20:27:12 - 00:20:30:14
after week
after week, after you get the picture.

00:20:32:49 - 00:20:33:36
And when I look back

00:20:33:36 - 00:20:37:26
on that time now,
I realize that the powerful part of what

00:20:37:26 - 00:20:41:19
I was saying to Amy, and it still holds
true, is that she was worth it.

00:20:43:06 - 00:20:44:21
That's the power of a diamond.

00:20:44:21 - 00:20:48:51
When someone takes it off of the case
and puts it on your finger.

00:20:48:51 - 00:20:52:37
Friends, I wouldn't want you to think
that God's promises are out there

00:20:52:37 - 00:20:56:20
somewhere for someone at some time.

00:20:56:26 - 00:20:58:48
God doesn't
want you to walk in a jewelry store

00:20:58:48 - 00:21:02:11
and see all the diamonds
of what he's doing for everybody else.

00:21:02:11 - 00:21:05:14
God wants to take one out of the case
and put it on your finger.

00:21:05:20 - 00:21:06:37
So how do you know that?

00:21:06:37 - 00:21:10:00
Because the least important person
in this story

00:21:10:00 - 00:21:14:52
in Genesis 16 is a unwed mother
who's a slave

00:21:14:52 - 00:21:18:40
girl living in the wilderness,
thrown out by her owners.

00:21:18:40 - 00:21:21:40
She does not matter to the story,
and she's the only one.

00:21:21:40 - 00:21:23:12
In Genesis 16, God speaks to.

00:21:27:00 - 00:21:28:53
Look with me at Genesis 16, verse six.

00:21:28:53 - 00:21:30:54
It's the most monstrous verse
in the entire passage.

00:21:30:54 - 00:21:33:18
Here's what it says.

00:21:33:18 - 00:21:35:50
But Abraham said, Sarah, I behold,

00:21:35:50 - 00:21:38:52
your servant is in your power

00:21:39:59 - 00:21:42:24
due to her as you please.

00:21:42:24 - 00:21:46:04
And then Sarah, I dealt harshly with her,
and she fled from her.

00:21:46:47 - 00:21:49:12
You know, if Hagar story ends there,

00:21:49:12 - 00:21:52:07
we would get that, wouldn't we?

00:21:52:07 - 00:21:52:59
Wouldn't be right.

00:21:52:59 - 00:21:56:31
But the world shows up and spits out
Hagar's.

00:21:57:25 - 00:21:58:51
We know that.

00:21:58:51 - 00:22:02:20
So if her story ends there, we would
understand what makes sense to us.

00:22:02:38 - 00:22:04:46
But it doesn't.

00:22:04:46 - 00:22:07:40
God comes looking for her.

00:22:07:40 - 00:22:08:50
God wants her.

00:22:08:50 - 00:22:11:55
God is pausing the story
of what he's doing

00:22:11:55 - 00:22:15:37
and Abraham and Sarah to come after her
and after the encounter.

00:22:15:37 - 00:22:17:51
This is what Hagar says in verse 13.

00:22:17:51 - 00:22:23:12
So she called the name of the Lord
who spoke to her, you are a God of seeing.

00:22:24:18 - 00:22:24:45
For she

00:22:24:45 - 00:22:28:35
said, truly here I have seen him
who looks after me did you know

00:22:28:35 - 00:22:32:45
the first person in the Bible to name
God is an unwed

00:22:33:05 - 00:22:36:05
slave girl mother on the run?

00:22:37:15 - 00:22:39:41
And you know what she names him?

00:22:39:41 - 00:22:42:40
The God who sees me.

00:22:43:33 - 00:22:46:57
Because you see, God isn't
just about big stories and big promises.

00:22:47:08 - 00:22:50:40
God isn't just about jewelry stores
and cases of diamonds.

00:22:50:49 - 00:22:55:44
God is about pursuing,
hurting individuals who have hurt others

00:22:55:44 - 00:23:00:43
and been hurt and making sure they know
he has a promise for them.

00:23:00:46 - 00:23:06:08
When you are reading Genesis 16, right,
you love the God who comes after Hagar,

00:23:06:12 - 00:23:09:15
and the hard cry of your life is God.

00:23:09:24 - 00:23:13:06
How could I know that you would
come after me the same way?

00:23:15:19 - 00:23:18:18
And the answer to that, friends,

00:23:18:45 - 00:23:20:06
is the life, death,

00:23:20:06 - 00:23:23:06
and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

00:23:24:20 - 00:23:28:28
God's own son,
who leaves the jewelry store

00:23:29:38 - 00:23:32:38
to find you in the wilderness

00:23:33:07 - 00:23:37:15
so that you wouldn't be left
out of the big promise of God.

00:23:37:15 - 00:23:40:24
Here's what the Apostle Paul writes
in the book of Romans chapter five.

00:23:40:24 - 00:23:44:08
He says it this way tell me,
if you don't hear Hagar echoing in these

00:23:44:08 - 00:23:47:28
verses, it says, for a while
we were still weak

00:23:48:44 - 00:23:50:05
at the right time.

00:23:50:05 - 00:23:52:59
Christ died for the ungodly.

00:23:52:59 - 00:23:55:57
For one will scarcely die
for a righteous person, though

00:23:55:57 - 00:23:59:11
perhaps for a good person
one would dare even to die.

00:23:59:11 - 00:24:02:11
But God shows his love for us,

00:24:02:13 - 00:24:06:46
in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.

00:24:06:46 - 00:24:09:19
You see, Jesus is God coming to us.

00:24:09:19 - 00:24:12:44
Jesus is God saying to us, I'm
going to come myself.

00:24:12:44 - 00:24:15:15
I'm going to live
righteously in your place.

00:24:15:15 - 00:24:20:03
Jesus goes to the cross
having never hurt a single person,

00:24:20:10 - 00:24:25:08
but on the cross
he becomes a hurting person who has hurt

00:24:25:08 - 00:24:30:34
people as he carries my sin and he carries
the sins of all who will trust him.

00:24:30:39 - 00:24:34:40
And he comes up under the weight and anger
and wrath of God.

00:24:34:44 - 00:24:39:39
And God pours out his judgment on the
Jesus so that Jesus's final words are.

00:24:39:39 - 00:24:44:17
It is finished and he dies.

00:24:44:48 - 00:24:46:34
And three days later
he raises from the dead.

00:24:46:34 - 00:24:51:16
And he says, if you will see in me
the God who sees you,

00:24:51:16 - 00:24:56:33
if you will find in me an entry point
for you into the great story of God,

00:24:56:33 - 00:24:57:30
if you'll find in me

00:24:57:30 - 00:25:02:27
not just a macro promise,
but a micro promise, a promise for you.

00:25:02:29 - 00:25:05:07
You can be with God forever,
just like Hagar.

00:25:05:07 - 00:25:06:35
Not because you earned it,

00:25:07:51 - 00:25:11:39
but because
praise God he earned it for you.

00:25:12:48 - 00:25:16:02
Friends, we don't need Genesis 16
to tell the story of a promise

00:25:16:02 - 00:25:17:30
making promise, keeping God.

00:25:17:30 - 00:25:19:32
Genesis 16 isn't about God.

00:25:19:32 - 00:25:21:16
It's about you.

00:25:21:16 - 00:25:24:14
It's about me.

00:25:24:14 - 00:25:28:42
It's about letting us know
that if we come to God in faith in Jesus,

00:25:28:42 - 00:25:31:42
his faithfulness

00:25:31:51 - 00:25:36:12
will swallow up our unfaithfulness.

00:25:36:52 - 00:25:37:49
Let's pray.

00:25:37:49 - 00:25:40:43
Father God,
thank you so much for Genesis 16.

00:25:40:43 - 00:25:43:43
Somewhere this weekend there's a Hagar

00:25:44:44 - 00:25:46:16
who has long given up

00:25:46:16 - 00:25:49:30
the idea you you love Abraham,
you love Sarah.

00:25:49:30 - 00:25:54:45
There are some people here who know you,
who are experiencing you, but not them.

00:25:54:45 - 00:25:55:12
And God.

00:25:55:12 - 00:25:58:30
Not because of the sermon, not not because
of anything that happened, but.

00:25:58:46 - 00:26:02:43
But through the power of your Holy Spirit,
would you, the God who sees

00:26:02:43 - 00:26:04:15
draw near to them even now?

00:26:08:35 - 00:26:11:07
God, for those of us who belong to
you already that we would

00:26:11:07 - 00:26:15:02
remember our our unfaithfulness
is not a reason to hide from you.

00:26:15:02 - 00:26:16:57
It's a reason to run to you.

00:26:16:57 - 00:26:18:08
We are the velvet.

00:26:18:08 - 00:26:21:07
You are the diamond.

00:26:21:54 - 00:26:24:54
Our individual diamond.

00:26:26:16 - 00:26:28:06
Jesus name we pray. Amen.