The Hagar Solution

Genesis 16
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, May 29, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

The title is “The Hagar Solution.”  As we study the life of Abraham in the very word of God, we are amazed at God’s grace to Abram.  God called Abram and his wife out of a godless land of idol worshipers in Ur and Haran.  And Abram, the great man of great faith, goes, following God step by step even though he does not know the destination.  Abram and his household arrive at Shechem in the relative backwaters of the world where God tells him “This is the place.”  In Genesis 12:7 the Lord says, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  Now, if we stop and think about it, that is quite a promise.  Abram is one man with a handful of others in his household.  And though he has godly Sarai as his wife, they have no offspring.  Yet God promises, “To your offspring I will give this land.”  And He promises the whole land and He promises a generational blessing.

Later on, in Genesis 13, when Abram’s lust-filled nephew Lot departs and takes the well-watered plain, God shows up again and promises Abram again, “All the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.”  Just to be clear, God reiterates, “Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted” (Gen. 13:15–16).  But what a promise this is to a man with no children!  The promise is to the offspring, but no offspring are forthcoming.  The years go by.  Many things happened.  Abram rescued Lot, they go down to Egypt and back, and so on.  He is blessed by Melchizedek.  He explores the whole land.  Yet this promise remains unfulfilled.  He has not acquired any of the land and he has no son or daughter.

Abram begins to grow concerned, as surely we would grow concerned.  He trusts in the Lord, of course, but he does not understand how this promise will all work out.  So God appears to Abram in Genesis 15 and Abram asks, “What can you give me since I remain childless, and so my servant will inherit my estate?” (see Gen. 15:2–3).  And God, in great mercy, provides great assurance:  “This man [your servant] will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir” (Gen. 15:4).  And God continues, “Count the stars—if indeed you can count them.  .  .  .  So shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:5).  And in verse 6, the key verse, we read, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  And, indeed, God makes a self-maledictory oath, passing through the halved carcasses of the sacrifice.  In other words, God is promising for sure that this will happen.

God also not only promises that Abram will have some offspring, but He also explains in some detail what is going to become of these offspring.  They will go down to Egypt, they will suffer, they will multiply, so on and so forth.  So God is giving great assurance to Abram.  It is not that He made the promise once, which would be sufficient assurance based on the word of God, but He gives it again and again and again.

Yet the time goes and keeps going, and no baby is born.  Now Abram and Sarai are getting pretty old and they were wondering, “Will it happen?” The biological clock is ticking.  Abram is eighty-five or eighty-six, and no baby is coming.  So a bright idea comes to Sarai: “God has not enabled me to conceive.  Let’s take Hagar, the maidservant we got down in Egypt.  Sleep with her.  Impregnate her.  Build me a family through her.”  What a great idea!  What could possibly go wrong with this scheme?

Now, technically, they were not violating God’s word.  After all, God said to Abram, “From your own body.”  So what Sarai said was true, from a certain point of view.  But, of course, this led to a total disaster:  Hagar against Sarai, Sarai against Abram, Ishmael against Isaac, Jews against Muslims.  It led to long-term disunity and strife in the home and long-term pain for Abram.  And it led to a generational conflict between the descendants of Isaac, the son of the promise, and the descendants of Ishmael, which continues into our day today.

So we will look this morning at how this occurred, and we will see what we can learn from this for our time.

How Did This Happen?

Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran (Gen. 12), and the promise of the offspring comes shortly thereafter.  By the end of Genesis 16, Abram is eighty-six years old (Gen. 16:16).  But we have to understand that what we read in about three or four short pages of our Bible happened over ten very long years for these people—very long and what must have seemed very uncertain years for these people.  So month by month they waited for the offspring and month by month nothing happened.  A hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty times in all, they are waiting and they are waiting, and no baby is coming.  Every time it ended in disappointment.  They went down to Egypt and back—no offspring.  They went to the Negev, they went to Bethel, they went to Hebron—no offspring.  They experienced great rescues, amazing theophanies in which God appeared to them, and abundant prosperity—a lot of things happened—but no baby, no offspring, for month after month, season after season, year after year, disappointment after disappointment.

So the normal thing happened to them, as would happen to us:  They began to doubt.  “Is it ever going to happen?”  We grow impatient.  We grow fearful.  We begin to doubt ourselves.  “Maybe I heard the promise wrong.  Maybe I misunderstood.  Maybe I sinned in some way and became disqualified.”  A great longing unfulfilled is indeed a great difficulty in a serious trial.

Now, you can rightly criticize Sarai and Abram for their actions in Genesis 16, and don’t worry, we will get to that.  It is written down as a warning for us, as all Scripture is.  But we can subtly, in our own hearts, look down on Sarai.  “What was her problem?  After all, she had this word of God.  What was her problem?  God said it.  Why can’t she just wait?”  Or we can look at Abram.  “What was his problem?  Why didn’t he blast Sarai for her unbelief?” and so on.  So we can smugly look down on them, if we like.  You can do that if you like, but I will not do that.  We must learn from their error, and we must take warning because if it happened to them, it can happen to us.

Ten or eleven years is a long time to wait for something to happen.  A child for the childless is a deep, deep longing.  It is painful to try and to wait and to expect and to hope but to be disappointed over and over and over again for ten years.  I ask you, could you wait for such a thing ten or eleven years without wavering?  We become incensed when the Internet is slow for thirty seconds in our house.  But they were waiting ten or eleven years for a child to be born.  This is not to excuse Sarai’s actions and it is certainly not to counsel the same course.  But it is to caution ourselves against it.  Abram was more godly than all of us combined, and yet he still fell in this area.  Abram is called God’s friend in 2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, and James 2:23, and yet he fell.  God appeared to Abram several times before this, and during this, and yet he still fell.  Abram is lauded three times in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith” and that is more than anyone else.  Even Moses did not get three commendations in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith.”  And we know for sure that Abram is in heaven with apparently a prominent role, as we see in Luke 16.

So Abram is better than us, and still he fell.  And I want to say that Sarai is no slouch either.  First Peter 3 identifies her as one of the holy women of the past and encourages all godly women to become her daughters by doing what is right and not giving way to fear.  In other words, she is held up as an example.

So what happened to these godly people?  How is it that they fell?  The battle begins, as always, in the mind.  There is Sarai, you can imagine, day after day, year after year, with no baby.  She begins to doubt and to fear, and the mind begins to churn as she cooks the food and washes the clothes and manages her growing household of servant girls.  And in all this emotional turmoil and waiting and longing and disappointment, the devil strikes.  He introduces the idea, “God said, ‘From your own body,’ but he said that to Abram, not to you.  And look at all these other people in your household bearing children.”  Genesis 14:14 says they had hundreds of people born in their own household.  “It is working for everyone else but not for you.  Maybe there is something wrong with you.  There is a maidservant we picked up in Egypt, Hagar.  She is young.  She is of child-bearing age.  You are not, anymore.  She is a good girl.”  Perhaps they had even raised Hagar from a very young age.  We are not told in great detail, but we are told that they had acquired menservants and maidservants in Egypt when they were down there.  And we are told that Hagar is an Egyptian.  So it is possible that they raised her from a very early age.  We can imagine that Sarai marinated on the idea for a good, long while.

When we read verse 2 of Genesis 16, Sarai’s frustration is evident.  This is not the first time she has grappled with this problem.  And, who knows, it could have even been the common practice in the region at the time.  If you are barren, you take a maidservant from your own household and have children through her.  It may have been the common practice of the region, but it is not the common solution for God’s people.  So all this frustration, all this longing, all this doubt, all this fear bubbles up one day and she blurts out:  “I am tired of waiting.  I am tired of waiting for this child to come.  I must do something.  Abram, do something.  Go!  Sleep with my maidservant.  Solve the problem.”  This is the Hagar solution.

Of course, this did not solve the problem at all.  As soon as the Hagar solution goes into motion, a huge mess unfolds.  Hagar became pregnant, as expected (Gen. 16:4).  But she begins also to despise Sarai her mistress, as we are also told in verse 4.  Now, we are not told exactly what that means.  Maybe Hagar thought she was better than Sarai.  Maybe she became angry that she was still being treated as a servant girl rather than as an equal or as someone in a higher kind of position.  Maybe it was just the jealousy that would naturally develop between two women in close quarters with the same husband.  This is the natural and expected outcome.  What other outcome could there possibly have been to this plan?  Abram, of course, wants no piece of this.  In verse 6 he says, “Do what you need to do.”  So Sarai mistreats the pregnant Hagar, Hagar flees, and God must intervene to clean up the mess that Sarai and Abram had made.  He sends Hagar back to the house.

All of this developed because they went about it their own way.  All of this developed because they allowed the doubt and the fear to creep in and then they acted, not in faith, but in their doubt and fear.

Lessons for Our Day

So that is how they got here.  What lessons are to be learned for us in our day?

1. Do Not Grow Impatient with God

The first lesson is, do not grow impatient with God.  As I said earlier, we are not a patient people.  If something does not happen for us right away, we stamp our feet and we begin to conclude that it will never happen.  We must fight this tendency in ourselves.  And our tendency towards impatience is worse, worse, worse now than in Abram’s day.

We must remind ourselves that God is absolutely trustworthy and absolutely reliable.  His word is inviolable, which means it cannot be violated.  What He says will always come to pass; perhaps not in the way that we expect it, but God’s way always prevails.  He does not lie (Num. 23:19).  In fact, Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie.  He knows all that has happened and all that will happen (Isa. 44:6–8).  Not only that, God commands all things.  So it is not just that He has perfect information about what will happen, but He is also controlling what will happen (Eph. 1:11).  And no one can thwart His plan.  Oh, you can oppose His plans, if you want.  But you cannot thwart his plan (Job 42:2, Prov. 21).  God is sovereign and God is good; therefore, we as His people have no just cause for worry.  But the worry still comes.  You see, God knows all about that future, but we do not.  So we begin to fear what might happen.

In those times when we fear, we must preach to ourselves: “I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand.”  Our problem is we do not know about tomorrow, but we know who holds tomorrow and we know who holds our hand.  And we cannot wait until the day of trouble to begin preaching these things to ourselves.  Yes, we have to preach them to ourselves in the day of trouble, but if you wait until the day of trouble to begin to ponder these things, it may be too late.  We must work on this ahead of time.  We must build up our faith ahead of time.  We must build up our faith in God before the trouble so that our worries may be defeated by the high walls and deep fortifications of our faith.  We must make a lifelong study of God’s word and of God’s historic faithfulness—His faithfulness to the patriarchs, His faithfulness to the nation of Israel, His faithfulness to the church in Reformation church history, in our church history, and in our personal history.  We must remember and preach these things to ourselves so that by the time the trouble shows up, there is already a high wall of faith there to ward it off.

We must also remember ahead of time that trouble will come.  I don’t like trouble, but I tell myself the trouble has come, and we have defeated the trouble and so now we are done.  We don’t have trouble anymore.  But that is not the way it works.  At least, it is not my experience.  The trouble comes and then, if, by God’s grace we defeat it, it comes again.  God promises us this in his word, “Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12).  We will be divided—father against son, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, and so on (Luke 12:53).  We must be prepared for the hatred and vitriol and enemies with great enmity towards God and towards God’s people (Ps. 109:2–5).  We must prepare for all these things ahead of time.  We must tell ourselves that trouble is going to come.  We must tell ourselves that God will remain faithful.  Prepare ahead of time so that we will not be surprised and we will not falter in the day of testing.

After the trouble comes and we have taken that initial blow, we must quickly call to mind God’s Scriptures, such as Psalm 118:6:  “The Lord is on my side; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?” Nothing!  If I am lonely, I will recall that “God sets the lonely in families” (Ps. 68:6).  If I am disappointed by that job that I did not get, by that baby that won’t come, by that husband who is yet to appear as Prince Charming riding in on a white horse—if I am disappointed, I will recall that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).  I will store up such treasures in my heart and in my mind.  I will build up the walls of faith against the devil and against his schemes so that when he comes, I am prepared.  You will need such a firm foundation in the day of trouble.

Especially we must not grow impatient for the day of His return.  We must not begin to grow impatient for the day of Christ’s return and begin to doubt that maybe it will not really come.  It is natural for us to doubt.  Second Peter 3:4 speaks about it:  “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?”  All goes on as before.  Maybe it is not really true that He is going to come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.  Maybe I misunderstood highly symbolic language.  Maybe I misunderstood.  Did God really say?  Yes, he did really say.  It is really true.  He will really come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.  It is promised over and over and over again in His word (see John 14:1–3; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 22 and many other places).  He promised it many times.

So we may cry out like the martyrs in Revelation 6, “How long, O Lord?” And we will get the same answer:  “A little while longer.”  At just the right time, He will come again.  When all is done, He will come again.  When all His elect have confessed Christ and are saved, then He will come, and then we will go to glory to be with Him for all eternity.  We must not grow impatient with God for His coming, but instead we must wait on the Lord.  And if that sounds unfair, think about it this way:  They were impatient in the first century and the second century and the tenth century and the nineteenth century for His coming as well; but aren’t you glad that God did not come yet?  Why?  Because God waited for you.  He waited for each one of us, His elect.  He waited for us so that we could be saved.  So, yes, let us pray for His return.  But do not grow impatient and certainly do not give up.

2. Do Not Grow Bitter against God

The second lesson we can learn is not to become bitter against God.  Notice in Genesis 16 that Sarai has become bitter, and she blames everyone else for her problem.  First and foremost, she blames God:  “The Lord has kept me from having children” (Gen. 16:2).  That is true as far as it goes.  God is sovereign over all things, so in a technical sense it is God who has stopped you from having children.  It is God who builds children in the womb (Ps. 139).  It is God who opens the womb for conception.  So it is a true statement, but we do not get from Sarai’s exclamation that she is pontificating on the sovereignty of God.  No, she seems to have grown bitter.  There is a bitterness to this statement that is very troubling.

Of course, it proceeds from the false assumption, “I deserve children.  I deserve a husband.  I deserve this promotion.  I deserve my giant house,” or whatever it is I desire.  So we must be very careful not to grow bitter against God.  This bitterness starts with making the object of our desire into a form of an idol:  as something we put above God.  The pursuit of God is no longer the pursuit of God for God’s sake.  It is pursuit of God for some other thing or some third thing.  And I begin to tell myself—it may even be something that God has promised, as it is here—but I begin to tell myself that God owes me this.  I did this and I did that.  I remained faithful.  I confessed Christ as Lord.  So God owes me this thing that I want.

We must be careful not to slip into this kind of thinking.  Instead, we are to delight ourselves in the Lord.  He is to be the desire of our hearts, not something else (Ps. 37:4).  We are to seek Him first and then all these things will be added unto us in the time best for us and in the measure best for us (Matt. 6:33).  You see, God blesses us, His people, all the time.  (GTB)  He blesses us both in what He gives and in what He withholds.  His provision and His timing are both precise and perfect.

We must not forget all that God has already done for us.  Sometimes we focus on the thing that we lack to the exclusion of the things that we have.  So we must not forget all that God has done for us and become spoiled brats, saying, “Where is the next thing, God?  Where is the next thing?”  Look at Sarai’s case.  First of all, she was born.  She existed.  God knit her together in her mother’s womb.  She married a godly man from a godly family.  She was brought safely to the Promised Land.  She was rescued from Pharaoh by God and vindicated.  She became the matriarch over a wealthy household.  She received the promise of an heir as well.  It was not just a promise to Abram; it was a promise to her too, and much more than that.

When we look at our lives, we too have received much.  But our tendency as sinful people is that, instead of being grateful, we grow fat and kick against the goad (Deut. 32:15).  In order not to become bitter, in order not to become spoiled brats, we must remember what we truly deserve.  It is not everything we have that we deserve.  No, we deserved nothing.  In fact, worse than nothing.  God does not need us at all.  God does not need anything (Acts 17:25).  And yet God created us (Prov. 16:4, ESV).  He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs (Ps. 139:13).  We sinned and we deserved eternal damnation (Rom. 3:23; 6:23).  God offers salvation to all by faith in Christ (Rom. 3:22).  He gives us a new heart and a new spirit, able to put our faith in Him.  We deserved eternal suffering in hell, but God the Father planned our redemption, God the Son accomplished our redemption by suffering God’s wrath for us, and God the Holy Spirit applied that redemption to us personally, individually, in time.

If you are ever tempted to grumble and grow bitter about the things that you do not have, about those things that you think you deserve, stop!  Stop and think.  We deserved eternal hell, but he gave us eternal life in Jesus Christ.  So don’t grow bitter against God.

3. Seek Help

The third thing to learn from this is that we must seek help in times of trouble.  Sarai clearly suffered from her great longing, from her great disappointment.  She seems to have been stewing on this until she erupts in Genesis 16 with the Hagar solution.  By that point, her desire has progressed to longing which has progressed to disappointment which has progressed to bitterness, which has now progressed to complaining and grumbling against God and engaging in totally irrational actions.  She should have sought help earlier and more often, first by going to God in prayer.  After all, God had visited Abram and Sarai in person.  Surely she could have gone to God in prayer.  God tells us to cry out to Him.  Surely she could have cried out to God in prayer.

We are called to cry out to God, not to stew on our anxiety.  Rather, “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, [we are to] present [our] requests to God” (Phil. 4:6).  That is the command.  And the promise follows: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).  Guard us from what?  Guard us from this.  Guard us from growing bitter.  Guard us from irrational action based on our fear and our troubles.  And yet we are not ever told that Sarai prayed about this situation.  So first, go to God.

Second, go to others for help as well.  As Christian people, as God’s chosen people, we do not walk alone because we cannot walk alone.  God gives us other believers on the narrow way to encourage us (1 Thess. 5:11); to spur us on toward love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24); to sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron (Prov. 27:17); to comfort one another with the comfort we have received (2 Cor. 1:4); to teach us, to train us, to rebuke us, and to correct us with the word (2 Tim. 3:16); to build each other up with God’s authority (2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10); to bear our burdens (Gal. 6:2); and to rejoice and to grieve and to mourn along with us (Rom. 12:15).

Brothers and sisters, we don’t have to go it alone in times of trouble.  We are not meant to go it alone and we should not go it alone.  If we try to bear our burdens alone, we will fall.  Instead, we should go to godly pastors who have the word from God to apply to us, to godly elders and leaders, to godly husbands and godly wives, to godly parents and godly families, to godly brothers and sisters in the Lord.  These are all God’s gift to us for us to help us.

Here Sarai had the man of God, the friend of God, her pastor and her husband all rolled into one to help her.  But she does not go to him for help or for encouragement or for comfort or for direction, at least not as far as we are told.  Instead, she goes to him, commanding him what he must do to solve the problem.  When we, like her, become isolated in our problem, we become easier targets of the devil.  And we make a mess for ourselves.  We make a mess for our household and for those close to us.  We make a mess for generations.

Go to those whom God has sent you to help you in trouble, especially the man of God with the word of God.

4. Don’t Disregard God’s Established Order

The fourth thing we can learn from this is that we should not act in disregard of God’s established order.  Notice here that the proper order is cast aside.  Evidently Sarai thinks that God’s way is not working, so she decides, “I must take charge.”  Just like Eve, she goes to her husband and commands him, and she is not even very subtle about it.  “Go!” she commands.  “Sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her” (Gen. 16:2).

This is all disorder.  This is all backwards.  It is anti-order.  Abram is to be the head.  That is the Genesis 2 order.  Abram is to be the head, and later this is set forth even more explicitly in 1 Corinthians 11, Ephesians 5, and 1 Peter 3.  This was the established order from the beginning.  In fact, 1 Timothy 2, in speaking about family order, points back to the Genesis 2 account as the explanation—showing that this is God’s established order from the beginning.  Abram was to be the head and Sarai was to submit to Abram, who was to submit to God.

But instead, Sarai commands Abram, Abram submits to Sarai, and God is nowhere to be found.  And not only is the process bad, but the substantive solution is bad also.  “Go and commit adultery” is the correct answer to zero problems.  It will never solve problems.  We can never accomplish godly ends by ungodly means.

This probably was the common solution for that age.  It was probably the common practice.  But I would say lots of things are common practice.  Lots of things are common practice in our age too.  Your marriage is fizzling out and you have fallen out of love?  Well, commit adultery and bring the spark back to your life.  You fell out of love with your wife?  Get a divorce.  You have strong feelings for another person?  Well, the fashion for our time is to have sex outside of marriage, or commit homosexuality.  Do whatever you feel like doing.  You are pregnant out of wedlock or at a time that is not convenient for you?  Just have an abortion.  It is no problem.  It is the fashion of our time.  All of these things are fashionable today, and indeed, even some so-called churches will approve.  But God will never bless such disorder.  He will curse it.

In preaching on this same passage about ten years ago, Pastor Mathew said, “In her frustration and impatience, Sarai begins to convulse, doing what God did not command.” And he notes, “Everything worked as Sarai had planned.”  Oh, isn’t that wonderful?  Her plan worked.  Sarai made a mess, and Pastor Mathew says that for thirteen years there was no true peace in Abram’s house.  There was a lasting enmity between Ishmael, the son of the Sarai scheme, and Isaac, the son of the promise.  It lasted for their lifetime and has, for all intents and purposes, lasted into ours, for thousands of years.  To quote Pastor Mathew further, “The Bible should be our standard, not pagan customs.  God never exchanges His plan for ours.  For God is unchangeable in His being.  What have you wrought, Sarai?  You did not build for yourself a family.  You brought forth a mocker who would one day mock Isaac, the son of promise.  And one day God would send away Hagar and Ishmael from Abram’s household.  Your plan failed, Sarai.  And Abram, you failed to believe God.  You failed to govern your family for God.  Both of you failed the test.  But, thank God, He remains faithful to His promise to save us.”[1]

Let us follow God’s order and let us wait on Him.  The promise will be fulfilled.  Isaac will come—not after five years or ten years or fifteen years.  No, it took twenty-five long years for Isaac to come, but he will come, after twenty-five years.  Moses will come to deliver you from Egypt, not after sixty years or seventy years, but after four hundred and thirty years.  It may take a long time, but he will come, all in good time.  The promised Messiah of Genesis 3 and so many other places—it may be two thousand or three thousand or four thousand or five thousand years, but He will come.  At just the right point in time, He came.  And He will come again, as I said.  I don’t how long.  It has been two thousand years.  Maybe it will be another two thousand years or ten thousand more years.  I don’t know.  But just as with these other promises, He will come, and He will come at just the right time.  We are still waiting, but He will come.  It is guaranteed by the very word of God.

5. Don’t Cook Up Your Own Solution

The fifth and final lesson for us is that we should not cook up our own solution.  When God has provided the solution, don’t cook up your own solution at all.  The previous point had more to do with godly order and process.  This has more to do with godliness and substance.  We must remember that if God promised it, He will do it.

Thus, God said to wives, “Submit to your husbands as to the Lord . . . in everything” (Eph. 5:22–24).  It is scary, but He said it, and He has promised to bless your obedience.  So go ahead and do it; it will go well with you.  Trust God enough to submit to your husband, as He said.  You may say, “This way, this scheme, is not working.  I am going to come up with my own scheme.”  Your scheme is not going to work.  Why don’t you give God’s way a try?

Children, what are you told?  “Obey your parents in everything so that it may go well with you” (Eph. 6:1–3).  Don’t come up with your own way to make it go well with you.  Your way will not work, children.  You will end up like these people with a Hagar solution and a big, miserable mess.  Obey God and obey your parents and see if that promise does not come true.  See if it will not go well with you.

Men, “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word” (Eph. 5:25–26).  That is God’s command for us as husbands.  Do that and see if it will not go well with you.  “Oh,” you say, “that may be true for someone good, but my wife is a nag.  My wife is unsubmissive.  She has let herself go.  She is unaffectionate.”  Maybe.  But I don’t see any conditions on the command, “Love your wives just as Christ loved the church .  .  . cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.”  So don’t think about whatever you think she did.  You do your job.  You love her sacrificially.  You bring the word of God to her daily.  You pray for her and you lead her as the prophet, priest, and king in your home.  You lead her not in the way you want, but considerately, not selfishly or lazily or halfway.  Do it just as Christ loved the church.  And why don’t you see if God will bless that kind of an effort?  See if she will not notice and respond by submitting to your godly headship.  See if God will not work in her as you work out what God is working in you.  See if God will not throw open the storehouses of blessing on that kind of husband, on that kind of wife, on those kinds of children, on that kind of household, on that kind of church.

“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority” (Heb. 13:17).  Employees, honor and obey your earthly masters, rather than grumbling and putting in a half-effort (Eph. 6:5).  Churchmen and churchwomen, love your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Forgive them, as God in Christ forgave you (Eph. 4:32).

In other words, what am I saying?  Live the Christian life.  Do what God says and see what God will do.  See if that will not be the way of abundant blessing.  See if that will not result in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

To anyone who has not confessed Christ, to any unbeliever, I would say this:  Don’t attempt your own Hagar solution for your sin.  You are indeed a sinner.  I know because we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23).  You indeed deserve eternal death because we all do (Rom. 6:23).  God gave one and only one solution to this problem.  Cry out to Him, put your faith in Jesus Christ alone, confess and renounce your sins, walk on the narrow way of faith your whole life, persevere to the end, and then enter into glory.  That is the one solution.

There is no other way.  Self-help will not get you there.  That is a Hagar solution.  Positive thinking will not get you there.  That is a Hagar solution.  Atheism, false religion, being a good person—none of it will work.  Those are all manmade, Hagar solutions.  There is one way, the way of Jesus Christ.  “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

God did not adopt Sarai’s Hagar solution and He will not adopt yours either.  Don’t make an eternal mess out of your life, going to a hell of torment and agony because you decided you were going to do it your own way.  Don’t come up with your own Hagar solution.  You don’t need a Hagar solution.  God has a better way.  The best way.  The only way.  The promised way.  It was true for Sarai and it is true for us as well.

So come to Him by faith in Jesus Christ alone, the only way to be saved, and come today.  There is a time when it is too late.  There was a time when it was too late for Sarai.  Once Hagar became pregnant, it was too late to change her mind.  For us, that time is death.  We do not know when the hour of our death will be.  If we don’t go God’s way, we will see on that day, and we will want to change our mind, probably like Sarai did.  She probably said, “This was a bad idea.”  She did say, “This was a bad idea.  I want to change my mind.”  But it was too late to change her mind.  We will want to undo it, as Sarai did.  We will regret, as Sarai did.  But it will be too late.  And we will have eternal regret if we do not confess Christ as Lord.

Friends, don’t do your own thing.  Don’t come up with your own schemes.  Instead, trust in God today for your whole life and then go to Him in joy unspeakable and full of glory for all eternity.  Amen.

[1] P.  G.  Mathew, “How to Pass Tests, Part Two,” preached February 24, 2013, found at https://gracevalley.org/sermon/how-to-pass-tests-part-two/