Title: TRUSTING GOD VS. BIOLOGY 101

Focus: Trust God’s covenantal ways and promises, regardless of present-day circumstances.

Function: To encourage the people to walk in and trust in God’s expressed covenantal ways.

Text: Genesis 16:1-16

Scenario #1: Claire and Joe are Christians. They have been dating for about a year; and they have made a decision—based on convenience, efficiency, and love, (so they say), they are going to live together.

They found an apartment close to their work. It’s very convenient to live close to work. They save a lot of money; no longer do they have to pay for their own individual place. They now combine their resources and thus they will save a lot of money. How efficient! Of course, convenience and efficiency are not the main reasons for co-habitation. No, the main reason is that they love each other, so they say.

If the shoe of Joe and Claire’s cohabitation fits you, I suggest that you think twice and take a close look at the Scriptures today.

Scenario #2: Jill and Bruce have been married for 5 years; they have no children. They are childless, not for lack of knowing the fundamentals of biology 101; rather, there are medical reasons explained to them by their doctor.

The doctor knows that Jill and Bruce would love to have children, and thus he holds before this couple some possible options. One of the options that is more promising than the other is treatment with fertility drugs. There are, however, serious ethical considerations to take into account. What do you do, for example, when the fertility drugs lead to multiple fetuses in the womb? And what do you do if the viability of these fetuses is in jeopardy? Do you abort some of the embryos to save the others that are more viable?

This is not the place to explore these questions, nor do I have superior insights into these sensitive and sometimes painful settings and situations. Fertility struggles and childlessness are delicate matters that call for wisdom, spiritual discernment, prayer, and careful medical judgment and considerations.

I think, however, that today’s Scripture reading can be instructive for us in some of these matters brought up in scenarios one and two. That’s why I wish to emphasize that we must trust God’s covenantal ways and promises, regardless of present-day circumstances.

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You see, Abram’s and Sarai’s hassles with Hagar, the maidservant of Sarai, give us food for thought. The story gives us insight into God’s covenantal ways and promises. And those insights may be helpful and instructive for Christian living today.

Let’s begin with some facts. Genesis 16 ends with this line: “Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.” For today’s norms that’s a ripe-old age. Elsewhere in Scripture, however, we learn that Abram was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and Abram was 175 years old when he died. So perhaps 86 years old is not so old after all. You could almost say that Abram was in the prime of his life when Ishmael was born.

Here are some more facts: Sarai is 10 years younger than Abram. So when Ismael was born, Sarai was 76 years old. From a human stand point, then, Sarai surely was past the age of bearing children. In Romans 4:19 we read that Abram’s “…body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.” Surely, at the age of 76, Sarai realized that children from her womb would be an impossibility.

Here are some more facts: Sarai died at the age of 127 (Gen. 23). Abram remarried and he bore a number of sons by Keturah, his second wife or concubine. Thus Abram became the father of many nations. But only one son—Isaac—would be the child of the covenant promise. Only through Isaac would God form his very own people. Only through Isaac would God bless the nations of the world.

Telling facts may give us perspective; striking features may put us on notice. Here are two things that strike us in reading the story in Genesis 16. Did you notice? Sarai seems a bit unreasonable toward Abram. She gives him permission to sleep with Hagar; when things don’t go Sarai’s way, however, she blames Abram for her troubles: “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” Mmmm. That sounds like a marital spat, where emotions have the upper hand. I find Sarai’s response striking. But perhaps that’s a male thing.

The other striking feature is the absence of any distinct moral judgment upon the behavior of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar. To be sure, God does have an opinion about these desperate matters in Abram’s household, but you don’t find an explicit, divine statement of disapproval. God expresses his disapproval in very subtle ways in the story.

God does so by mixing sexual matters of biology 101 with covenantal matters of theology. In other words, Abram, Sarai, and Hagar’s bedroom manipulations will not derail God’s covenantal promise. God will have his way with us, even if we fail to trust God’s Word or choose to be disobedient. Telling facts give us perspective; striking features put us on notice. And slowly there emerges a message from God’s Word to all of us today: trust God’s covenantal ways and promises, regardless of present-day circumstances.

Here’s the story: Genesis 16 begins by stating Sarai’s relationship with Abram: “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.” In other words, Sarai and Abram are one as husband and wife. Thus it may come as a surprise that Sarai is opening the door of her marriage with Abram by offering him her maidservant, Hagar. We learn, however, that Sarai is barren. We also learn that Sarai sees her barrenness in relationship to God. Thus she says to Abram: “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram valued his marriage relationship with Sarai; though it was customary for many (esp. wealthy) men to have concubines in addition to their first wife, Abram has no mistresses or concubines. For a long time, Abram must have thought that God’s promise about a son would be fulfilled through Sarai, his wife.

But it seems that Sarai is giving up all hope for a child from her own womb. She can’t build a family for Abram. So, she does what is customary in her days as well: she offers her maidservant as a potential birth mother. Abram must get Hagar pregnant; Hagar must deliver the offspring to Sarai; and Sarai will do the rest of raising the child, so that God would have his way with Abram and so that God’s promise would be fulfilled after all.

So Sarai comes up with a plan. Abram obliges, and Hagar is the key player. But what about trusting in and living by God’s covenantal ways and promises? Tinkering with God’s covenantal promise is foolish and leads to misery. When we mess with God’s promises and covenantal ways, we get “burned.”

You see, Sarai’s goal of building a family in her own way and Abram’s action of sleeping with Hagar do not take into account the wrench that Hagar throws into Sarai’s master plan. Hagar gets pregnant, and all of a sudden Hagar feels superior to Sarai. She sees herself as the birth mother and thus the matriarch of Abram’s household or family line.

The seemingly powerless maidservant from Egypt is no longer willing to play the way of submission to her mistress. Oh no, she has the power to enrich Abram with a child in her womb, while her mistress is powerless.

Hagar despises Sarai.

And Sarai feels the mockery and pride of Hagar. Sarai’s relationship with Abram is changing now that Hagar is acting as the matriarch in Abram’s tent. Things are going horribly wrong. So, Sarai blames Abram and appeals to him to change the situation, lest Sarai looses full control of her marital status with Abram.

Abram recognizes Sarai’s dilemma, and he gives her full control of the situation: “Your servant (Hagar) is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best.” Sarai obliges, and she mistreats Hagar—so badly that Hagar flees from Sarai and Abram’s tent.

Hagar does not care about God’s promise to Abram. Hagar is not willing to play second fiddle to Sarai. In fact, Hagar wants to build her own future. She goes back to Egypt; she takes her unborn child with her—away from Abram, safe in her womb.

But God interferes. The angel of the Lord confronts Hagar with her sin of pride. He asks: “Hagar, where have you come from and where are you going?” In other words, why are you leaving Abram’s tent and why are you going to Egypt? And the angel of God confronts Hagar with her sin of rebellion by pointing out her proper place in the tent of Abram and Sarai.

Listen: “Hagar, servant of Sarai….” And when Hagar responds by saying, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” (thus recognizing that her own place is that of being a maidservant), the angel of the Lord responds, saying: “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” In other words, Hagar must know and keep her place in the household of Abram and Sarai.

Then the angel of the Lord makes a promise to Hagar and also a prediction about her child. “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count…You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your misery.” God does not condone the misery and maltreatment that Abram and especially Sarai have caused for Hagar. God secures Hagar’s future and destiny therefore.

But Hagar’s child, Ishmael, will not be the child of God’s promise to Abram. The blessings of God’s salvation to the world through Abram’s seed, through Christ Jesus himself, will be through another child—a child that is to come from Sarai’s womb.

In fact, Hagar’s child will be in competition, in hostile contention with Abram and Sarai’s child of the promise. Thus the angel of the Lord said: “Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him. And he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

If Abram and Sarai would have rested in God’s covenantal ways and promises, the history of God’s people Israel would have been so different. From a human point of view, their action is understandable. Biology 101 led them to follow plan B with Hagar. Theology—resting in God’s promise, however, would have been the better way. It’s the way of faith and trust. That’s why I say it again: Trust God’s covenantal ways and promises, regardless of present-day circumstances.

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There are a number of applications that rise from this Scripture passage. I will mention two: #1:Trust God’s covenantal way for sexual purity and marriage. As Christians, committed to God’s Word, we must learn to walk in and trust in God’s expressed covenantal ways. Claire and Joe, in scenario 1 know from Scripture that God’s people must learn to ‘keep the marriage bed pure.” Scripture is very clear about sexual immorality and promiscuity and loose, immoral living. If we choose to go against God’s covenantal way of marriage and sexual purity, we invite misery and pain and sinful consequences into our lives.

The world’s way of co-habitation, fornication, and instant sexual gratification may be acceptable for many, but it is not the way of God as found in Scriptures. Convenience, expediency, experimentation and the pull of having fallen in love with each other is not, cannot, and will never become an acceptable motivation or excuse to violate God’s covenantal ways with us. Learn from Abram and countless people whose stories are told in Scripture. In such cases as Claire and Joe’s, misery and disappoints are likely to follow us.

#2: Biology matters, but do practice theology. Jill and Bruce, in scenario 2 may avail to medical science and biology in trying to overcome their struggle with infertility. But they, as well as you and I, do well to practice theology as well. That is, we do well to always keep in mind God’s Word and ways with us.

Biology and medical science provide us with tremendous blessings. These blessings we may see as part of God’s grace to us today. Biology and medical science also provide us with ethical choices, with boundaries that we should be hesitant to cross, or with consequences that are unforeseen and hard to justify.

For example, using fertility drugs to increase the chance of pregnancy may be a legitimate choice to make. But discovering that you have 8 or 10 embryos in your womb, 7 of which must be extinguished in order to deliver

healthy offspring or to save your own life, may be cause for anguish and anxiety. Yes, biology matters. So does consideration of God’s will and ways for us, and so does prayer. So does waiting, so does suffering, and so does resting in God’s covenantal ways.

Sometimes, I meet people who confidently enter into family planning: “We’ll wait with having kids till we are 32; then we’ll decide on one or two children.” Biologically such planning is possible today. But theologically, we must never forget that God has a hand in the children we have or receive or do not receive. Only unbelievers today will say that children are conceived in the confinement of a bedroom for example. But informed Christians do not stop there; we recognize God’s hand in the beginning of human life and in the formation of our offspring.

Some choices are very hard; some circumstances very painful; the life of Christian discipleship and the pilgrimage of faith call for trust. Trust and keep God’s covenantal ways and promises, regardless of present-day circumstances. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.