John K. Jenkins Sr - Baby Mama Drama

When I was growing up, I'm 52; I'll be 53 on October 11th. Write that down and put it on your calendar. Um, when I was growing up , you wouldn't dream of the kind of experiences and expenses that we see as commonplace today in our culture . It 's nothing now for the kind of drama that goes on , but the reality is that baby mama drama is not new. If you go back through the Bible, there are many stories of baby mama drama, and one of them is in Genesis chapter 21. What I want to do for a moment is just walk you through this story about Abraham and his wife Sarah. In this 21st chapter of Genesis, let me give you some background to the passage so that we can lead up to what happens in this chapter . God had told Abraham and his wife that he was going to be the father of a great nation. The problem is, he had no kids, and no matter how much he and his wife tried, they could not conceive a child. God had made the promise, but yet they were unable to conceive. So, Sarah-her name at the time was Sarai- made a suggestion to her husband to help God out. How many know you get in trouble when you try to help God out? She makes a suggestion to her husband: "Take my maid, sleep with my maid, and she'll be able to give you a child." And Abraham resisted her suggestions . I wish you knew the Bible because the Bible says what the Bible says : Sarah made the suggestion, and the next verse says Abraham went into Hagar . There was no debate, no discussion, no wrestling, no dialogue; homeboy just went right on in, and born to them was Hagar and Abraham's son, Ishmael. From the moment of Hagar's conception , something was birthed in her heart, an attitude that Sarah picked up, and there's drama that starts between these two. I want to say to the Sarahs of today: when God has made a promise to you , and it's not happening as rapidly as you want it to happen, you don't need to assist God or help God out. I want you to think about the many things in your life. God didn't say something, and you feel like you have to help God out. Here we find in this text that Sarah tries to help God out , and she makes this suggestion . The downfall is that here we are, thousands of years later, and the consequences of those choices are the conflict between Israel and the Arabs because those are the descendants of Abraham. So she makes this suggestion, Ishmael is born, and that's in chapter 16 . By the time we get to chapter 21, finally, 25 years after the promise, Sarah conceives. Abraham is 100 years old; he's an old dude, and Sarah is pregnant at 75. Now what's amazing is, walk with me through this story. I'm just going to read through the passage right here and highlight some things. So I 've got five points. The first thing I want to talk about is the celebration. The first eight verses describe a moment of celebration. They are celebrating because Sarah finally conceives and gives birth to this child. Verse 1: "And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him ." And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him , Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him, and Sarah said, "God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me." She also said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age." Verse 7, verse 8: "So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned." So it is a season of celebration; they've got a child, he gets his son. It is the fulfillment of the promise God has made to him. The son finally weans from his mother , and it is a season of celebration. But look at your neighbor and say, "Celebration doesn 't last long." C-verse 9 starts a point of conflict, point two is conflict. I'm doing C's today; the big bird letter for the day is C, celebration. The first eight verses, beginning at verse 9, there's conflict . Now take a look at this conflict. It says in verse 9: "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore she said to Abraham, 'Cast out this bondwoman and her son , for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac .'" And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham's sight because of his son. Now get the picture: she sees something in this son, Ishmael, that she doesn't like. He's scoffing, so she goes to her husband and says, "He's got to go! Hey, ho! She's got to go!" Now I'm amazed that, based on who you talk to, by this point in time Ishmael is close to 19 years of age. So I'm amazed that Hagar and her son have lived with Abraham ...