Keith Battle - SideChickology - Part 1

I’m just amazed by the speed of social media and the advent of technology. You probably already know what I’m talking about. Mm-hmm. If you don’t know, my subject is sidechickology, and I am dead serious. I received this message the same way I get all of them. This is the word for this church today: sidechickology is dead without a beast! Could you be living with sidechicks? Let’s pray. Father, please speak to us in a helpful way today. This is a very serious subject. I pray that somebody would be enlightened, empowered, delivered, rescued, protected, and saved—families saved, marriages saved, and rescued. Do something supernatural as a result of this word. Reveal ourselves to You for instruction—in Jesus' name, Amen.

I happen to be in love with a Lord, with a God who doesn’t just encourage me when I’m wrong or when I’m down, but He corrects me when I’m wrong. We should love and appreciate that side of God too—not just those messages that say, «It’s going to be alright, it’s going to be alright, ” but we should appreciate those messages that say, „You know what? You need to get it together; you even have some problems.“ Some messages are warnings, and this one seems to fall into that category for us.

I want to look at this topic in the Bible. The people I’m going to look at weren’t called sidechicks; they were called mistresses. I figured we would just connect the term to modernity. I could have called it a „jump-off,“ but that wouldn’t have been nice, so we’re going to go with „sidechick.“ And my room? My guest is going to be really quiet in here, especially during this service. It’s going to be pretty, pretty quiet. This is the pin-drop service, I’m telling you right now. Maybe a whole lot of „Come on, say that!“ Most people would be terribly uncomfortable throughout this entire presentation. I can tell you right now—people are going to be squirming, everybody’s going to the bathroom, people are going to try to say they are texting someone, right now telling somebody to text them and say, „Please call me in five minutes because I need to get out of this sanctuary right now.“ I’ve got to get out of this message. But we pray that this would be helpful to you. If you hear any laughter, it’s probably going to be very nervous laughter.

We’re going to get through it. Genesis chapter 16—I want to tell you what I think makes sidechicks possible, what I think makes the Isaacs possible. Sidechicks enter where there is a deficit. They seem to be effective at picking up where there is lack. In Genesis chapter 16, one of the most prominent sidechicks in history is a lady named Hagar. Now Hagar was an official sidechick; she was a concubine, a mistress. Some of these sidechicks don’t even have an official title; they are simply sidechicks without any license. She was married, but she was married to somebody else’s husband who set her up to be in a supportive role.

Let me read it to you. Genesis 16:1: „Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.“ So Sarai said to Abram, „The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant.“ By the way, I’m just going to sit down and talk to y’all. It’s going to be a conversation—just like we are out to dinner, at a restaurant, having a conversation. Just conversing.

So Sarai says, „You know, I can’t have children. Why don’t you sleep with my servant? Perhaps I can have children through her.“ At the end of verse 2, Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. I always chuckle at that because he didn’t even say, „Nah, baby, we don’t do that. We’ve just got to stay. I ain’t gonna compromise.“ She said, „You want to have sex with somebody else?“ He said, „Hey, yeah! I’ll do that. Let’s go with that.“

Verse 3: „So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram as a wife. This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.“ So now Sarai, or Sarah, cannot have children. So in comes Hagar, the sidechick.

In Genesis chapter 29, in verse 31, there is another sidechick named Leah. Leah has a sister named Rachel. I’ll read more about her later, but they are both married to the same man named Jacob. Listen to what the Bible says about Leah: „When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved”—that’s by Jacob—“He enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive.“ Now I read those two things because this is where I think sidechicks originate. Sidechicks emerge when there is something the wife is either unable to do or perhaps unwilling to do. Sidechicks emerge when there is something that a wife is unable to do—like having children—as Sarah and Rachel were unable to do, or sometimes the sidechick emerges when there is something a wife is unwilling to do.

Like sometimes wives are unwilling to have fun with their husbands—like to go water skiing, jet skiing, or to the movies with their husbands. Some husbands don’t feel supported or celebrated by their wives, and you’d be surprised. This is what’s deep: when a man is unfaithful to his wife, usually the woman he’s unfaithful with is not more…