Keith Battle - A Word For The Forgotten

My subjective day is a word for the forgotten. I’ve studied this passage and preached it many times, and typically, because I’m a father and a husband, I tend to focus on our natural tendencies, hermeneutics, and homiletics. I often highlight Abraham, the father of the faith, and emphasize that side of the story. However, what’s suggested here includes Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, who have a son named Isaac together. On the other hand, there is Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. So, Abraham has two wives and two sons by two different women, and they live in the same house. Think about that for a moment. Consider having all those eyes on you. Some of you might feel troubled in your spirits just contemplating how this arrangement could possibly work. What happened was that God had promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations, but he was 75 years old when God made that promise, and his wife was 65 years old. They had tried to have children unsuccessfully for about ten years. Eventually, Sarah said, «This is not working. I have a servant, Hagar. She’s an Egyptian and my mistress; she works for me. You can marry her, and you can have a baby with her, and maybe I can have children through her.» It’s interesting how we try to make God fulfill His promise using human means. When you want something so badly that you exclude God, it doesn’t matter what means you use to obtain it because you haven’t submitted to God how you’re going about getting it. So now we have this situation. The tendency is to focus on the family of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, but I don’t want to forget about the other family—the one that was shunned and sidelined: Ishmael and his mother, Hagar. I want to talk to the forgotten people today. I want to preach to those who didn’t grow up in a perfect family, to people who didn’t experience the American Dream with a father like Abraham and an honorable mother like Sarah, especially those whose fathers are known in the community and wealthy, while others lived literally without silver spoons in their mouths and without a perfect environment. I want to preach to those who came from families where you might even feel uncertain about your father’s identity. Some of you have fathers who have passed away, and you may have siblings you didn’t even know existed until a funeral. I’m talking about those families where the branches are multifaceted and complicated. Now, you can act like it’s all perfect, but we know better. There are people like Ishmael, who represent our mistakes. As T.D. Jakes once said, you can live with your miracle and your mistake in your life at the same time. This was not a good decision made by this family. I want to speak to these people; I have seven things to share. I don’t know if I will get through all of them, but here are most of the seven things I want to say to the forgotten. First of all, in this story, as it unfolds, when Sarah made the suggestion to Abraham about having a sexual relationship with Hagar to have a baby, it’s interesting that he didn’t turn it down. In chapter 14, he turned down money he probably shouldn’t have accepted from a king, but in chapter 16, he couldn’t turn down sex that he probably shouldn’t have engaged in. I mention this because you must always be careful when you think you have it all together; you can be strong in one area and not even know you’re weak in another. The Bible says, «Let every man take heed that thinks he stands, lest he falls.» Now, when Hagar realized she was pregnant, the Bible says in Genesis 16:5 that she began to treat Sarah with contempt. The word «contempt» is a Hebrew word, «qalal,» which means to think lightly of or to make light of. What happened was that when she got pregnant, she started losing respect for Sarah. The Bible never says she verbally disrespected her; she just began to act differently toward her. Abraham was unaware of this because when women sense things, they often can feel when something is wrong. A woman can sense trouble coming in the neighborhood, even if others don’t catch it until it’s right in their home. Tension began to build. Sarah said, «This is your fault,» and Abraham replied, «No, she’s your mistress; you can treat her however you see fit.» Sarah treated Hagar so meanly and so poorly that Hagar left. Hagar’s name means «to flee»; she lived out her name. Be careful what you name someone. You’re pronouncing things over children; names can often be cute rather than purposeful. I know the names might be cute, but what do they really mean? What are you projecting? So, she lived out her name and went on the run—she ran in Genesis chapter 16.