JAN 29 2023 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S3E1 | Behind The Curtain; Season 4

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain S4E1 · "Behind The Curtain; Season 4" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · January 29, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hello, it's good. Good morning church. Welcome. My name is Adam. Boji and I serve along you like that. Is that better? All right. Good morning. Again. My name is Adam boji, and I have the privilege of serving alongside these Amazing Security team that we have out front. Today we're going to be reading through the Book of Genesis starting in chapter 16 and verse 3.

So after Abram had been living in Canaan in ten years Sarai his wife took the Egyptian maid servant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived when she knew she was pregnant. She began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said Abram 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 your service and in your hands Abram said do with her whatever you think is best. Then serai mistreated Hagar. So she fled from her the angel the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert. It was the spring that is beside the road to sure and he said to her Hagar servant of Sarai. Where have you come from? And where are you going?

I am running away from my mistress Sarai. She answered then the angel of the Lord told her go back to your mistress and submit to her. Then the angel added I will also increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count. Then the angel of the Lord also told her you are now with child and you will have a son you shall name him Ishmael for the Lord has heard your misery and he 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. She gave his name to the Lord who spoke to her. You were the God who sees me for she said for now. I have seen one whom sees me. That is why the well was called beer Lea Roy. It was still there between Kadesh and bread.

So hagerbore Abram a son and Abram gave him the name Ishmael to the son. She had born Abram was 86 years old when Hager bore him Ishmael the word of the Lord. What was your reaction to your husband's disclosure? To Jonathan dimboby that he had in fact committed adultery. Well, I I was totally unaware of content of the book. And actually saw it on the news that night that it would come out and my first concern was to the children.

because they were able to understand what was coming out and I wanted to protect them, but I was pretty devastated myself. But then I admired the honesty because it takes a lot to do that. In what sense? Well to be honest about a relationship with someone else. in his position quite something How did you handle this with the children?

I went to the school. and put it To William particularly that if you find someone you love in life you must hang on to it and look after it and you were very lucky to find something if you were lucky enough to find someone who loves you no one was protected. William asked me what have been going on. And could I answer his questions at which I did he said?

Was that the reason why our marriage broken up and I said, well there were three of us in this marriage and the pressure of the media was another Factor. So the two together were very difficult. But although I still love Papa I couldn't live under the same roof of him and likewise with him. Wow, maybe remember that interview that was heavy and as we move into Genesis now.

Brand new season of The Genesis series behind the curtain we're looking at a royal family. Remember Abraham and Sarai become Abram in Sarai become Abraham and Sarah and God sees them as royalty and other nations see them as a royalty as well. And it's a royal family that is in complete chaos. You have three people in a marriage here in this passage alone. And you see the classic marks of dysfunction.

I think behind the scenes as we look at them. Again. We want to take cues for our own lives in our own relationships. It's easy to look at the scripture and just say well faith will, you know be counted as righteousness and look at all the theological things that are happening in this passage, but behind the scenes, these are real people. I've always said that you could be in the Bible any of us could be in the Bible. They were just normal people just like us that God used for Extraordinary things. And as you look at Abram and Sarah, I they have a relation.

Ship and they have a family that is completely torn apart in so many ways and so behind the scenes this week. I want to look at the family element of it the familial aspect of it behind the theological aspect. We're going to get to the theology. We're going to get to the great faith where he sacrifices or his willing to sacrifice his son and all the stories, you know, but there is a lot going behind the scenes here and we want to be a practical church. We want to be a church that helps you live your life in a better way and make better decisions as I looked at started studying the dysfunctional family that you're gonna see here. You're gonna see some telltale signs.

I came across a list of nine marks of the dis Hallmarks of the dysfunctional family. This is what it was number one. Members often deny responsibility for their hurtful Behavior. We actually see that happening. We see that with Sarai which she starts blaming Abraham for a decision that she made members use intimidation to maintain power in the family.

Certain member of family members needs are expendable. Maybe we've seen that. We're just certain family members. They don't get heard. Reality is difficult to discern number five victims are responsible for their abusive victims are made responsible for their abusive Behavior. You see that In this passage family appearance is deceptive.

We got this perfect family going on. I remember my mom. She took it down. We had this picture of our family in the 70s and everything looked amazing and my mom one day said, you know, that's the way we were and I said, well, I'm just glad we're not that way anymore, you know, but everything looked perfect on the outside there was you know, all the other things that were going on behind the scenes. There is no straightforward and healthy communication healthy emotions are not valued they exhibit poor boundaries. Well, I think taking your maid servant and asking your husband to sleep with her. It's probably a sign of some poor boundaries that are going on there.

Just saying just up to me. So Pretty pretty dramatic things but it's little things that can actually oftentimes lead to this and what I wanted to say, if you're looking your notes I wanted to really show that God is also a character in the family. God created the nuclear family as the government that will run the Earth there are governments that work with families, but we never want to let the power of the individual family the locus of control the local government of the family be broken down and to be superseded by a governmental system. God intends for Godly families Godly individuals building Godly families to be where everything else comes from as a church. That's what we are excited about.

One of the things that Christianity is excited about and what I put here is in the notes is this few things hinder the work of God like a family steeped in chaos. dysfunction and emotional turmoil Genesis 16 tells the story of a broken family that God won't give up on what's the key? God tells the story of the story Genesis 16 of A Dysfunctional chaotic broken family and it's pretty easy to have been a part of one of those or to have that happen in our own lives or to have come out of it to see all this chaos and to be overwhelmed as we saw in Nehemiah by the rubble.

Okay, that Nehemiah is overwhelmed sometimes by the rubble, but God takes the rubble the broken Stones as you remember from a couple series ago and he rebuilds the walls with that broken Rubble. I come from a family myself that had some of the major Hallmarks of this dysfunction. But over a series of years and decades God has shaped that and changed it. My wife said at the dinner table, we have a family night a regular family night once a week.

And my wife was sitting around the table the other night and she said, you know what I love our family and I can remember, you know, loving things. We did as a family and certain things and loving all the individual members of a family but I'm not sure if you would have asked me when I was 12 that any of us would have said we loved our family in that way.

And so what we want to put on display for you today is that God wants to be a part of your story and God is Redemptive and redeeming in the story. Let's look at the characters here. Characters God being the one the main one that we're going to see first you have Sarai. Remember, her name has not been changed to Sarah yet. Sarai is she's at this point in her story The manipulative and controlling victim. She's manipulative.

She's controlling and she's the victim. What a fun partly you get to be all three of those right? I know somebody like that. Abram the dishonest he was dishonest. We'll see and disengaged fatherhood father. Dishonest and disengaged read a statistic today that the number one reason why women have affairs is that their partner no longer pays attention to them.

Number one reason men have affairs. This is what it said to the thing because she was hot. Seriously like that stupid like that show the difference between men and women. It actually said that because I'm doing a podcast tomorrow call What Love Got to Do With It with about five of our 20 somethings out of Joe's group and we're going to be interviewing and talking about some of these statistics dating and Tinder and all these other things. We're gonna be talking about it.

But he was disengaged you want to lose your marriage men disengage disengage from listening disengage from seeing disengage from caring you want to I'm not saying your wife's gonna have an affair. But that was the number one reason and I saw that as I was doing these things he was the dishonest and disengaged father now all that changes for him.

Here's the good thing. You can change your story. You can change your story at any point. You can jump and get on a different track in the moment. Jesus redeems in the moment and you can change your story. We see Hagar. Hagar actually it's maybe you didn't know this not only the maid servant she actually if you read in that scripture becomes a second wife, I had never seen that before I thought she was always just the maid servant that was given so that Sarah could have this child through her maid serve and I don't really know how the legality of that work. But for some reason Sarah was supposed to get the benefits of having a son through the maid servant.

She actually it says in the passage gave her to be the wife. What a great situation. That is I would say women bad call. Okay, you you don't want to do that. And so we see that Hagar is ambitious ambitious. And yet mistreated maid servant. Let's look at Sarai. Let's look at these characters. Maybe not what I don't want is this you go home today and like hey, he was talking to you, you know, and I look at yourself. We all have a part to play in the dance.

We all have a part to play. This is to look at ourselves and for each of us to make some big changes and different. So the first of Sarai we see Sarai on this passage Sarai means contentious. and quarrelsome Contentious in quarrelsome. And so there seems to be this contention now God changes her name. We know that God wants to change our names as well. And he often has a name that will reflect the actions of the person.

Let's look at her a little bit. First of all, we know that she was Barren in Genesis 11:30 five chapters before this. It says now Sarah was barren. And she had no child. Now one of the things you're going to know about antiquity. Is an Antiquity is not like today. Antiquity didn't have the luxury. Of marrying, someone due to attraction if attraction happened it was a bonus Antiquity was not about attraction. It was about survival.

And you were going to see people trying to survive here. They're doing anything that they can to survive and one of the reasons that women in this culture found their value in being able to produce children and especially male children was for protection and work in the field because you would want to have as many children as possible because it could build your Clan it could build the size of of your family and it actually brings protection to the family. It wasn't about attraction everything. These days is about attraction as long as you're attracted. Everything's cool.

There was a utilitarian understanding here and she was barren. And so this really tied into the self-worth of women of this time of this time. If you could not provide that it wasn't about the latest look that Kim Kardashian was putting out there. If you could pull that off or whatever it would be it was about can you provide sustenance stability and you can you provide male heirs for that very reason and so you have to realize there was a woman here who felt that she had no value.

She looked and she felt that she had no value. I think one of the best things that husbands can do with in relationships is continued to value your wives and let them know they are of value with your actions. And so for one reason or another she was finding her value in that and it was causing her as to be manipulative and controlling you'll see that in a moment. Sometimes we live in survival mode it often. We get pushed against the walls and then we start making bad decisions survival mode causes bad decisions and if we don't look at our issues in the in the in the face and make changes we stay in that survival mode. If you've been in survival mode for you know, three to five years six years, but they say sometimes probably decisions. We're making on our own not always sometimes there's sickness and things like that. But obviously we see that also we see that she was actually trafficked by her husband. That's a modern word. But once again, Abraham was in survival mode in Genesis 12:13. He goes to Egypt because of a famine.

And during the famine he says hey, we're going to go in there and she must have been a looker because he said they're gonna see you they're gonna think you're amazing looking and they're gonna basically kill me and take you. So if you go in and see me as your wife because there was an honorable thing where they would say. Hey, well the barter with you, you know what I mean? Like, hey, you know your sister would you marry your sister to me and we'll work this out because everything was based on Survival right wasn't based on the luxuries we have in a western Society with margin. It was based on this and that in Genesis.

It says 12:13 say you are my sister. He's already married to her at this point. That it may go well with me because of you. And that my life may be spared for your sake. See at this point there wasn't the faith of Abraham willing to die for God willing to trust his whole life with him. He was terrified. He's going into a new place. They have no nothing to eat. They're moving in and he says just tell them you're my sister and they take him up on that bargain. Now as I said to the ladies bad decision with Hagar dudes bad decision. Okay as we see that So we see that she was traffic imagine feeling that way imagine that the feeling that she would have now maybe in that Society. She would have understood it as like okay.

This is just how things go. I don't know. I don't understand a mind from 3500 years ago, but it would have to speak to your value to say that you know, he wasn't worth he like dying. He wasn't worth it. He would rather trade me than die for me. Any woman who feels that way is not going to feel valued in the marriage and so there is that in that we see that she's traffic incredibly complex characteristics. Let's go to verse 3 she was controlling. So we say that she was Barren. She was trafficked. She was controlling no wonder look at the life. She was living at the moment. It says so after Abram had been living in Canaan for 10 years Sarah's his wife took her Egyptian maid servant and gave her to her husband to be his wife. She was trying to control the circumstances Abraham. She really did not need to provide for Abraham at this point. Why because he had been to Egypt and when he ended up leaving Egypt because remember Pharaoh came to him and he said hey, there's all these plagues over my family. That's not your sister. That's your wife, dude. And now I'm getting all these plagues against me. You got to go.

And he says you are a you know, obviously God is on your side. I don't want to mess with God and then he says I'm going to give you all of this treasure. I'm going to give you servants. So basically when Abraham left because God's hand was on Abraham even after he had made a mistake. God redeemed it when Abraham left Egypt that first time he left with a bounty. Sarah didn't actually need to produce for him anymore, but she was still locked in that mindset.

Of having to and she became controlling now. Here's one thing that's interesting Hagar as we'll see in a moment. It is believed I went to the Jewish encyclopedia Hagar was the daughter of pharaoh. Now I had never known that it is believed I read in the in the Muslim history. But if you go to Jewish encyclopedia, are you just Google not at the moment Hagar daughter my wife as soon as I do that she'll just be Googling and then she's gone for 15 minutes of the sermon down. The rabbit hole that Hagar was actually a daughter a pharaoh and he gave his daughter because they saw Abram as royalty. Once again. Like we saw at the beginning would die. This is a royal family in turmoil. And then now they have the daughter of pharaoh really interesting that remember when Moses or later on in the story goes into the Reeds who picks him up the daughter of pharaoh picks him back up and then he becomes a son of the household it goes full circle where he becomes an adopted son of the Pharaoh Moses does if you remember that story really unique interesting Biblical history there.

But she was controlling and then she also played the victim. And Sarai said to Abraham you are responsible for the wrong. I am suffering. Funny right like she made up like he has nothing to do with it other than listening to her voice and it did say that earlier on that. He'd listened to her voice. I want to encourage you. The number one voice we need to listen to is God not our spouse.

We need to listen to the voice of our spouse but it needs to be weighed against God and when it says that Abram listened to his wife's voice the meaning of the word listen there means to as if instead of listening to the voice of God, she said I put my servant in your arms and now she knows she is pregnant and despises me. May the lord judge between you and me that was actually a stupid comment because if the Lord had to judge between him and her Lord was taking Abraham's side.

We're pretty sure of that, but she was desperate. Let's look at Abraham. Abraham called Abram at the time. Let's go to verse 4. I'm going to show that he's weak. Abraham is weak in verse 4. It says he slept with Hagar. She conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress give that a moment ago that he was he just folded to whatever his spouse wanted that goes either way right that can go either way. You don't want to disappoint somebody finding that balance between, you know Finding unity and also following God is difficult in a marriage but we see that he was weak. He wasn't the strong man that he would become and we know that he actually becomes an incredibly strong man who God, you know bases the entire faith upon And then finally in verse 6 Not only was he weak he was disengaged verse 6.

your servant is in your hands Abraham said do with her whatever you think is best leave me out of it. That is not the way to be a man in a relationship. The way to be in a man in a relationship is to have a dialogue to hear your wife to see your wife and to actually figure out what God is trying to do as she does as well and be able to give and counsel from the perspective of God. He was not doing that the role of a man one of the roles of a man is to lead in a family and one of the roles of women women is to lead in a family and we lead and we choose in different ways because we both need to lead right but he was usurping his responsibility to let her know what God would say, he was a somebody who would eventually speak the Oracles of God, but he couldn't even speak to his wife.

You see sometimes we use serp our responsibility. We abscond our responsibility because it's easy because we don't want to deal with it because we don't want to stand up to make a difference Abram means High father Abram means High father. Remember Sarah. I meant Sarah as we looked at it meant contentious and quarrelsome. We'll see in a moment. These names are gonna be changed. Why because there's somebody else in the story, right?

God, let's not forget. Let's just remember him real quick in the story. There's somebody else in this story God who is having something to say about it Hagar? What's Hagar mean? He's forsaken. Hagar means forsaken according to Muslim and Jewish belief. She was the daughter of the king of Egypt who was gifted to Abram's wife Sarah or Sarai.

She was also arrogant showed some arrogance there in verse 4. He slept with Hagar and she conceived when she knew she was pregnant. She began to despise her mistress. If you read the Jewish encyclopedia, you're gonna see it says the story. I don't know where they get all this back story that Sarai had to convince her to do this that even that even Hagar thought. This was a bad decision. And as it was telling that story Sarah I was doing anything in her power to control the situation that's opposite of the story of Faith.

Remember if you look at the heroes of the faith and Hebrews that is we see Abram Abraham after his name has been changed being one of the fathers of the faith, but it wasn't there yet. So where we are is not always where we're going to end up being and so the final thing we see is that she was forsaken. if you want to go to verse 7 the angel of the Lord found Hagar circle found Hagar near a spring in the desert love that.

Love that. Would have been easy for God to say Hey, you know, she's an Egyptian maid. We know it's going to happen with Pharaoh. We know what's going to happen with Joseph and Moses and she's just as an Egyptian maid servant. She doesn't really factor into the line of what's Happening into the story. Let's just read disregard her.

But he doesn't disregard her one of the reasons he doesn't is because he made a promise to Abram and the promise to Abraham Abram was that I will turn your descendants into a great nation. I will turn your descendants into a great nation. And so we begin to see this Redemptive Ark happening in her life. And you see that one of the things that's really interesting as you look at Hagar because God had promised he would turn him into a great nation. God does do that and he has to honor his promise one of the reasons that's why Hagar is considered by the Muslim people.

She is in the line of Muhammad. She goes back to Muhammad. And then also the Arabic people are believed to come from Hagar. You know all that stuff that happens in the Middle East. this this is why. This decision this splitting where God says, I will make you the greatest a secondary. Basically, he says, you know, I'm paraphrasing you will be a secondary Nation you will be that your son will be the you will be the mother of a great nation of a great people. Well Abram he says your son will be of many nations. And so he all he's able to honor both in that but you see this conflict that is happening because of these, you know this decision that they made this conflict that was happening that we see with Abram and Hagar and so as we continue on I want to I want to say this that God sees you as you look in this box again, Actually, forgive me go to verse 7 again.

My bad. I'm gonna get to that. The angel Lord found Hagar and that's one thing I wanted to make sure I said today and I want and that's why I'm going back. I want to say no where no matter where you are. God sees you there. And he can find you there. And where you are? And his presence is there is a spring that can bring refreshment to that place no matter where you are.

I've seen the worst family stories redeemed. There after 30 years of doing this. There is not a family story. There is not a There is not a a kink in the story that I have probably not seen at this point and I've seen so many of them redeemed God can redeem your story and I love that that what she says at the end because this is really the Redemptive Arc and if you are not on the redempt of our maybe now is the time to start that Redemptive Arc in verse 11 the angel. Oh Lord also said to her you are now with child. You will have a son his name shall be Ishmael for the Lord heard of your misery.

Say the Lord if you have misery cry out to the Lord. God hears your misery. He will be a wild document man. Go on to verse 13 she gave him the name the Lord spoke to her. You're the and she said you are the God who sees me. I have now seen the one who sees me. I just felt like I was supposed to reaffirm to you that if you might feel out in the wilderness.

You might feel like you're in the desert nowhere to go. God sees you and he wants to redeem your story arc. We have a story arc and he can redeem and we can step into that redemption or we continue to step into the dysfunction. It is often up to us. God sees you. He remembers you. He is for you. God is the Redeemer of broken stories and broken families.

Guaranteed this is what God wanted me to say to you today. guaranteed prayed this week. I said God. What do you want me to say? There's a lot of places I could go here. I could do the theology. I could get to Jesus I could get to all the different parts of faith. Or I could talk about families and God said to say this and I and I spent time writing this I didn't just first thing that came to my head.

Felt like the Lord wanted me to say to you God sees you. He remembers you. He is for you. God is the Redeemer of broken stories and broken families. Sarai as we come in for our Landing Sarai has a story that is healed Genesis 17 a chapter later. Says 15 through 17 and God said to Abram as for Sarah I your wife. You will not call her Sarah. I remember what that meant right meant contentious.

But Sarah will be her name. That means princess. It's a big story arc change. Contentious you go. Look look up in the Proverbs contentious woman and see what comes up just do it. Four five of them in there talk about that contentious woman. Give you a couple hints better to live on the corner of a roof than with a contentious woman.

This is one of them. You can look up the rest. Says my stuff about men too. So don't you all worry? Okay. I will bless her this princess and more over I will give you a Sun by her. I will bless her and she shall become Nations. Kings of people shall come from her. Oh, let me do that again. That's fun to do. Look at where she was.

Look at the Brokenness Barren trafficked like set aside no self-worth just there in that play and out of that was coming all this dysfunction and hate and anger and everything that she was doing was coming out of that place. But God says I have a promise. I have a promise for him and God has a promise for you. What we step into it. She's no longer Sarah. I Sarah let's go to verse you'll see in the notes. There were Genesis 22 17 through 18. Abram is no longer Abram Abram means hi Father.

Right. He wasn't being a high father. He's being a Father who was disengaged. It says I'll surely bless you and I'll surely multiply your Offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore and your Offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in your Offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

Wow. wow weak and disengaged weak and disengaged to that. Men if you were disengaged get your act together. Re-engage reengage with God your father we engage with your children we engage with your wife. Disengage from things that will move the the compass of your heart in a different direction man up. Man up and have character. We have got to be men that make a difference fathers matter.

We live in a society where we're a fatherless generation and the fatherless Society fix your marriage work on your stuff. Look your children in the eye. Look your wife in the eye or whatever. It is that you're whatever is happening make a difference. We'll talk to the women tomorrow night on the podcast. We'll see what they have to say about things like this. We'll put that out before that before Valentine's Day.

We'll let them let them speak out for themselves, right? Got some good questions. Final one Hagar. Look at this story arc the angel little burst nine the angel of the Lord told her go back to your mistress and submit to her. That's tough word. Didn't change her name interesting. The angel addits I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.

Number one religion in the world the largest people group in the world is Christians. in the world still God said I'm going to do that to Abraham. That's true. You know number two is Muslims right Maybe the story is right. Maybe it's coincidence. I don't know. Since then he I was so increased the sense. It will be too numerous to count in verse 13. She gave this name to the Lord. You are the God who sees me for she said I have now seen the one who sees me here's two things and this is your homework give you a prescription. We're done.

one man women identifying address the dysfunction in your lives Identify it address it stand up to it. Don't be too afraid stand up to the addiction stand up to the whatever it is. I give you 9 at the beginning. There's a lot more than that. There was a list of 50. I was like, I don't want to overwhelm. number two live in the Redemptive Arc live in the Redemptive Ark it can go like this.

It might take two three four five eight ten twenty years when you start getting that momentum. Mom got sober in 1979. We're well into the Redemptive Arc. well in to the Redemptive Ark for that there was all kinds of craziness. Take Years might be Generations But your grandchildren your children's children, that's what matters be the one.

Be the one it takes courage to be the one to stand up and say no more. I watched last night my daughter and I watching Lord of the Rings. Okay. But when Gandalf he's there in the ball Rock. Okay. Is there trying to come across as demon? What does he say to him? You shall not pass. And at a certain point you got to look at the stuff in your life like Abraham did.

We're gonna get to it is good. You draw a line in the sand and it might be you trying to get across that this you of the Flesh and you say you shall not pass by the spirit of God, Amen. stand