"Sarah and Hagar" By Brother Parrish Lee May 8th,
2016
Amen. You may be seated. I want to thank Brother Malcolm for the
encouragement make sure everybody’s in tune, including me. What a beautiful day; what a beautiful
day. Man, it is awesome! It is wonderful to see so many beautiful faces,
and to feel the beautiful spirit, and to have such a wonderful time in worship,
and just to enjoy the company of God’s people.
I just want to say good morning to everybody, and happy Mother’s
Day. And I want to say happy Mother’s
Day to everybody, because everybody has a mother. Everybody has a mother; you got here
somehow. It wasn’t from under a rock,
and it wasn’t a stork. It was somebody
who went through some pain to get you here, so we’re going to say happy day to
them. Happy Mother’s Day to
everybody. And we’re not insensitive,
we’re not insensitive; as several people have mentioned today, some of us, our
moms may not be with us any longer, and our prayer today is both a prayer of
blessing and comfort. If there is a
matter of estrangement, we ask for a blessing of a healing, that maybe that
relationship can be restored, because what seems impossible to man, what we see
is that God makes all things possible.
He is that kind of God. There is only one God, and that God is able
to do that. Give it to Him, and He is
able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Amen, amen.
That’s not the message, we’re just warming up, here. Wonderful time, wonderful time. Our theme for the month is from
the Book of Acts, chapter one, and it’s verse thirteen and fourteen, and it
says: Acts 1:13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. So, the first verse, in thirteen, it talks about the Apostles, and, the second verse, it says in verse fourteen: Acts 1:14 These all continued with one accord
in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and
with his brethren. An, this, of course, being women’s
month, the month that we take out to honor our women, and we have a mission
here to share, to spend this month sharing about the importance of their roles
and the lessons that we learn from them.
And we learn, here, in the Bible, and we see in verse thirteen that this
place was the place where the Apostles, the disciples, the ones who walked
around with the Lord, and the ones whom Jesus said, “On this rock, I will build
my church,” (Matthew 1:18) they were in that upper room. But, let it be known to all of us, that, also
in that upper room, the Bible says, were the women with them. The women, and, Mary the mother, and, of
course, His brethren. Yeah, the upper
room, where the Holy Ghost first fell; it wasn’t specifically and only to the
disciples, but to those who disciple themselves after the Lord, men and women
alike. Men and women alike. And, yes, we have the rest of the
month to talk about women in women’s month, but, today, we are going to talk
about mothers. Today, we will center on
mothers. And, for that, we need to go to
the Book of Genesis. Genesis 16:1-11 Now
Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath
restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I
may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai
Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years
in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he
went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived,
her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be
upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had
conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee. But
Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it
pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness,
by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence
camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my
mistress Sarai. And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy
mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of the LORD said
unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered
for multitude. And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with
child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD
hath heard thy affliction. If we could just bow our heads,
just for a moment, in prayer. Lord God,
we are just continually amazed, and we’re continuously enamored, God, because
You are just so amazing. And, God, when
we come before You, You always continue to give us so much more than we could
ever bring, and, yet, You receive our offerings. And thank You for a time of gathering
together, today; we thank You for a time of praise and worship to You. We thank You for the blessings that You’ve
put through, and the strengthening, and ask, God, that, as Your Word said, that
Your Word ill not return unto You void, but will surely accomplish that to
which You sent it. We that to be a
blessing on Your Word as we go over it today, that Your messenger might get out
of the way this morning, and that Your message would have its freedom to do in
our lives what You destined it to be.
And this we come, pray, and submit, and we claim this in the name of the
Lord Jesus. And everyone said amen. Amen. Amen, Saints, so, the title of our
message today is simply, “Sarah and Hagar.”
Sarah and Hagar. Part 1 A Lesson from Sarah and Hagar Now, we’d like to talk,
specifically, about two women, today, the two women that we have already
begun-- Sarah and Hagar. One, or, more
appropriately, two mothers. Now, Sarah,
of course, we see she was a woman who had a husband who had a relationship with
God, and Hagar was the one who had a relationship with Sarah, and by that
means, also, had a relationship with the man of God. And Sarah was facing a dilemma, here, you see,
that—well, to give a little background, Abraham was a man that God had made a
promise to. And, as God had made this
promise to Abraham, He told him that he was going to be the father of many. Now, there’s only one potential problem with
that and that is that Abraham was in his eighties, at the time. In his mid-eighties. And his wife was ten years younger than him,
that would put her in her mid-seventies.
So, Abraham was in his mid-eighties, and Sarah was in her
mid-seventies. But Abraham believed God;
he believed this was going to come about.
Because God said it, he believed it, that settled it. Sarah, well, what about Sarah? What about her believing this? Well, Sarah’s no dummy; she knows that
seventy-five year old women ain’t going around having kids. She looks around, and she knows, “Hey, you
know what? My seventy-five is a real
seventy-five. There’s things no longer
happening in my body.” And, so, Sarah
has to make some decisions. She thought,
“You know, I could give my husband my servant-girl, and she could give him a
child, and that will be me giving him a child through her. That will be my son. It will be incorporated in me.” And Sarah came to this—it’s not completely
out of the ordinary, it wasn’t, for the times, it’s not something that’s
completely unheard of. In fact, you
could say that this is the Old Testament form of surrogacy, the Old Testament
form of surrogacy. A woman using another
woman to help her to bring forth some children. And, we see that Hagar, after she became with child, she kind of looked
down on Sarah. In fact, we see that she
looked down on her, and Sarah had a problem with that, and she went to Abraham,
and she said, “Hey, look, I got a problem with this. You need to be taking care of this.” And Abraham said, “Hey, look, that ain’t—you
are the one that invited this situation in the first place, so that’s your
situation to take care of.” I’m
paraphrasing a lot, trying to bring it into 2016. “It’s your business to take care of.” And Sarah said, “Oh, okay.” And the Bible says that she went out and she
chastised her. She chastised her kind of
harshly, and the Bible says that Hagar fled.
Hagar fled. And, so, Hagar fled
away because of the chastisement, and then the Lord had to meet her. The Lord had to meet her, and the Lord
encouraged her to do two things: To
return, and submit. To return to where
you belonged in the first place, and submit, in other words, “Go back to where you’re
supposed to be, and get your attitude right.
Go back and change your attitude.
This is the will of God.” And
Hagar did. She went back, changed her
attitude, Sarah received her back, and, lo and behold, she delivered a child,
and the promise was unto him, unto Ishmael, and he grew and waxed before the
Lord. Talking about Sarah and
Hagar. And the one thing I didn’t
mention is that when the Lord told Hagar to return, he told her that, if she
were to get her attitude right, the Lord had a blessing for her, she couldn’t
even wrap her mind around. It was going
to be that big. Genesis 18:10-15 And he
said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo,
Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was
behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it
ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed
within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord
being old also? And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh,
saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is any thing too hard
for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the
time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed
not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh. So, we see here, after Hagar has
come back—we skipped down some chapters, and we got to the place where—now, the
Lord speaks to Abraham, He talks to him again, and this is some thirteen-plus
years later. Thirteen years and several
months. So, as they were, Sarah was in her mid-seventies, she is now
very close to ninety. And, Abraham, of
course, is very close to one hundred years old.
And the Lord returns to them. And
the Lord returns, and He says to them, “Hey, look, Abraham, you’re going to have
a son. You’re going to have a son with
your wife, Sarah.” Now, this time, this
time that God is speaking to Abraham, Sarah is listening in. Now, this time that God is speaking, Sarah
hears it, and Sarah, you know, she’s almost ninety years old. She hears it, and Sarah does what Sarah
did—ninety years old—Sarah laughs. She laughs. Why?
“Oh, I’m ninety years old. I’m
not past the change of life, I’m
waaay past the change of life! I’m past
those hot flashes and those other things.
I’m way past that, and, now?
Now?” Yeah. And I can imagine what Sarah must have said,
what she must have thought as she laughed.
She must have said, “Ha! You
know, if it was really going to be like this, Lord, why didn’t You bless me
when I was younger? I would have been
able to handle my kids then. Why didn’t
you bless me when…? I’m ninety years
old. Can you imagine a ninety-five year
old running after a five year old? Good
God! Lord! Why didn’t You help me when I would have more
patience? I would have more energy. I wouldn’t have had to cook for as many. Lord, it would have been a better time if You
had arranged this a little bit differently.”
But, see, there was something that Sarah didn’t realize. See, she was listening in on a conversation,
the conversation wasn’t to her. She was
listening in, and she laughed at what the Lord had spoken to somebody
else. Have you ever, have you ever been
in a place where God is dealing and speaking with you, and somebody else might
see the change starting to happen in your life, and they’re like, “It’ll never
work. That ain’t never going to come to
fruit. You are never going to turn out to
be what you think.”? Because they are
mocking what God is about to do in your life.
They can’t see it; they don’t know it, they can’t taste it, so they
don’t believe it, that God is about to this.
But the thing that she failed to realize is that it’s the same God! It’s the same God that kept Abraham in the
battles. It’s the same God that told him
he was going to bear a son, and she ran out and got Hagar. “Well, this is going to be the way it’s going
to happen.” She failed to realize that
it was God Almighty doing this. In other
words, as God told Abraham, “Why is she laughing? Is anything too hard for Me? I’m God Almighty; I don’t care if you’re
ninety! I don’t care! What is that to me? I’m God! I don’t care if we’re out in the desert. I don’t care—you’re saying things to
God! What is that to Me?” And what God was trying to show her was,
ninety or not, He wasn’t finished with what he wanted to do in her life. Yeah, that is a message that we want to have
for everybody here, today. No matter
where you are in your life, right now, it doesn’t matter if other people laugh
at where you are, doesn’t matter if they can’t see it, or make fun of it, or
they try and discourage your heart, God is not finished with a one of us here,
today. Part 2 God Is Not Finished With Us Philippians 1:6 Being confident of
this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it
until the day of Jesus Christ: If the Lord started working in you, He will finish it; all we got to do is be
faithful. He will finish it! If He started it, he will finish it. Hebrews 10:35-36 Cast not
away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye
have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might
receive the promise. After ye have done the will of
God, ye might receive the promise. God
ain’t finished. He will perform it in
God’s time. If God would have given
Abraham kids when he was twenty or thirty or forty or even fifty, what big deal
is that? what a big deal? Not a big deal at all. Who would have gotten the glory? Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah. And everybody would have said, “Did you
hear? Abraham and Sarah are having
kids. Let’s go over and welcome
them.” But, when you’re a hundred, and
you’re ninety, and you’re having kids, “Good Lord! Something is going on! Naw, that ain’t them! That’s a miracle, no question about it.” It became something about God. He waited until everybody would know it
wasn’t them; it was God doing this thing. You know, if we have done the will
of God, we might receive the promise that He has for us. It’s not enough to be around. As we said, Sarah was married to Abraham, and
Abraham was the man that God had promised.
It’s not enough to be around somebody that’s saved when God is talking
to you. It’s not enough to go and get
their advice, when God is talking to you.
It’s not enough to say, “Well, I’m in the house, and everybody went over
there, so I went over there, too.” It’s
not enough to push it off on somebody else, when God has it for you. And, let’s face it, Saints, this morning, God
has it for us. Can you imagine how
different this whole text would have read?
We hear about Abraham and God talking, but we never see Sarah seeking
God. We never hear her questioning or
requesting. We never hear about her
taking out time. We hear about her going
to make a decision with her servant-girl, and we hear about her laughing, but
we never her about the great repentance, and the great prostrating, or the
sanctifying, or presenting herself to God to see what God had for her. And, in fact when God told Abraham what He
had for her, she laughed at it. How
different it would have been, had Sarah sought God, and received the answer from
God, or Hagar had her attitude right in the first place. And I’m saying this specifically
to mothers, because this text is to the giver of life. You know how precious that the life that you
give is, and not just to your children, but to all children. For a fact, we can all remember, we can tell
stories about it—as Kirk was starting to mention—we could tell stories about
other mothers who have influenced us. We
can tell stories about teachers who mothered us. We can tell stories about aunts, and, sometimes
it was ladies that we didn’t even know that said, “You know you shouldn’t do
that, son.” Well, I know for a fact
there was people doing that in my life; I was that kind of kid. But, how different would this have read if
Hagar had had her heart and attitude right and if Sarah had sought the Lord in
the first place? And, yet, because they
didn’t, we have the legacy of the two families, the family of Ishmael, and the
family of Isaac, which went on into Jacob and Esau, who have been at odds for millennium.
Millennium. They hold the power to life. It wasn’t Abraham’s doing; this was all about
the moms. They had the power to
influence, to change, and to move, to motivate, to bring life, or even to bring
death. They just didn’t realize it. And, there’s something else that
is supposed to be known about this whole thing.
You know, sometimes, struggle is the will of God. Sometimes, we are supposed to struggle. 1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the
fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto
you: 1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much
more precious than of gold that perisheth… The trial of you faith, and think
it not strange concerning those trials…
Sometimes, we have to know that struggle is God’s will. It is for a purpose; it is to get us to a certain
place. You know, God talks about the
pain that a mom goes through when she has her labor, and I don’t know what that’s
like, I’ve only heard stories; I’ve heard about the screaming, I’ve heard about
the kicking. I’ve heard about so many things
about when a woman is in labor. She
might be able to say all kinds of things; don’t care who you are, but, I also
heard the second part of the story: I
don’t know; am I right? Is that
true? But, I’ve also herd, and the Lord
talks about it in His Word, He talks about, but when the baby is born, when he
comes about, there is a joy that passes that pain that went forth (John 16:21). When they see the little eyes, and the little
mouths open, and they see the hands reaching for… I hear that the smile is a smile like none
other. That’s what I hear. I don’t know that one either, but that’s what
I hear. Is that right? That part is true? Of course, moms say that. And I thought, I thought, “Wow, that’s kind
of interesting. They forget all about
the pain, and it doesn’t even come into mind anymore,” and I thought, “I don’t
know how true that is, because, every time I would, you know, give my mom some
heartburn, she would pull me aside and say, ‘Do you know how long I was in
labor for you? And this is how you treat
me?’” So, I, yeah, well. So, anyway, but this is synonymous—the pain
and then the joy—this is synonymous to relationships, because, for relationships
to succeed, generally, you see a good relationship, and you’ll be able to go
and ask them, “Hey, how did this come about?
How did you get such a wonderful time?” and usually, they’ll tell you, “You
know what? We had to go through some
things. We had to fight some things, and
sometimes we had to endure.” And they
say, “You know what? Love, love is expensive. Real love, real love costs something.” And that’s what I’ve come to understand. Even friendship. You want to have a good friend, when y’all
get a misunderstanding going on, you have to find a way to make it up with each
other, or else your friendship is doomed.
Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, any
relationship, there has to be some sort of struggle and pain and there’s things
that come along, and, when it flourishes, it’s because you made up, and now you
have a better relationship for it. And, I appreciated what Brother
Chris said, when he talked about, last week, he talked about his aunt, and how
her husband died, and left her with three small kids, and how she had to set
some tones, because they were all three boys, and they got testing her, and she
set some tones, and make some standards, and sometimes she had to, kind of, you
know… Well, you know, somebody else here
was testifying about how his mom had three boys, and she was raising them, how
she took a broomstick out, and the boy went and broke the broomstick, but that
wasn’t the testimony that Chris mentioned last week. He mentioned how sometimes it was a struggle
for her, but he said that as he met one of those kids, just a few weeks ago, he
said that you would be amazed at just the genuine love that was there for the
mom as they appreciated the sacrifices that she had made. And, I appreciated how Chris had said all of
this, and, you know, you have to say that this applies to, not just women, but
this applies to men, also: That,
sometimes life happens to you, and sometimes you get in a place where, this isn’t
the life that you would have picked, if you had had your druthers. Maybe you missed out on a promotion at work;
maybe you didn’t get the special meal that you wanted to have, or even the dessert
from the meal that you wanted to have, maybe you didn’t get the salad that you
wanted to have—and that’s a woman thing—but, for everybody, for everybody, part
of it is a struggle, and I’m about to make a point here. There has to be struggles. There’s times when you retreated. There’s times when maybe you thought you had a
prospective, a person who would join you in your life, and it didn’t work out. And, there’s other times when—can I really ay
this?—through all that, you made it. Through
all that, you came through. The times
when you’ve been lonely, and nobody understood.
The times when you’ve looked in the mirror, and saw something that you
didn’t really want to see, and wished you could have seen something else. The times when you were in pain, and you didn’t
even know what the source of it was. The
times when the mil arrived, and you didn’t even know how you were going to
answer. And, through all that, God has
brought you through. God answered both Sarah and Hagar. God did answer them both, because He had a
blessing for them in their lives; they just had to stay faithful and go through. I heard a song, and it talked about the scars
that we go through as Christians. And as
I was listening to this song, it talks about the times when they were the ones
that messed up. It talked about the
times when they were disappointed. It
talked about the times when they hurt somebody else. It talked about the times when they were
hurt. And I thought, “You know
what? That, that, that’s pretty
accurate, the scars that we, as Christians have. Specifically because we get our scars from
living for God. 2 Corinthians 4:10 Always
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of
Jesus might be made manifest in our body. So, the message is, here, God has
brought us through all of this. You
might say, “Well, Brother Parrish, you don’t know what I went through. You don’t know where I am right now. You don’t know how close I came,” and, really,
I don’t have to know, because, what I do know is what I have seen God do in our
lives. Now, the Bible says we shouldn’t
lean to our own understanding, but trust in Him in all our ways, and He shall
direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5-6). Oh,
what about Jacob? Jacob, you walk with a
limp. Apostle Paul, you’ve got marks on
your back. Lord, I see the holes in Your
hand, I see the hole in Your side, and the holes in Your feet. What are these? These are the scars of God bringing them
through. I see the scars of God bringing
all of us through. Again, God is not
finished with us. And out last part: Part 3 Last Words to Moms Moms, according to the Bible, it
says to teach your children. Teach them about
prayer. You don’t have to force them to
pray, but teach them to respect you when you pray. Teach them how to see what happens when you
pray. Teach them the value of
prayer. You teach them about following
the Word. When I was a kid, I didn’t
like reading a whole lot, except if it was a comic book. But, teach me that the Word is important by
letting me see you read it, and then let me see you apply it in your life. Let your children see you apply it in your
life. Teach them that it’s okay not to
be perfect, but it’s not okay not to strive to be better. Teach your children how to worship, that it’s
okay to lift your hands, close your eyes, and call on His name, and bless
Him. Teach your children. Moms, teach your daughters about Godly
dress. Teach your daughters that it’s
not okay for a woman to let her womanly parts just hang out. And, if a man sees that, that’s not the kind
of relationship you should be wanting anyway, because he ain’t after any... Teach your daughters that, when it comes to a
man, you want a man who’s going to enhance and respect your walk with the Lord. If he’s going to fall short in that, that’s
not the kind of man you want, anyway.
Teach your sons what a woman in God looks like. Let them know that, when you go to look for a
woman, this is the example, somewhere in this vicinity that you should be
looking for. Many other things is going
to be trouble. And, on Mother’s Day, I have to
say a few words to the men. My heart
breaks because, I can’t tell you how many moms in the church, in the community,
at work, in my family, and even moms that never saw me before, would just ask
me—start a conversation—ask me, and they all would ask the same request: “Can you help me with my children? Can you help me with my child? Can you help me with my son? What can you tell me?” Because their hearts bleed for their
children. And this goes out specifically
to the men: Men, when you see a young
man, no matter how old, when you see a young man that’s in need, the Bible doesn’t
say you go out and be a surrogate parent, but it does tell us to teach them,
and to mentor them. It tells us to be an
example to them, and it tells us to be a friend to them. Let them know that that’s not the end of the
road; that we can show them a better way by living for them and strengthening
them. And, if it’s a young lady, make
sure that you do whatever you can. It’s
not appropriate for a man to—I tell you what, I know, in my family, if a man in
the street was looking to guide some of the young girls in my family, I’ve got
five brothers they’re quick to take care of that. You can pray for them, you can help, say, “What
can I do? Can I bring somebody else
along?” Whatever. But, women should be raising up women. And that is, that is Scripture. And, with that, our last
Scripture: Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. Amen. Give the Lord a praise.
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