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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Yesterday was “Father’s Day”, and all this week I’d like us to look closely into God’s Word to see what God says to us about this very strategic role in human society called FATHER.
As you probably know one of the greatest contributors to dysfunction, in every society in the world, is the absence or malfunction of fathers! An extremely high percentage of incarcerated people in every jail in the world, had a dysfunctional relationship with their father. Many do not even know their dad! Fatherhood has been the focus of Satan’s attacks since the days of Adam and Eve. Do you remember one of the first two sons ever born in our world Cain, actually killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and anger!
Today, let’s look together at the problem of Fatherhood Impatience. Was your Dad a patient man or do you remember that he often was frustrated, because things were not happening at the pace or in the way that he wanted? And how did your dad deal with that frustration, my friends? And take a close look… how did your Dad’s patience or impatience affect you?
Abraham is one of the great heroes in the Bible. A man of great faith. The father of the Hebrew nation, and for that matter the father also of the Arab peoples. Abraham is referred to by James as “God’s friend”. (James 2:23) While we have many great things to learn from Abraham, it appears he struggled, at least at one very important point in his life, with IMPATIENCE, and the disaster from that impatience has profound impact on our world today, did you know that?
We meet Abraham first in Genesis 11. His name then was Abram and he is one of three sons of a man named Terah, who had felt led to leave their long time family home in Ur, and move to Haran where Terah eventually died. Jehovah God was essentially unknown at that time. Amazingly from the time of Adam to the time of Abram there is only one other man named in the early chapters of Genesis who had a profound awareness of and relationship with Almighty God the Creator of all. Do you know who that was? Noah (Genesis 6-9).
God’s remarkable invitation to Abram was to leave his homeland and follow God to a new land of God’s provision, and then God’s promises were startling to Abram I’m sure: “The LORD said to Abram, ‘leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.“ (Gen. 12:1-3) And of course Jesus, one of Abraham’s descendants, is that great blessing of God to all the peoples of the world.
You remember the story well, I’m sure. Amazingly, Abram followed God to an unknown destination, and finally God says “To your offspring I will give this land.’ So Abram built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.” (Gen. 12:7) You’ll recall this land was further defined for Abraham years later, and today the modern-day nation of Israel is a portion of that God promised land. Abram, by the way, was 75 years old when he began this journey with God, leaving home behind and moving with his wife Sari and nephew Lot to this unknown territory.
In Genesis 12:10 we discover the rain had stopped falling and famine struck this new land where Abram was living, so he packed up his Bedouin tents and moved everything to Egypt in search of food. I see no evidence Abram asked God about this. Here is the first indication I see of Abram’s impatience. Sadly, Abram did not yet know God well, and evidently for Abram the importance of truth depended on the circumstances. His lies about his wife nearly cost him his life and his wife, and he was expelled by the Pharaoh from Egypt, taking with him some servants he had purchased while there, including a young woman named Hagar.
In Genesis 13 God’s hand of blessing was upon Abram and his nephew Lot, and their flocks multiplied so large the grazing land could not support them all, so they separated. In that process God again promises Abram a massive land area and then God adds: “All the land you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted…” (Gen. 13:15,16)
Now, for old Abram and his infertile wife Sari the promise of land was wonderful, but the promise of offspring so numerous they could not be counted, was painful, for they had no children and they were old. 10 years later in Genesis 15 Abram and God get into a bit of a discussion about this because Abram is getting impatient, and beginning to think about the distribution of his estate when he will eventually die, and Abram says to God “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus. You have given me no children so a servant in my household will be my heir.” (Gen. 15:2,3)
Now I can’t say that I blame old Abram for that can you? God had made and repeated a remarkable, extravagant promise of innumerable descendants, and time is rushing by with both Abram and Sari now well past normal child bearing years. Amazingly God’s shocking response was very clear: “This man Eliezer will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. God took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be…” (Gen. 15:4,5)
And then this powerful statement that you should underline in your Bible if you haven’t: “Abram believed the LORD and He credited it to him as righteousness.” (Gen. 15:6) The Apostle Paul refers to this moment in Romans 4 as he explains that our salvation is by God’s grace, in response to our faith in God, and His redemption assurance that Jesus’ atonement death is payment sufficient, for our sin to be forgiven.
For Abram and Sari, a remarkable promise of God has now been repeated several times over the years…and time continues to pass with no changes. Sari remains infertile and they are getting older by the day. Thus in Genesis 16 Sari makes a plan of impatience: “Sari said to Abram, ‘the LORD has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my maidservant, perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sari said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan 10 years, Sari took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived.”
This was not considered adultery my friends. This was a culturally accepted way for a man and his wife to build a family, if his wife was infertile. It’s actually a practice used today in many parts of the world. It’s called a ‘surrogate mother‘. But you’ll recall the problem it caused in this case. Ishmael was the boy born to Hagar. He is the father of the Arab nations.
Genesis 17:1 says “When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty (El Shaddai), walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between Me and you and I will greatly increase your numbers. You will be the father of many nations, and you will no longer be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you father of many nations…” God also said He was changing Sari’s name to Sarah and that He would bless her with a miraculous pregnancy with Abraham and they should call this son who would be born Isaac. It seemed so preposterous Sarah simply laughed in disbelief. Abraham too laughed, in fact it says “Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “will a son be born to a man a hundred years old. Will Sarah bear a child at the age of 90?” (Gen. 17:17)
Genesis 21:1-3 says “Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him in her old age.” God’s miraculous power and His faithfulness to His promises should never be doubted, but the truth is impatience is something all of us struggle with, right? In this case, as you perhaps know, conflict arose in Abraham’s household between Hagar the mother of Ishmael, and Sarah the mother of Isaac. Finally Abraham had to ask Hagar to leave with her son, and to this day animosity exists between the millions of descendants of Ishmael, the Arab peoples, and the millions of descendants of Isaac, the Jewish people.
Impatience is very dangerous isn’t it my friends? Especially when you find yourself impatient with GOD! Normally that impatience moves us to take things into our own hands, make our own plans, and move ahead in our own time, seeking to accomplish our own agenda, and hope that God will bless our impatience.
Oh friends, tomorrow we’ll look at Isaac’s life and see how this dangerous impatience yielded even greater problems one generation later. For today I urge you to look closely at the reality of impatience in your family heritage. Do you hear God saying “TRUST ME to accomplish My purposes in MY time.”?
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapters: Genesis 15:1-6; Genesis 21:1-7. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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