12/31/23 “Backward, Forward, Upward”
“Backward, Forward, Upward”
Genesis 16:1-16
So, here we are on the doorstep of yet another new year!
Many of us wonder how time flies by so quickly, don’t we?
Doesn’t it seem like we just turned the calendar from 2022 to 2023?
Those of us who are “A little older” typically marvel at the speed of which time goes by…
But interestingly, if you ask a child, their perception of time is usually quite different…kids will usually complain that time goes by too slowly.
(Unless, of course, they are at a birthday party or opening Christmas presents…then time passes quickly for them!)
I once heard it explained as to why this difference in time-perception takes place.
If you are, say, 10 years old – 12 months represents 10% of your entire life…that’s quite a chunk of one’s life…therefore it would seem longer for that single year to go by.
Whereas, if you are my age (52) one year represents only 2% of your life –
Therefore each year that goes by represents a smaller portion of life already lived…causing each year to seemingly elapse at a faster rate of time…
Now, if you are, say 85 years old, one year represents only 1.1% of your life…..Now, that’s when time really flies by, right?
Someone once said that people over 80 should be able to drive their age because they have less time to get where they’re going…if you’re 80 – drive 80 mph…if your 90 – drive 90…and so on.
…Come to think of it, that may not actually be the best advice! 😊
No matter how old we are, time marches on.
…And here we are today - just hours away from beginning another year.
As you all know, one year consists of 365 days – or to put it another way – one year consists of 8,765 hours…or to put it yet another way, one year consists of… 31, 536,000 seconds.
Its interesting to think about what one can do with that amount of time.
Did you know that it takes most people around 70 hours to read the Bible cover to cover….that means that if you never slept, you could read the Bible 125 times in a single year!
...factoring in 8 hours of sleep each day, that’s still 83 times you could read through the Bible in one year…if you literally did nothing else!
…If you read the Bible for an hour a day, you would end up reading it 5 times in one year – now we’re getting a bit more realistic, aren’t we.
How about this….if you read your Bible for only 15 minutes a day – you will have read it from cover-to-cover in one year’s time!....that should sound very realistic!
These are fun numbers to think about, but the passing of another year also makes us think about what we’ve experienced this past year – and what lies ahead of us in the new year.
Today’s passage of scripture is probably familiar to you…
It’s a story from the book of Genesis about a woman who is trying to run from her past, and at the same time, has lots of questions regarding her future.
Maybe some of you can relate to how this woman was feeling here in Genesis chapter 16.
The lady’s name is Hagar…she is originally from Egypt, and for many years, she has been a maidservant of Sarai (later known as Sarah – the wife of Abraham)
At this time Abraham was also known by another name - Abrahm – it was a shorter variant of the name Abraham.
In the preceding chapter (Genesis chapter 15) God made a promise to Abrahm that – despite Sarai’s infertility - he and Sarai would have a son, and that through this child, Abrahm would be the father of many descendants….
In fact, Abrahm was told that he would be the father on an entire race!
Genesis 15:4-5 describe this promise: “Then the word of the Lord came to him: this man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, look up at the Heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.”
The next verse – verse 6 (Genesis 15:6) – tells us that Abrahm believed the Lord….
Abrahm believed God’s promise of a son, despite the unlikelihood of Sarai becoming pregnant – especially at her advanced age.
Some time begins to go by…day after day, month after month…and Abrahm & Sarai begin to get impatient regarding God’s promise of a child.
…So Sarai comes up with an idea.
She takes things into her own hands and devises a plan that circumvents God’s specific promise…as well as His timing.
Her plan is to have her Husband Abrahm sleep with her maidservant Hagar, so that Hagar would become pregnant.
The resulting child, then, would then be a biological descendent of Abrahm –
…and Sarai would, of course, assume the role of mother after the child is born.
As you know from scripture, Hagar becomes pregnant with Abrahm’s child and soon (Understandably) tension erupts between Hagar and Sarai…wow, didn’t see that coming!
This plan of Sarai’s was now backfiring on her as hatred began to saturate her relationship with Hagar….and tension was building with Abrahm as well.
Eventually, things boil over between the two women and Hagar flees from her mistress Sarai and runs into the desert.
She finds a water spring along the road and stops for some refreshment…
Hagar is undoubtedly afraid at this point, unsure of where the road ahead will take her – and if she will even survive the harsh elements of the desert all by herself…while pregnant!
Many theologians believe that Hagar was most likely heading south toward her homeland of Egypt
Then……she meets a very unique individual who comes up to speak with her there at the roadside spring.
We pick things up at verse 7 (Genesis 16:7-8) of our text for this morning where it reads “The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to shur. And he said ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?....”
First of all, who is this mysterious “Angel of the Lord”, anyway?
The ‘Angel of the Lord’ actually appears to numerous people in the Old Testament including Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Balaam, and Gideon…amongst others.
The intriguing thing about the Angel of the Lord is that, unlike any other angelic messenger, he speaks with the authority of God…and says things that only God would have the authority to say.
In fact, when anyone has an experience with the Angel of the Lord, they assume that they have just seen – and spoken with – God himself.
Hagar makes mention of this in verse 13 (Genesis 16:13) of our passage today when she refers to the Angel of the Lord as “The God who sees me.”
This has led most Biblical scholars to come to the conclusion that the ‘Angel of the Lord’ is a physical manifestation of God – or to put it another way – the pre-incarnate (Or Pre-Bethlehem)…..Jesus Christ.
The fifty-dollar theological word for this is called a “Theophany” or – more specifically in regard to the Angel of the Lord – a “Christophany”, that is, a physical manifestation of Jesus before he was born to Mary in Bethlehem.
Interestingly enough, there is never any mention of the Angel of the Lord again in the bible after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem – which would make complete sense.
So… back to our story, the Angel of the Lord asks Hagar a 2-part question in verse 8 (Genesis 16:8)…he inquires of her “Where have you come from, and where are you going?”
This is the key question that I’d like all of us to consider in our own lives this morning as we will soon be turning the calendar to 2024.
“Where have you come from…and where are you going?”
If someone were to ask you this morning where you came from –
some of you might answer in a geographical sense….For instance, you might say: ”I came from Missouri”..or ”I came from Texas”….
Or, maybe you would answer in a relational sense. You might say something like “I came from a large family” or “I came from a difficult past, or a broken home.”
Some of you experiencing chronic illness might respond medically “I came from a state of constant physical pain” or “I came through a bought with encephalitis”
This morning, I’d like all of us to answer this question….spiritually.
“Where have you come from – in a spiritual sense.”
How have you been obedient – or disobedient – to God in 2023?
What are some things that you could have done better?...where could you have given God more of your attention during this past year?...
Or when could you have relied on His strength rather than your own strength this past year?
(I know that, speaking for myself, there were numerous times when I could have given more attention to the things of God rather than choosing to engage in self-serving activities…I’m guessing that many of you could perhaps say the same about your distribution of time in 2023)
On the other hand, what are some of the things in 2023 that – spiritually speaking – went well for you?....In what areas were you able to see God’s deliverance or protection?
Maybe the Lord brought you through a difficult season of loneliness or grief over the loss of a loved one….
Maybe you experienced spiritual victory over an addiction or over pride…
Maybe you were able to finally forgive someone who hurt you in the past…
When we look back into our past, however, we need to follow one very important rule…
(Show picture of windshield)
Here’s a picture of a standard automobile windshield…
You’ll notice a small mirror and a large piece of glass.
The small mirror is your “Rear-view mirror” and any good driving instructor will tell you that its only to be galnced at once in a while…
The rear-view mirror lets you know where you are coming from…it shows you what’s in your past…when you are looking in this mirror, you are looking backward
But here’s the deal – the rear-view mirror is very small compared to the windshield.
It’s beneficial for us to glance at our rear-view mirror, but we don’t want our eyes to fixate on it – otherwise we will lose our focus on where we are currently going.
So, to, it is with our lives.
We can all benefit from looking at our past – HOWEVER – it becomes dangerous when we dwell on the past!
Some people become fixated upon events in their past – good or bad – and that causes them to crash their spiritual vehicle in the present…
For instance…A football coach would never tell a running back to continually look behind them while running the football forward…NOT a strategy for success!
So, although it is beneficial to periodically glance at our past – we need to keep our eyes fixed upon where we are going…we need to be more concerned about what lies down the road….in other words - our future!
That brings us to the second question….”Where are you going?”
The Angel of the Lord is asking Hagar – what are your plans for your future?....(Both Physically and spiritually)
Unfortunately, Hagar has no idea where she is going…physically OR spiritually.
God asks each of us the same question today: Where are you going?
Spiritually…
What do you see down the road through the spiritual windshield of your life?...how do you see God working in you and using you for His glory in 2024?
Physically speaking…. we don’t know the specifics, right? – only God knows what will exactly happen to us physically in 2024…
Knowing our physical future is like driving at night – while understanding our spiritual future is more like driving during the daytime…we can see a lot further down the road.
Many people, however, try their best to obtain knowledge concerning the specifics of their physical future…
That’s why things like horoscopes and psychics are so popular…People crave God’s knowledge concerning future events in their lives…
In fact, there are entire news channels based on predicting the future of the stock market, or home prices, or interest rates…
But if you think about it, do you really want to know the specifics of your physical future?
What if 2024 is the last year that you are on this earth?....would you really want to know that today? (Maybe some of you would, but I sure wouldn’t…)
What if a tragedy would happen to one of your close family members on a specific date in 2024…would you really want to know that?
We have to remember that God has a perfect plan in place for all of us – and a part of that is to not disclose the specifics to us about our physical future.
In Ecclesiastes 7:14, Solomon says “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.”
We just need to trust God with our individual futures…
We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow…
I like what Corrie Ten Boom said: “Never be afraid to entrust an unknown future into the hands of a known God.”
The central theme here is that we need to be focused on the parts of our future that we do have some control over…namely, the spiritual components.
Remember what Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14 “….But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Paul is saying that we can learn from our past, but that we need to stay focused on the present – as we look with intentionality into the future.
That’s why the windshield is so big – and the rear-view mirror is so small.
In today’s passage, Hagar responds to the question of “Where are you going” with the answer of “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.” (Genesis 16:8)
Hagar really had no plan, no idea of where she was going – or how she was going to survive on her own.
In verse 9 (Genesis 16:9) the Angel of the Lord tells her to “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”
God knows that Hagar had been placed into a difficult situation – and He responds by providing her with direction and guidance.
Hagar is told that she is to go back home and that she will give birth to a son – and she is to name him Ishmael, which literally means “God Hears.”
God heard Hagar’s desperate plea – and He responds to her…and God still does this today.
God hears our desperate prayers – and He responds by giving us wisdom and guidance.
Hagar obeys the Angel of the Lord as she goes back home to the house of Abrahm and Sarai…
In time, Hagar eventually gives birth to Ishmael, who In verse 12 (Genesis 16:12) God says will be a “Wild Donkey of a man” and that “His hand will be against everyone” and that everyone’s hand will be against him.
How many moms want to hear that about their baby boy?
That their child will be remembered for hating others and that others will hate him?....not too many moms pray this over their children.
Ishmael was not the child of promise that God had vowed to Abrahm in Genesis chapters 12 & 15.
Abrahm and Sarai had impatiently acted in disobedience – and Ishmael was the result of their human attempt to force God into acting within their timeframe….and it didn’t work.
In fact, the birth of this child would have ripple effects that still are seen today – nearly 4,000 years later…
You see, Ishmael became the father of the Arab people, who would eventually align themselves with the Islamic religion – whose adherents are still warring with Israel today!
The events happening right now in Gaza between the Israelis (Descendants of Abraham and Sarah’s miraculously conceived son, Isaac) and Hamas (Descendants of Abraham and Hagar’s carnally conceived son, Ishmael) is the result of one sinful act some 4,000 years ago….disobedience has consequences!
Lastly, in verse 10 (Genesis 16:10) the Angel of the Lord delivers a promise to Hagar.
Hagar is told that she will be the mother of many descendants...
In ancient times, there was nothing…Absolutely Nothing…more important to a woman than to have children – especially sons.
It was looked upon as a blessing to have many children – and to be childless was seen as a curse.
So, Hagar is the recipient of a blessing from God as she is being obedient to His direction to her.
This is an example of Hagar looking upward!
This pertains to us as well - not only should we glance backward and gaze forward….but we also must look upward!
Looking to God first in our lives – before anything else - is the most important practice that we can engage in!
Doing this will protect us from being too influenced by our past, and from being too afraid of our future…our physical OR spiritual future.
So, in conclusion,
Allow the rear-view mirror to teach us lessons from our past…
Allow the windshield to give us visibility into the future…
And allow the sunroof above you to let in the light of the SON…spelled S.O.N.
I love reading this verse – and we’re going to end with it today:
John 8:12 says “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Folks, Do Not be afraid of 2024.
You are never alone – your savior, Jesus Christ, is the light of your life – and He has promised that he will never leave you nor forsake you…
So at midnight tonight…if you’re still awake….maybe you’ll still be celebrating the big Packer victory over the Vikings…whatever the case
When the calendar turns to the new year – don’t fix your eyes on what’s behind you…look forward…and look upward…knowing that our God is in control.
Let’s Pray.