"Surrogate mother refuses to part with her child to adopting parents." Yesterday's headlines – or 120 generations ago, concerning Abram, Sarai and Hagar? Fallen human nature has not changed. In every generation men and women show themselves to be sinners – by going their own way, apart from God.

Incidentally, see how honest the Bible is. Its heroes are portrayed 'warts and all'. In the same way, we should be realistic and honest with ourselves. We should see ourselves as sinners also, in need of God's forgiveness, mercy, love and guidance. We also can forget our friendship with God, and try to live without him.

1. These things happened to them as examples, and were written down to warn us... If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful... (1 Cor 10:11)

As we look at this story – perhaps the question we would ask ourselves first, is the moral one – Should Abram have used Hagar in this way? But, as we learn lessons in living by faith – the spiritual question should come first – Shouldn't Abram have gone on trusting God? Rather than find his own solution to the problem of having no children. If the answer to that is YES, then the first question has been answered too. And that's the kind of priority we should follow, too.

It was now 10 years since God had called Abram and he'd set off for Canaan. God had promised Abram the blessing of descendants who would become a great nation and inherit the land. A promise repeated – but not yet delivered. How hard to hang on! Any of us may be caught up in a similar test of faith. Think about some of the possibilities. We may hope for – renewed health – a marriage partner – financial solvency – or any number of things. All these are legitimate hopes. And the Bible acknowledges: hope deferred makes the heart sick. (Prov 13:12) And many of these situations have apparent solutions outside the paths God has told us to tread. For example, we may be tempted to go to an occult faith-healer, marry a non-Christian partner, or adopt unethical business practices.

For Abram there was the excuse that he knew less, of what God's will was in such a situation, than we can learn from this Book. And like us he had the pressure of the surrounding way of life. And that said – If you can't have children by your wife – have them by her maid.

Indeed there may well have been an obligation placed on the barren wife to put her maid at her husband's disposal for this purpose. So why not? The idea was attractive, simple and natural. And when it came from his own wife – almost irresistible. But Abram did not check it out with God. He should have asked himself, Does this suggestion help me to trust God more – does it help me in my walk with God – or does it just appeal to my natural desires and fears?

God had made promises to him – he couldn't doubt that. It therefore lay in God's giving, rather than in man's effort. But Abram listened to Sarai rather than to God. But living by faith means, first of all, we attend to God's voice – even when it goes against the grain of our natural desires, the advice of others, and all sorts of other pressures. We can listen to God's word Sunday by Sunday – but, when it comes to the crunch, we may still prefer our equivalent of Sarai.

Someone speaking perhaps in pious language – but unwittingly the voice of Satan. How many have been pointed away from God by those who say the loving, Christian action is so-and-so? The young man with a strong homosexual drive who is told to have sex with his girl-friend or with a prostitute. The Christian couple whose marriage is in difficulties – who are encouraged to divorce and start over again with new partners. Or the couple whose circumstances make an extra mouth to feed an inconvenience or worse – and who are advised to have an abortion.

Such advice – if followed – may even yield success – of a sort. Abram did get a son. But at what a cost! The division between Arab and Jew goes back to Abram's decision to do it his way. Let us beware – and not call some venture God's will where we do all the contriving – and where we are not continually cast upon God's leading, and his provision, every step of the way. The results of our own striving are works of the flesh (our own sinful nature) and empty of those fruits of the Spirit, that Paul wrote about. (Gal 5:22) But – at the same time – let us make sure that we have compassion towards all who have been mistaken in some step they took in the past. The chances are – we have been there, too!

2. In this drama – all are at fault

Abram is at fault – but so is each actor in this drama. I have little doubt that Sarai longed for a son. She shared Abram's hopes. But long delay had sapped her trust in God, that he intended to give her a son. Instead we can hear resentment in her words, The LORD has prevented me from bearing children. (16:2 RSV) In fact, God had only delayed that event, so that the origin of his people should be seen as nothing short of miraculous. It would be entirely due to his grace and power – owing nothing to man's effort and contriving.

Perhaps the truth of the matter is, that Sarai only had a second-hand knowledge of God – through her husband – and not a personal experience of God. And Abram had shown himself selfish and insensitive to her needs, when they went down to Egypt. How could she know God's patient love and concern for her? How important is the witness we bear by our lives to one another, especially within our own homes!

But, if Sarai thought her desire could be met by surrogate motherhood, through Hagar – she reckoned without fallen human nature – unaware of her inability to cope with the emotions aroused. Some of the clearest moral teaching God gives is told to us in such simply told stories as these! We can take it in, when we see the pain and wreckage that results.

And what a fall-out there is, when Hagar becomes pregnant! All are blameworthy. Hagar is proud, as in a way, she has some right to be. Yet now she feels superior to her mistress, and almost certainly shows it. (Prov 30:21,23) But consider how she'd been treated. She is a slave – presumably bought or given in Egypt. Was she regarded by Sarai as some kind of compensation for her own indignity in that land?

Hagar was treated by Abram as a bed-companion or as a convenience to give him a son – there is little hint that she was loved or valued for herself. Not once does Abram (or Sarai) refer to Hagar by name; she is always just the servant! The lot of a secondary wife – like that of a surrogate mother – is dehumanising – because a relationship that should be loving has become calculating, commercial and a source of jealousy. Nevertheless, we can't excuse her – Hagar's attitude was wrong! Are we, perhaps, insensitive to the single and the childless?

Hagar's attitude to her hurts Sarai – she feels humiliated and envious. But Sarai blames Abram – although he had followed her advice! Wasn't this perhaps an expression of the earlier wrong done to her, which she had never really forgiven? The relationship between them had broken down – and she felt a competitor with Abram for God's justice. Oh yes, she believed in God's justice where she felt wronged – but was insensitive to Hagar's need of justice – after all, she was only a slave!

Sarai had no idea of God's purpose and grace for them – and through them, that God's love could reach out to others. But then, do we put our little concerns against the backcloth of God's great love and concern for all people? Do we vent our feelings on others? Or do we take them and lay them before God, in all honesty?

As for Abram – he wanted to wash his hands of the matter. But in God's eyes he was responsible. He had, in effect, married Hagar – but she was still Sarai's slave! The contemporary Babylonian law codes would back up that situation. It said that the servant who ranked herself with her mistress, because she had borne children, could not be sold – but could be treated as a slave.

How God must have been grieved at such a deterioration in what he intended for the marriage relationship! But 39 centuries later – we can't be superior, can we? – when we see the extent of divorce and broken homes, in our own Western society! It only underlines the need for the work of the Holy Spirit in all our lives.

3. God moves into this situation

This is the point at which we see God move into the situation. We find him confronting Hagar, in the person of the mysterious angel of the LORD, who clearly embodies the very presence of God, and speaks with his voice. (Gen 16:13; 21:17,18; 22:11,12,15,16; 31:11,13; 48:16; Ex 3:2,4; Num 22:35,38; etc)

First of all – the Lord knows who she is, her name and circumstances. Likewise he knows all about us – however hard we try to run away from our circumstances, as Hagar did. Or however hard we try to run away from God. He loves us and pursues us – until we recognise him.

And then he asks us the same searching questions as he asked Hagar – Where have you come from? or, as we might re-word it, How did you come to be in this situation? – and – Where are you going? – Where are you headed? What's your direction in life? We need to stop and reflect. But so many go through life without doing so – until God finds us in the wilderness, ill-equipped to cope.

4. God offers us his mercy and love

We need to recognise our desperate circumstances apart from his mercy – because of our wilfulness and sin. We need to recognise that we have no final hopeful destination apart from what God offers us. But in Jesus he offers us a pardon for the past, power for the present, and a sure hope for the future. To Hagar, God expressed himself in human terms about her son's future, something she could understand and appreciate. Ishmael would be no slave; he would be free of all men. But, first of all, she must return and submit to her mistress – for her own welfare and that of her unborn child.

She must, quite literally, turn round and go God's way and not her own way. She must literally, perhaps, turn the other cheek. It could not have been easy. But true repentance is often costly. At the least, we have to admit that we were wrong. We may have to put matters right with someone else we have wronged.

But just think what her obedience and her testimony would have meant to Abram and Sarai. Can you imagine the atmosphere in that home before Hagar returned? She ran away because you ill-treated her! Now I've lost the only chance of a son I've ever had! – Huh! She positively gloated over me. Anyway, it was you who said I was to do what I thought best. – Isn't a son what God promised me? – Don't throw that at me – you know how he's stopped me from having one... And so it may have gone on – or perhaps there was just a tense silence between them! Were they ashamed to learn that God had met with Hagar, rather than with them?

But returning wasn't the uppermost thought in Hagar's mind – nor even the promises God had made concerning Ishmael. It was the realisation that God had seen right into her heart and life and had come to meet her. She had been privileged to have a glimpse of him, the Living God. And she did something no other man or woman did in the whole Old Testament – she gave a name to God – El Roο – The God who sees me.

The same Saviour met another needy woman, by another well – and pointed out that earthly resources can never satisfy. But knowing him does satisfy – and that relationship will last forever. He died and rose again to make it possible.

Are we not all of us here in need of the living water Jesus gives? Then come to him, ask him, seek him. We all need to see Jesus – to trust him – to yield to him and drink – so that we may live by his Spirit. He gives his Spirit to all who put their trust in him. We all need to be led by the Holy Spirit of God – and not by our own devices.

We all need to walk by the Spirit – in faith, and not by our own cleverness. Only then shall we avoid the works of the flesh, deeds of our sinful, fallen, human nature – such things as were evident in the lives of Sarai, Hagar, and Abram – and instead produce the fruit, the harvest, of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

                                                                                      Amen.

''Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me, ''Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me: ''Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me ''Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.