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When we left Abram last week, God had just promised him a son. The problem, however, was that Abram was 85 and his wife, Sarai, was 75 years old and barren.

The story takes a tragic turn when Sarai decides to help God out by providing a son through her handmaiden, Hagar. Abram listens to his wife, goes into Hagar, and she becomes pregnant. That’s when the drama begins, which is predictable. They didn’t follow God’s plan, they took matters into their own hands and the result was trouble upon trouble.

Hagar starts acting all superior to Sarai. Sarai then blames Abram for the whole thing, he wants nothing to do with it, so he tells his wife, Sarai, to do what she wants. Sarai then treats Hagar harshly. Hagar can’t stand being treated that way, so she runs away, presumably headed back home to Egypt.

That’s when God intervenes. He finds Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness and told her to go back home to Sarai and to submit to her authority. In other words, she needs to stop being part of the problem. Her son, Ishmael is born the next year, but he is a wild donkey of a man and difficult to raise.

Abram then doesn’t hear from God for 13 years. Finally, after 13 years of living with the consequences of not trusting God and facing all the drama of raising a contentious wild donkey of a boy, God appears to Abram and says, “I am El Shaddai, the all-sufficient One, walk before Me and be blameless.”

This is the first time we’ve heard this name of God and it is filled with great promise.

I. God is All-Sufficient

 Sarai and Abram were not yet strong enough in faith to believe that God would fulfill His promise of a son. They didn’t yet believe in the sufficiency of God, so God comes to him 13 years after they took matters into their own hands and had suffered the consequences.

 The first thing God says after 13 years of silence is, “I am El Shaddai;” I am the all sufficient one.

 This is an aspect of God we need to understand as well because we have many things we need to trust God for every day.

 In Genesis 17 God comes to Abram after 13 years and speaks again of his covenant of promise, but now God is calling Abram to a changed life.

A. God doesn’t need your help

 Abram is 99 years old. God has given him the promises of a multitude of descendents that would come from his own body. Perhaps they thought this was a problem that was too difficult for God, and so they came up with their own solution.
 They tried their way and it only created troubles, but God’s plan and God’s way was better in every way.
 Have you ever come up with your own plan, have it fail miserably and then God reveal that His plan is so much better?
Illus – When I realized God wanted me to go to bible college and become a pastor, I came up with my own creative solution, but God had something far greater in mind.
 Abram and Sarai’s solution brought Ishmael- Israel’s thorn the flesh to this very day.
 At this point in the story Ishmael is 13 years old and we can well imagine the bitterness, rebellion, and contempt that would have been in their home.
Genesis 16: 11-12, The angel of the LORD said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael… He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him;”
App – Maybe you have your own story of when you decided to do things your own way, maybe even knowing that it wasn’t the right thing to do. If so, you then know that the results are most unpleasant - trouble and difficulty and much more struggle than you ever would have had if you just would have listened to God in the first place!
Psalm 106:13, 15, They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel…they tested God in the desert… And He gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul. NKJV

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