Let me read here from Genesis
chapter 16, and I'll read all 16 verses to you. And she had
a 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 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 judged 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 heartily
with her, well, she fled from her face. And the angel of the
Lord found her. He 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 cometh 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. And he will be a wild man, and
his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against
him. And he shall dwell in the presence
of all his brethren. And she called the name of the
Lord that spake unto her, Thou, God, seest me. For she said,
Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? Wherefore
the well was called Berlehiroi, because it is between Kadesh
and Bered, and Hagar, Ber-Abram, a son. And Abram called his son's
name, which Hagar bare Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six
years old when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. May the Lord bless the reading
of his word and let's ask God to bless and Please remember
these folks who are sick that I've mentioned to you, that if
God would be pleased to be merciful to them, that he would also grant
them physical healing. Lord, we bow to acknowledge your
greatness, the majesty of your being, We confess our nothingness. We confess that we're just vanity. O God, we plead for Thee to again
be merciful to us, meet with us. Lord, we're as beggars upon
a dunghill. And we can have nothing good
unless you give it to us. And in your infinite, everlasting
purpose, you have given to us the greatest gift that could
ever be given, and that is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our Savior. He is our hope of glory. He is our mediator, Father, between
thyself and us. And He is our Redeemer. All that we owed to divine justice,
our substitute came and endured your wrath in order to remove
our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. Oh, how
we bless you for covenant love. For that grace it was given us
in Christ Jesus, ere you made the world. And that one who lived
and died for us, oh, bless his name, he arose having finished
that work that you gave him to do, and then you welcomed him
back to glory. And our Lord Jesus, even this
very moment, as our intercessor, as our advocate, he sits at your
right hand. exalted by virtue of his successful
work of redemption and reconciliation. Lord, he is our all. He is our
righteousness. He's everything to us. And we thank you that your love
has been shed abroad in our hearts so that we can truthfully say
We love this Savior, and we love Him because He first loved us. Lord, we would say of these that
we've mentioned, these whom Thou lovest are sick. We lift them up to You. Lord,
you're infinitely wise and you know far, far better than we
do what your people need. You know what your people need
to go through. You know the difficulties that
we need to experience and the sicknesses that are ultimately
best for us. We're thankful that none of these
things are left up to chance, or luck, or fate, or anything
like that. Our God reigns. And these difficulties
of the flesh, Lord, they always remind us of just how frail we
are, and that our days upon this earth No matter how many we may
live, they are all numbered. And we're destined one day to
leave this world. And for the people of God, it
will be a blessed day when we go to meet the Savior. Bless
these sick ones, and Lord, encourage them. These who are your people,
Lord, lift their spirits. Because even in the midst of
sickness, in the midst of disease, Lord, you can put a song in the
heart. And you can put joy, joy in the
soul. And Lord, we should always be
joyful, rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. because of Him,
because of Your everlasting covenant grace, all is well between us
and You. How we bless You, Father, and
how we thank You. And as we open the Word of God
tonight and seek to get a little understanding of this portion
that we've read, we ask that the Spirit of grace would Take
us, as it were, by the hand and teach us. Open up our minds and
our hearts that we may behold wondrous things from thy word. Bless these who are gathered.
Speak to them, Lord. Speak to me. and those who are
watching by way of the internet or listening to this message
later on a recording. Lord, give us faith in the Lord
Jesus and give us an increase of faith. We would confess we
believe, but Lord, help our unbelief. So this evening, magnify your
name and bless us students of the Word of God. And now, Holy
Spirit, we ask you to be our teacher. These things we ask
in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and for his
sake, amen. Well, as we come this evening
to the book of Genesis chapter 16, I've given the, here's the
title to the message, and I'm just, the three main characters
in this, Abram and of course Sarai and Hagar. And I say these are the three
main characters, but over and above these, there is the angel
of the Lord. And that is our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to say even at the
outset of this message, here in this portion of scripture,
in verse number 7, the first time the word angel is used in
the Bible. And it is used in connection
with the angel of the Lord. And this is none other than our
Savior. Here He is in pre-incarnate form. And He often appeared this way
to many people throughout the Old Testament, but it's significant
that this is the very first time. And the one that He does appear
to is an Egyptian. She is a Gentile. And listen,
if He appeared to and revealed himself to that Gentile, maybe
he'll reveal himself to us Gentiles. That he would be gracious to
us. And that he would open our eyes to a well of water. And that well of water is the
very salvation that he purposed. And that salvation that our Lord
Jesus entered into this world to secure for us that justice
would be satisfied and law would be honored. And now grace and
mercy, they freely flow to folks like you and me. Now, as we get to this chapter,
there are two great things that need to be kept in mind. One
of them is very obvious. The other one is not so obvious
unless you read Galatians chapter 4. The very first thing that
is obvious is that here is a man, Abram, who is a man of faith. The scripture says that. You
go to the book of Hebrews and three times it says of Abram
that he believed God. And yet here we find that he
had his bouts of unbelief. Also in the book of Hebrews chapter
11, we read that his wife, Sarah, she was a woman of faith. But
here in Genesis chapter 16, it is obvious that she has a lapse
in faith. And so one of the things, one
of the, I'll call it a theme of this chapter, is the unbelief
of Abram. The unbelief of Abram, but the
faithfulness of God. Now there's another theme that
really you're not going to see and you're not going to understand
until you go to the book of Galatians chapter 4. And in the book of
Galatians chapter four, which is a book in which the apostle
is warning the Galatian believers about the Judaizers who were
infiltrating the church and bringing with them the false doctrine
of salvation by works. In that portion of scripture,
he refers to an allegory. And the allegory that he refers
to is the allegory pertaining to this woman, Sarah, and her
handmaid, Sarah and Hagar. Here are the two. And here's
what he tells us in the book of Galatians chapter four, that
these two women, and really we won't get into it very much until
we get to the 21st chapter of Genesis. But when we talk about
Hagar, when God talks about Hagar, that's typical of the covenant
of works. And that is obviously revealed
in the book of Galatians chapter 4. And when we talk about Sarah,
she's talking about the covenant of grace. the covenant of grace. You see Isaac, and of course
he hasn't been born yet so we really won't get into this more
fully until the 21st chapter. Isaac, he is the result of waiting
on God, God fulfilling his word, fulfilling his promise. He was
a miracle child. He's born not of Hagar, but of
Sarah. And that's a picture of the new
covenant of grace, of salvation by grace. There is no contribution
that our flesh makes in salvation. And you see that idea of being
saved by works, that comes from Hagar. Because here's what Abram
and his wife Sarai, here's what they did. Instead of believing
God, instead of just resting in His word, they decided they
would make their contribution to Abram having an heir. And that's what man does when
he makes salvation by works. He's making a contribution to
his salvation. Now, I speak very openly and
very frankly to all of you, and to those of you who are watching
by way of the internet, in this matter of our relationship with
God, in this matter of the saving of our souls, in this matter
of the removal of our sins, in this issue of being declared
righteous, There is no contribution we make. We've got to understand
that. This is all of God. It's a work
of God. And this is the allegory. Here's
the picture. Here's the underlying picture
that is beginning to be worked out because we're now introduced
to this woman. And we find that Hagar Later
on, and then her son Ishmael, he is a result of the effort
of the flesh. Salvation is not due to the effort
of the flesh. We'll find that Isaac will be
later born. And as it says in Galatians chapter
4, he's born of a free woman. And that's Sarah. And you and
I, we're born again by free grace. We're brought into the kingdom
of God by His mercy. No works, for by grace are you
saved through faith. And that, not of yourselves. Oh, that needs to be shouted
out. Not of yourselves. It's not of
Hagar. It's not of the contribution
of our works or our labor. our efforts, in this matter of
the salvation of the soul, it is all of God. Our doctrine is
the doctrine of Jonah. Salvation is of the Lord. In
its origin, in its purchase, in its application, in its preservation,
in keeping us, and in its perfection. And we must get rid of the idea,
and it's the most difficult thing of all, the idea that we must do something. And only God can overcome this
natural stubbornness that we feel like we've got to make some
contribution. Surely I've got to do something. And only the Spirit of Grace
can convince us that all has been done by the Son of God. So that the message is not, sinner
you need to do something, it's, oh poor sinner, it's been done,
it's been done. And the Lord comes to us by His
grace and He reveals the gospel of everlasting life in, through,
and by Christ Jesus. Now as we get to chapter 16 of
the book of Genesis, there's a real contrast between this
chapter and the previous chapter. In chapter 15 we see Abram as
a man of faith. We read in chapter 15 and verse
6, and he believed in the Lord. He believed in God, our Savior,
and he counted it to him for righteousness. Abraham is set
before us as a man of faith. And he's a man who brings the
animals as God told him to bring, and he offers them for a sacrifice. He knows it's the only way he
can worship God is by means of a blood sacrifice. And he brings
these animals and a turtle dove and a pigeon. And he worships
God. Just believing the Word of God
on the basis of the innocent giving its life for the guilty. Let the guilty go free. Abram believed that. He's a man
who believed God. Who embraced the very promises
of God. That's Abram in chapter 15. I
already mentioned that in Hebrews chapter 11, we find three times
that Abram believed God, Abram believed God, Abram believed
God. And then you get to this chapter
tonight, and we find that God's word concerning an heir, Abram,
nudged into this by his wife, decides this will work out better
if we make some contribution to it. Things are not going,
we don't see any possibility of the promise of God being fulfilled
because Abram was old and of course Sarah had a dead womb.
So she's not going to have a child, and so Sarai, Sarai is her name
now, it'll be changed a little bit later, and she comes up with
the idea that I'll have my servant, my Egyptian servant, go into
my husband and bear a son. And of course, as it was back
in those days when the servant had a child, that it immediately
became the child of the mistress of the house, in this case would
be Sarai. And that was the tradition back
in those days. So they're taking things into
their own hands. Here's Abram, a man who believed
God in chapter 15, and here in chapter 16, you almost get the
idea he didn't believe God at all. And yet, when you get to Hebrews
chapter 11, there is no mention ever made about what Abram and
his wife, Sarai, decided to do. There's no mention of their sin.
There's no mention of Sarai saying, take Hagar to be your second
wife. There's no mention of that at
all. Because you see in the New Testament here, our Lord Jesus
has given His life for His people. And it has, as this man Abraham
and Sarah are presented there in Hebrews chapter 11, none of
this is even mentioned. And aren't you thankful that
none of your sins, none of your doubts, none of your fears are
remembered by God? They're all washed away in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 15, Abram walked in
the Spirit. God appeared to him in a vision
and he had a blessed experience. Then we get to chapter 16 here
and he walks in the energy of the flesh. In the energy of the
flesh. Learn this. There are no perfect
feet that walk in the path of faith. It just doesn't exist. There's a sad inconsistency about
all believers. That's you and me and everybody
else. Only one man could ever truthfully
say, I always do those things that please the Lord. And that's
our Savior. He always pleased God. And we
read in 2 Timothy, a blessed portion of Scripture, though
we believe not, He abided faithful. That's a wonderful promise from
God, isn't it? The Lord had blessed Abram in
so many ways. Among the blessings, of course,
was a promise of an heir. Look back at chapter 15 and verse
4. Behold, the word of the Lord
came unto Abram, saying, This shall not be thine heir, that
is his servant Eliezer. This shall not be thine heir,
but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall
be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad,
and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you be
able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall
thy seed be. And Abram believed the Lord,
he believed the Word of God, just the naked Word of God. There's no evidence, there's
nothing to lay hold to, nothing tangible. He's an old man, his
wife is an old woman. And yet he lays hold of the Word
of God and just believes the Lord. That's the way we want
to be. As we read God's Word, as we
see the promises of God unveiled before our eyes of faith in the
Scriptures, we just want to believe Him. And every child of God,
these two things are always true. We believe Him, but we want to
believe Him more fully. And we're like the guy in the
New Testament who said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. And so we see in Abram, we see
a man who believes God on one hand, and then on the other hand,
doesn't believe Him at all. And this is the life of Abram. And this is the life of every
child of God. Abram is called out of Ur of
the Chaldees, and he went forth. God revealed himself to him.
You say, well, he wasn't a believer then. In Hebrews chapter 11,
by faith, by faith he went out of Ur of the Chaldees. He believed
God. He had nothing to go on but the
bare naked Word of God. And he followed the Lord. Where
are you going, Abram? I don't know. I don't know. I'm just following the leadership
of Jehovah. He just believed God. And then
he goes into Egypt, and he's fearful for his life, and he
tells his lovely bride, don't tell him you're my wife. Tell
him you're my sister. Because Pharaoh, he's going to
take a liking to you. You're a good-looking woman,
sir. I'll tell you, you're beautiful. You're a beautiful woman, she
said. Well, thank you. He said, now when we get to Egypt,
if you care about my life, you've got to lie and tell them you're
my sister. Otherwise, if you tell them I'm
his husband, I'm his wife, rather, That's my husband over there.
They're going to kill me and take you. And here's this man
who's on the mountaintop of faith. And then you say, what happened
to that faith? It just seemed to vanish. And this is his life. It's just
like this. Sort of like your life, isn't
it? That's the way it is with all
of God's people. But our Lord, is faithful still. Now, there's
no excuse for unbelief. Please, don't misunderstand me. I would never say that unbelief
is a little thing. It's a sinful thing for the people
of God not to believe the Lord. He is so trustworthy. Has He
not proven Himself faithful to you over and over and over again? Why, all the way through the
Old Testament He promised He was sending His Son. Did He not
send His Son? Well, sure He did. He sent his
son. The Lord gave commandment, name
him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Did
he save his people from their sins? Yes, he did. How did he
do that? By his substitutionary sacrifice
upon the cross of Calvary. God makes good on every word. Why don't we believe him more
fully? Oh God, forgive us for our doubts.
Our fears. The Lord promised Abram an heir. And I tell you, the Lord is the
promise maker, and He's the promise keeper. And when we don't believe Him
like we should, He still keeps His promises. There's an organization,
you know, called the Promise Keepers. I was reading about
them again today just to kind of refresh my memory. They've
got a big convention set for the middle of the summer at a
big stadium and they're the promise keepers. I'll tell you something,
let's just be honest, we're promise breakers. That's a much better
summarization of our life. We're promise breakers. There's
only one promise keeper. That's the Lord of Glory. He's
the promise maker. He promised us life in Christ
Jesus before He ever made the world, because He gave us to
Christ. He joined us to Christ. We're one with Him. He's the
promise maker and He is the promise keeper. And I can tell you right
now why you've got everlasting life and why you will never perish
is because God's the promise keeper. Because His Word is good. It's sound. Let God be true and
every man a liar. He's true. Well, years go by, ten years
go by, and still Abram and Sarai remain childless. So here we
find them taking matters into their own hands. I tell you,
when we take matters into our own hands, we're just opening
ourselves up to trouble. That's what they did here. And
this man Ishmael, he's a wild man. In fact, literally, out
of the Hebrew, he's called a wild ass. That's this man Ishmael. You talk about bringing a heartache.
You talk about destroying a home. Destroying a family. He will grow up to be the enemy
of God's people. And you see, this one Ishmael,
Abram said, and of course Hagar said, this is going to be the
heir now. He's not going to be the heir. The heir is Isaac,
who's a picture of the Lord Jesus. You see, back behind this, ultimately,
of course, is God. But he uses Satan in this, who
put forth the temptation. And here's the temptation that
Ishmael is going to be the substitute for the real son. Here's anti-Christ. That's who he is. He's anti the
promised son. But yet the purpose of God cannot
be overthrown. Cannot be overthrown. Now Sarai
had heard the promise of God. The promise that God made to
Abram. But she wanted him to take Hagar to be a secondary
wife, to bear him a son, and of course Abram did. He gave
in and said, well, if you insist. And so he went to her and she
became pregnant. Now this idea that they came
up with, Sarai came up with, is wrong in every way. Number
one, it's wrong against God. who himself had given the promise
about the seed, the seed of Abram, they should have believed God
and waited patiently. And one of the most difficult
things for any of us, for any son and daughter of Adam, is
to wait patiently on the Lord. We want to get in a rush. Things
are not proceeding as fast as we'd like for them to proceed.
Sarah steps in and says, you know, I know what God said, but
I'll tell you honey, it's just not working out. Just not working
out. You go ahead and take Hagar.
She's a fine looking woman, and she's much, much younger than
I am, and she'll go ahead and bear you a son, and then I'll
take the son to be my own, and he'll be the heir. This is wrong
against God. Wrong against God. Because this
boy would be, he is the counterfeit to the real heir. He's not the heir. Isaac is the
heir. Isaac is the true seed, and he
represents all the people of God in one aspect, and in another
way, he represents our Lord Jesus. He's the real seed. He's the
promised seed. But Satan would have Ishmael. Ah, he'll be the promised heir.
No, no, no, no, no. So this is wrong against God.
And then this is wrong against Abram. because it led him down
the path of unbelief. And we're pretty easily led to,
I'll tell you that. If you know anything about the
weakness of your flesh, it doesn't take much to lead you down a
path of unbelief. And then it's wrong against Hagar. It wasn't her idea. She didn't
seduce Abram. I'll tell you, it's wrong against
this child that would be born of this illicit union, Ishmael,
because he's going to be forced to leave the family, and of course,
Hagar is going to be forced to leave too. Actually, she wronged
herself. She hurt herself. First of all, she shouldn't have
ever had an Egyptian maid anyhow. She did wrong when she was in
Egypt, taking this maid. Well, we just read that when
a hager conceived, she was filled with pride, and all of a sudden
she despised Saria. She despised her. And so, Sarai
goes to Abram and tells him, Hagar's looking down on me. She
despises me. And Abram tells his wife, well
this was your idea. You was the one that made this
suggestion. You deal with it. You deal with
it. Look at verse 5 again. Kind of
interesting language here, verse 5. And Sarai said unto Abram,
My wrong be upon thee, I have given my maid unto thy bosom. My wrong be on thee. In other
words, may my sin be laid to your account. Literally, may my wrong be imputed
to you. Here's an instance of imputation. Here's the wrong of one person
being charged to another. Boy, that sends us right to the
gospel again. In the Bible, there's a threefold
imputation. Adam's sin to all of his posterity. Then all of the elect, the sins
of all of God's people, all of the elect being imputed, reckoned
to, counted, charged to our Lord Jesus Christ. And then His righteousness
that He established by His obedience unto death being imputed to all
the accounts of His people. Well, at the end of verse 6,
it says, when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. Hagrid decides this is more than
she can bear, and she leaves, and she hides. And then in verse
7, and the angel of the Lord found her. That's a sweet statement. The angel of the Lord found her. If you want a His, you can't
hide from Him. He'll find you. I made mention
this Lord's Day morning back about Zacchaeus. He may find
you up a tree. He may find you on the Damascus
road. He may find you sitting by a
well. with a broken heart, but he'll
find his people because he's the seeking shepherd who goes
after the lost. He finds her. He's never disappointed. He knows
you. He knows all of his elect. He'll
find us whenever is the proper time, the right time, the time
assigned for love. As in Ezekiel chapter 16, behold
it was a time of love. He'll find you. And he found her by a fountain
of water in the wilderness. Found her in the wilderness.
What do you know about that? That's where he found us. in
the wilderness. And he initiates, watch it now,
he initiates this conversation. And this angel of the covenant,
angel of the Lord, he's the angel of the covenant, the messenger
of the covenant. I have no question about that
at all. And I know that because he says in verse 10, I will multiply
thy seed. This is not a created angel.
This is our Lord Jesus, the messenger, the surety of the covenant, the
angel of the covenant. He initiates this. People say, Dave, if you'll take
the first step. No, no, no. The Lord not only
takes the first step, He just comes all the way to you. And
He finds you. He finds the lost sheep and picks
it up, puts it on His shoulders and goes home rejoicing. Oh,
if we could get this out of our minds that there's something
we've got to do. No, there's something He's got
to do. He's got to seek. And when He
seeks, He finds. And He makes a revelation of
Himself to us. And he starts talking to her. And the angel of the Lord, he
says, where are you going? Where are you going? And she
said, well, I'm running from the face of my mistress. And
he says, return to your mistress and submit under her hands. And the angel of the Lord says,
I will multiply. I'll take care of everything
here. Your seed will multiply. But he's going to be a wild man.
Nothing hidden from her. He's going to be a wild ass.
Untameable. And his hand is going to be against
every man. He's going to be a warrior. And
every man is going to be against him. And she says in verse 13, it says, she called the name
of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me. Thou God seest me. And I speak
to those of you who are the people of God. The Lord sees you. as if there was nobody else on
this earth. You're the only one. Isn't that
something? You have His full attention.
Because of His greatness, because of His infinite being, this one
who is incomprehensible, He sees you, He focuses in on you as
though there was nobody else on this earth, just you. Isn't
that something? Thy God seeth me? As if there
was nobody else on this earth for you to look at and you focus
in on me? He looks on you to this degree. He focuses on you as though you
were the only one. Though He's got a multitude in
this world. And He focuses on every one of
them the same way. And He sees you, He sees you
entirely. There's nothing hidden from His
view. And He sees you constantly. And
He sees you accurately. Nothing escapes His attention
when it comes to you. When it comes to His people. He looks on us with love. It's the look of love. It's the
look of concern. It's the look of the Father upon
a child. When your kids were born, just
little ones, and you looked in that little
face You focused on that face and you said, I'm going to take
care of you and love you. And I'll tell you, your little
one, as they grew up, feels so protected, so loved, so nourished. Well, just multiply that times
infinity. That's our God caring for each
of us. He gazed on me. Thou, God, seest
me. And I'll tell you, the same eye
that looked on Hagar looks on you. Looks on you. Isn't that something? The same
eye. The all-seeing eye of our God. He sees you. And He cares. This is a father's look. A father's look. So really what we have here is
another trial of Abram's faith. And like with you and me, a lot
of times we fail the test. But He never fails us. You just
take that home with you. He never fails us. And He never
will. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your everlasting
love to your covenant people. Oh God, thank you for looking
on us, focusing on us, always seeing us. And you see us as
we really are in Christ Jesus. You don't see the sins. You don't
remember the iniquities. You see a child, a child of your
love, the fruit of your grace. You
always care for us. Oh, you see how much we need
you. And you never fail us. You're
always providing so abundantly for us. Why, you saw us in old
eternity. Forever, you've always seen us
in Christ. You've had the look of love,
the look of grace, always looking upon us with favor. And when
we fail, it's the look of forgiveness. And when we need some discipline,
it's the look of chastisement, but never to punish us. because
our Savior was punished in our stead. It's always the look of total
concern for us. We bless you, Father. Thank you
for this one who is the true heir, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the heir of all things. the one who by himself put away
our sins and brought in everlasting righteousness. O Lord, may all
of your people go home tonight rejoicing. Oh, how can we not
rejoice and be thankful and in the very midst of our hearts
be glad, notwithstanding the difficulties that may be surrounding
us now, notwithstanding the sicknesses, and all the things that don't
go our way. Yet, Lord, in everything You're
governing and You rule, and we rejoice in You. Forgive us for
our unbelief. We want to believe You more fully.
We trust You and we ask that You would, as You granted faith
to us, That conversion, as you gifted faith to us, we ask that
you would cause the faith to grow. Not that we would ever
look to our faith, why it's so flimsy, it isn't strong enough
to hold us up, but you are and you will. And we ask you to bless
us with the ability to believe you more fully. These things
we ask, Lord, for your glory and for our spiritual benefit. In the name of Christ Jesus,
amen.