The God Who Sees

thank you very much to the uh Sun Cosingers it was a beautiful song it is MyFather's World and of course it is uhFather's Day weekend I believe so uhthat's appropriate for our time andtoday we're going to be looking at oneof the most famous fathers in the Biblenot always a perfect father but a m afather of the faithful and that isAbraham himself so uh good morningeverybody we like to welcome you to ourworship service here on this beautifulMichigan summer day uh for those of youjoining us online we give you a warmwelcome as well um I've been strugglingwith my voice the last six or sevenweeks it disappeared from me in witcharKansas um for which I always have a funspot in my memory witchar Kansas where Ilost my voice so I'm going to bedrinking through my sermon today becauseit's slowly comingback I just hope I can make it throughour two sermons today and we have twotwo different sermons today uh they ondifferent names of God uh the first isin the story of uh Hagar and Abraham andthe second service I'll be speakingabout um the battle with the amalekitesin the book of Exodus and there'sanother name of God revealed there byMoses um but our first uh our first uhsermon today is talk is entitled The Godwho sees and um there it hasn't comethrough in the PowerPoint but it's Elroythe God who sees and that is the name ofGod that we're going to be exploringtoday for our first service so um Iinvite you you to Bow your heads with meI will ask the holy spirit to guide ourtime together Heavenly Father we thankyou for this beautiful Sabbath dayfather I thank you that the sun isshining the birds are singing the airthe sky is blue the grass is green and Ithank you that we have the freedom togather and worship you here today Lordas I I share from your word I pray thatyour spirit will speak through me andfor me I ask that my voice will hold outand I pray Lord that the God who seesthat you will see into each of ourhearts and you'll lead us and you willchange us and you will guide us we askyou this Mercy in jesus' name amen allright so if I to ask you first of allare names important I think you wouldsay yes yes often times your name candetermine your experience of life so Iwas once stopped by a police officer insome other part of the world and hewanted to know my name uh because he andI had a dispute about how fast I wasgoing so he wanted to know my name andaddress and I said my name is CharlesWindsor and my name my address isBuckingham Palace and I said thisobviously is a joke and he didn'trealize it was a joke but if my namereally were to be Charles Windsor um Iwould probably not be standing heretoday I'd be the Prince of Wales inEngland another policeman stopped me andwanted to know my name and address for Ithink the same reason and I I explainedthat my name was Michael Mouse and myaddress was Sunset Boulevard Hollywoodand again he didn't see the humor inthat um but again your name does have ameaning it does impact your name yourlife experience there were some Englishkings I give you some of their namesthere was a guy called Ethel R theunready is it a good idea to have a kingwhose name is ethelred the unreadyprobably not there was a king calledAlfred the Great and he kicked the Danesout of the eastern half of England who'sknown as the great the guy who builtWestminster Abbey in about a th000 adthat's 1100 years ago he is known in tohistory as Edward the Confessor becausehe spent so much time in theconfessional and he laid he built whatwe now call um Westminster Abbey thenthere was a king called Edgar thePeaceable and he didn't last very longuh because such were the nature of thedays in which he lived so Edgar thepeaceful is not a good name for a kingrather there was another king calledWilliam theConqueror and he invaded England he wasa Duke of Normandy he invaded England in1066 ad and that started off modernBritish history he was known as Williamthe Conqueror and he took the firstcensus of the English people and it isknown to history as the Doomsday Bookyou can still read it um there wasanother king called Richard kuron orRichard thelionhart very famous king um he was aking for 10 years he stayed in Englandfor 3 years raised enough money went offon a crusade uh captured Jerusalem fromthe the uh the Muslims and on his wayhome um he was captured by a Frenchcount and held hostage and so theEnglish exj had to raise twice thenational GDP to Ransom him and when hewas ransomed he came out and decided tosack the next French Castle he cameacross and in the process of sackingthat castle was hit in the neck by acrossbow bolt and never made it home nowhe was followed by a guy called JohnLackland he was the guy who signed theMagna Carta and he was known as theLackland because he had no land and whatgood is a king if you don't own land andso we hired foreign mercenaries andhence we have the Magna carted St sonames reflect to their character now inthe Bible names also change in in tunewith people's spiritual experience so wehave uh Jacob what does Jacobbecome Israel so Jacob means thedeceiver and he becomes Israel whichmeans the prince of God you see hisspiritual experience uh through thechange of his name you also have Sauland Saul becomes Paul maybe after paulushis first convert the Roman governor ofCyprus uh then you have Abraham whowe're going to be looking at today hebecomes who Abraham and Sarai becomesSarah and Simon becomesComes Peter in the New Testament and sonames reflect the the change of namereflects people's spiritual growth thechange in their spiritual experience andaccording to the Book of Revelationchapter 3 when we get to heaven each oneof us gets a new name written by GodAlone which reflects our uniquespiritual experience in life aren't youlooking forward to seeing what your namemight become when you get to heavenit'll be a name of Honor a name givenyou by God himself now God has manynames Each of which is window intounderstanding his character and so wefind in Genesis 17 Abraham God calls GodEl Shai which means god almighty uh inGenesis 22 which is the story of Abrahamgoing to offer s um Isaac um on theMount of Mariah um Abraham calls godJehovah Gyra or Yahweh which means theLord will provide and then um the Lordwho heals is in Exodus chapter 15 whenthey cross the Red Sea and then you havekadosh Israel the Holy One of Israel wefind that in Leviticus 19 uh David callsGod Yahweh Roy the Lord my shepherd andthen Jeremiah refers to God as YahwehSid canu which means the Lord ourrighteousness these are all beautifulnames of God but today we're going to belooking at uh uh very well thisparticular name of God it means the Godwho sees or The God who sees me andhears me in my distress that's what thename means and so every good um storyhas three basic components whether youwant whether you read a Charlotte Brontenovel or Charles Dickens or any famousAmerican Authors or wherever you comefrom or whether you watch any movieevery story has three basic componentsthere's a situation followed by acomplication then there's a resolutionand if you think of every movie you'veever seen every novel you've ever readthey basically have these threecomponents would you agree with methere's a situation there's acomplication and then there is aresolutionand most of the time let's say when itcomes to movies the situation is likeyou get a happy couple or a happy familylasting about 30 seconds then you havethe complication and then most of themovie is the resolution of that family'sproblems and you find the same structurethroughout the scriptures uh so forinstance the Book of Ruth um Ruth uh isreally the story of the the resolutionof Naomi's problems not of Ruth'sproblems really Naomi is the hero of theBook of Ruth and so today we're goinglooking at uh this story of Hagar umthat is found in the Book of Genesischapter 16 so we're going to startlooking at the situation I'm going toput the texts up on the screen you canread them in your bibles if you want umbut we're going to start out the storyin Genesis 12:1-4 now this is the second time that wefind the call of God to Abraham thefirst time that we find the go the callof God to Abraham is actually in the NewTestament in Acts chap 7: 2 3 and 4where God called Abraham to leave hiscountry and his Kindred and to leaveEarth the caldes and come to thepromised land but on his way to thepromised land Abraham gets stuck inharan which is at Northern day Iraq andso he's journeying from the Persian Gulfall the way around the river tigerishand Euphrates he gets stuck in haranbecause his father is old and can't goon any further and he waits till hisfather is dead and then God reaffirmshis call to Abraham and this is the callhere he says now the Lord said toAbraham go from your country and yourKindred and your father's house to theland that I will show you I will make ofyou a great nation and I will bless youand make your name great so that youwill be a blessing I will bless thosewho bless you and the one who curses youI will curse and in you all the familiesof the Earth shall be blessed so Abrahamwent as the Lord had told him and lotwent with him Abraham was 75 years oldwhen he departed from from Haram and sowhen when um Abraham's father has diedum Abraham moves on from Haram then he'smoving on to the promised land he's 75years old at the time and he has nochildren and his wife's about 10 yearsyounger than him so they are bothapproaching kind of like the upper upperlimits of the envelope like when you canactually realistically have children butGod promises him that he's going to makemake a great nation out of him soAbraham isn't quite sure how God isgoing to fulfill This Promise so let meask you the question God says to Abrahamin the first verse there go from yourcountry and from your Kindred so thequestion is in the last verse there yousee on the screen did Abraham fully obeyGod did Abraham first of all leave hiscountry yes he did now did they didAbraham leave all hisKindred no who did he take with him onthis journey lot the Next Generationdown his nephew cuz Abraham suspectshe's not going to have any childrennaturally he suspects his wife is beyondbeond childbearing age and she surelysuspects that and so even though Abrahamum is partially obedient to God and heleaves his father's country he doesn'texactly leave all his family behind hetakes a man of the Next Generation whohe thinks will maybe be his his TheChosen seed The Chosen successor soAbraham enter heads out from haran onhis way to the promised land now a yearum a year later in Genesis 15 Abrahamand Sarah are still childless but inGenesis 15 Abraham tells god thatactually My Chosen Heir is not going tobe lot and it's not the child of Promiseso I don't have one yet it's going to bea man called eleazer eleazer was a slaveborn in his household and um he wasgoing to be the chosen heir of Abrahamso Abraham so far he's he's hedging hisBets with God okay I'm God's going tomake of me a great nation so he takeslot with him maybe lot will be the CHthe child of Promise then in Genesis 15Eleazar pops up as the chosen of Abrahambut that's not God's plan for Abrahamand so at the end of Genesis chapter 15God reaffirms his promise to Abrahamthat it's not going to be lot who willbe your Heir and it's not going to beEleazar I still am going to give you achild of promise but Abraham's not quitesure that God's going to come through onhis promises so he's hedging hisbacks is it going to be eleazer maybeit's going to be locked so then we cometo our scripture reading now SaraiAbraham's wife bore him him no childrenthis is immediately after in Genesis 15God promises Abraham you're going tohave a child and Sarah is your wife andGenesis 16 starts with the good new thebad news that a Sarai was not bearinghim any children but she had an Egyptianslave girl whose name wasHagar and so here we have thecomplication and uh as you look throughthe story of Abraham before we get toIsaac you have lot then you have Eleazarthen you have Ishmael and Abraham oneach occasion thinks maybe this is theone through whom the child of Promisewill will through whom the the seed theline of Promise will come will Godfulfilled his promises through lot theanswer is no will he fulfill hispromises through Eleazar no will Godfulfill his promises through Ishmael noso Abraham is kind of hedging his BSwith God here and in this first verse umyou see that that Abraham is stuckbetween two Waring women it literallystarts out with Sarai and it ends upwith Hagar that verse one in Hebrew andstuck in the middle is Abraham andAbraham is stuck between two competingWaring women it's not a good omen forthe story that's about to take placethere's a story of two women here one isold the other is young one is fertilethe other is past childbearing years oneis free the other is a slave one is anIraqi that's Sarah one is an Egyptianthat's Hagar one has a position ofauthority and the other is in a positionof subservience and yet this versebegins with Sarah and ends with Hagarand stuck in the middle between thesetwo competing women we find Abraham andGenesis 16 starts with the idea thattime is moving on because it says therein verse three after Abraham had lived10 years in the land of Canaan so 10years after God has reiterated hispromise to Abraham that I'm going tobless you and you're going to have manymany children you have many Descendantsthe promise is still not coming notcoming true and father time and mothernature are brutal um taskmasters andSarah knows that she's not going to haveany children that's what she thinks andso she decides to take matters into herownhands now you may ask yourself where didthis Hagar comefrom well in Genesis 12 a few chaptersbefore uh when Abraham went down toEgypt he was afraid for his life becausehe said that his wife was beautifuland he said to her tell everybody thatyou're my sister and not my wife becausethen maybe they won't kill me in orderto take you for themselves and it saysthere when the officials of pharaoh sawher that is Sarah they praised her topharaoh and the woman was taken intoPharaoh's house and for her sake hedealt well with Abram and he had sheepand oxen and male donkeys male andfemale slaves female donkeys and camelsand so during his time in Egypt Abramhad acquired great wealth including maleand female slaves but 10 years have nowpassed Sarai really is getting prettyold there is still no child of Promisethrough Sarai would God's promises evercome true and so Sarah decides to takematters into her own hand and this iswhere we have the complication in thestory because God's twice repeatedpromise of a child to Sarah have notworked out over 10 years and so rightafter the promise of countless childrenis given again in Genesis 15 Genesis 16opens with the barrenness of Sarah andtime is moving on so Sarah takes mattersinto her own hand and she said toAbraham you see that the Lord hasprevented me from bearing children gointo my slave girl it may be that Ishall obtain children by her and Abrahamlisten to the voice of Sarah you mightsay foolish man because out of thatUnion we have the Arab Israeli conflictof today and Sarah starts out by blamingGod for her problems she's hardlystarting from a position of faith is sheGod has promised twice that that Abrahamyou're going to have a child and youknow Sarah is your only wife so God haspromised twice that they're going tohave children but Sarah is now blamingGod for the fact that she is childlessand so she decides to take matters intoher own hands and rather than looking toGod for guidance she looks to herculture and there are many times that wetoday when things don't seem to go aswell as we expect them to go we look foranswers and solutionswithin our culture and if it's okaywithin our culture we think it's okayfor us to do it as followers of God andso she looks to her culture and whatdoes she find within her culture well onthe screen there you see um was known asthe lelli uh this is known as the codeof hammer ABI now hamurabi was a king inancient Babylon and this is the oldestknown formal legal system in the worldand this goes back to a couple hundredyears before the time of Abraham and souh the the Babylonians had a wellestablish lished legal system and it'swritten in uniform text and it is thelongest it is the best organized and itis the best preserved legal text fromthe ancient world and it is written inthe older Babylonian dialect of aradianallegedly by hamurabi the sixth King ofthe first dynasty of Babylon and we maythink to ourselves well you know thosethose ancients they were prettyprimitive no they weren't uh that thatLou steel has 4,100 lines of uniformtext on ityou can barely see them I mean you'vegot to look really hard to see they'reso small and we say okay but they wereprimitive they're writing in uniformtext well not so not so fast uh in theEnglish language we have the activevoice and the passive voice yes I seeyou is active I am seen by you ispassive if you go back 2,000 years umlanguages say ancient coin Greek whichNew Testament has written had threevoices had active passive and somethingknown as Middle where you do somethingsomething unto yourself so I see you asactive I am seen by you as passive I seemyself is middle but if you go back toBabylonian you have sixvoices and so what what has happened isas you go back in time language becomesinfinitely morecomplex what that tells you is that aswe've gone through time we have lost thecapacity for the Precision of expressionthat they had back in those ancient daysthat our languages are devolving they'rebecoming ever more blunt so if you havea language such as this the code ofhammer Abbi that can have six voices init it has a capacity for precision ofexpression that we cannot conceive oftoday and so we look at these thesestones in these museums we think oh wellthese ancients they were kind ofprimitive kind of scratching themselvesin the dirs of the Middle East no thesefolks had a had a had a capacity for umexpression of thought that we simply donot have today and that's captured inthe code of hammer Rabbi now in the codeof hammer Rabbi it allowed for child Wchild ESS wife to give one of her slavesto her husband to obtain childrenthrough her now the code then specifiedthe rights of the slave girl and of thewife and the Privileges and also of thechild and it did this in order to reducejealousy inviting and the oppression ofthe slave girl and in Genesis 12 Abrahamhad told Sarah while they were in Egyptthat she was only to say that she washis sister and she was to deny theirmarriage so effectively in Genesis 12Abraham had been quite willing for Saraito have a child from an Egyptian fatherso now in Genesis 16 Sarah is quitehappy for Abraham to have a child froman Egyptian mother what goes round comesround and the pain that is going to becaused is immense in both situations soSarah Begins by blaming God for her ownlack of children then she proposes thatGod give Abraham a child through HagarSarah is going to fulfill her own needsfor the child of promise with or withoutGod God had promised but God seeminglyhad not delivered to her both she andAbraham are getting old she doesn't seemparticularly concerned about the Seed ofAbraham the fat of Hagar or the will ofGod but she is she sure this is going tobe the child of Promise the textsuggests not she says it may be it maybe even Sarah knows that this child maynot be the child of promise and yet shestill goes ahead with it hoping that shecan force God's hand in thematter so what Sarah proposes isculturally acceptable but it goesagainst God's expressed will formarriage we might say based on thisstory that polygamy was never part ofGod's plan for matrimony and it's onlysucceeded historically in bringingheartache jealousy and infighting wereever practiced but today we have manyversions of marriage all of which areoutside God's original plan for marriagesuch as polygamy is where you have morethan one wife for one man polygam iswhere you have more than one men for onewife that that exists in some parts ofthe world today for instance in theupper Himalayas you have parts of uhparts of India and Nepal where you havemultiple husbands for one wife and whydo they practice this because life is sohard it's almost impossible for ahusband and wife to raise a child and soyou have multiple men with one wifenobody knows who the father is and thenyou have multiple men supporting thatwoman with her child and so polyg is theopposite of polygamy these days ofcourse we have what is known as same-sexmarriage and open marriage neither ofwhich are in harmony with God's Will andwhen we ignore God's revealed will asdoes Sarah in this story here problemsinevitably arise now the text says thatAbraham listened to his wife and if youlook at Genesis chapter 16 and Genesischapter 3 there are multiple connectionsbetween these two stories Genesis 3 is astory of the fall and Genesis 16 is thestory of Abraham listening to his wifejust as Adam listens to his wife inGenesis 3 and Genesis 16 we have thesame Hebrew appearing that the womansaid unto that is she took or she gaveto her husband or he listened unto thevoice of they both refer to the seed andsomething being good in your eyes and inboth stories God asks when he arrives onthe scene he asks the question where soSarah's scheming and Abraham'scompliance Echo the original sin of Adamand Eve representing a lack of faith inGod's word an attempt to operateaccording to to human wisdom outside ofGod's revealed will truly Psalm 127 saysthis unless the Lord builds the housethose who labor build it in vain that isthe family the house or your home theword there is oos is the household offaith in the New Testament we get theword economy from the word oos so thenational economy is the nationalhousehold and when a nation turns itsback on God it should not be surprisedwhen the national economy starts to fallapart just as as in the our individualfamilies we choose to go against God'swill trouble starts when in a nation wedecide to go against God's will um thenthings start going bad Isaiah talkedabout it here he says woe unto you alasyou who call evil good and good evilwhich is a good description of what ishappening today in our nationparticularly during the holy month ofJune who put Darkness for light andlight for Darkness who put bitter forsweet and Sweet for bitter and whenNation turns its back on God and callsevil good and good evil it is nosurprise that just as the individualhousehold starts to fall apart so thenational household the oos or theeconomia that also starts to fall apartthe results are tragic the results of ofAbraham and Sarah indicate how sin inone life sin in one relationship sin inone family can spread and have a rippleeffects all around but the good news ofthe Gospel is that righteousness alsohas a positive multiplier effect forGenerations we see that in Exodus 34 6-7this is when God Moses asked God to showme your glory and God passes beforeMoses and he reveals that God's glory isactually his character and says the Lordpassed before him that is Lord passedbefore Moses and proclaimed the Lord theLord a god merciful and gracious slow toanger and abounding in steadfast loveand faithfulness keeping steadfast lovefor the thousandth generation forgiviniquity and transgression and sin yetby no means clearing the the Guilty byvisiting the iniquity of the parentsupon the children and the children'schildren to the third and fourthgeneration when you look at this versehere it's a beautiful picture of God'sgrace because it is true that the sinsof the parents are visited upon theirchildren if a man is an alcoholic andbeats his wife the chances are that hisson who grows up in that environmentwill enter into a dysfunctional marriagein his life and he may also beat hissignificant other and may also be analcoholic and that the son is not guiltyof his father's sins but he oftenreflects his father's sins and yet thetext also says that while this may go tothe third and fourth generation Godkeeps steadfast love that is Covenantfaithfulness or Everlasting Mercy theword is hessed maybe the most beautifulverse word in the whole Bible God keepsHED that is Covenant faithfulness to thewhat generation to the thousandthgeneration so if sin has a ripple effectfor three or four generationsrighteousness has a ripple effect for athousand Generations that you can changethe direction of your family and thechildren who have yet to be born by yourlife of righteousness today how doesthat work out we do not know but Godpromises here that he is faithful to athousandth Generations following thosewho are faithful to him so encourage youtoday you can you can affect the courseof history you can affect the lives ofthose who are yet unborn um through yourfaithfulness to God today but since hasa rippleeffect so the story goes on in Genesis16 so Abraham went into Hagar and sheconceived when she saw that she hadconceived she looked with contempt onher mistress then Sarah said to AbrahamMay the wrong done to me be to be on youI gave my slave girl to your Embrace andwhen she saw that she had conceived shelooked on me with contempt may the lordjudge between you and me I feel kind ofsorry for Abraham at that point don'tyou like I did what you asked and nowyou're chewing me out about this I meanwhat what's Abraham supposed to do is hesupposed to listen to his wife or not ifhe does listen to his wife she chews himout if she doesn't listen to his wifeshe's going to chew him out this isobviously not a very happy marriageactually when you look at all thePatriarchs Abraham and Sarah they don'tseem to have a very happymarriage I mean later on in ch chapter22 When God says to Abraham get up andsacrifice your son Abraham gets up andleaves without telling his wife becausehe knows there's going to be a row whereare you going this morning Abraham I'mgoing to go and sacrifice our only sonon a mountain over there that's notgoing to be a conversation that goeswell over breakfast then you have Isaacand Rebecca and Isaac loves Jacob andRebecca loves Esau and they startdeceiving each other then you have Jacobwho has four wives but he only trulyloves the fourth wife and the first wifeLeah uh we read the names of her boysshe has six boys to start off with thenames are plaintive maybe maybe he willlove me now I given him six Sons I meanthese Patriarchs do not have happymarriages yet they're still fathers ofthe faithful you might saying and so inthis story here in Genesis 16: 4 and 5Abraham goes into Sarah and sheconceives and Hagar's status istransformed she is now going to be amother maybe even of the promised seedmaybe God's promises to Abraham whichprobably everybody in the encampmentknows about maybe she's going to be themother of the promised SE just likelater on Jewish girls were often hopingthey would be the mother of the Messiahmaybe Hagar would be the mother of thepromised seed but she's no longerwilling to be treated as a slave she'sno longer willing to be passed around asa piece of inanimate meat at Sarah'swhim and so Hagar starts looked withcontempt upon her mistress the oldinfertile and bitter Sarah and bitterStrife was the result just as a day whenwe ignore the Divine blueprint formarriage and that Divine blueprint formarriage umexcludes us from our lives things suchas abuse or pornography or fornicationor adultery all of these lead to painthey lead to family breakdown they leadto broken hearts and broken lives so youmay indulge today but you will pay abitter price tomorrow and just as Adamblamed God for Eve and Eve blamed go theserpent to God so now Sarah refuses totake responsibility and she blamesAbraham I kind of feel sorry for Abrahamat this point even though he's done a asilly thing a sinful thing I kind offeel sorry for him he's in a no-winsituation with his wife but Sarah seesher mistake and she blames Abrahambecause once once sin has entered yourlife and your relationship rightthinking seems to go out the window andthe marriage is now being torn apartAbraham his response though is awfulAbraham said to Sarai your slave girl isin your power do to her as you pleasethat then Sarah dealt harshly with herand she ran away from her now Abrahamremains utterly detached we kind ofthink of Abraham where he is called thefather the faithful he is the hero ofrighteousness he dominates lart portionof Hebrews chapter 11 but in this versehere Abraham is stunningly cold towardsHagar is he not your slave girl is inyour power Abraham does not recognizehis involvement in the story at all he'sutterly callous he does not refer toHagar as his conc Pine he does not referto her as his wife he does not evenrefer to as the mother of his child ormaybe even the child of Promise in facthe doesn't recognize his own involvementor responsibility at all and why is thisbecause as we saw in the previous verseWhen sin enters a relationship it's likedescending a ski slope and hearts areprogressively hardened voices becomeincreasingly cruel and words are spokenthat should never be uttered this iswhat happens when sin enters themarriage relationship now the code ofhammer rabbi that Sarai was operatingoperating according to the culture ofher time it regulated such situationsand it prevented the the the cruelty toa slave concubines such as Hagar forinstance she could not be sold and shenot she could not be treated harshlyaccording to the culture that is thecode of hamurabi but Sarah insteadchooses to treat Hagar cruy it saysthere that she dealt harshly with herand that phrase dealt harshly with heralso appears later in Exodus 15 whereGod talks about the oppression of theIsraelites by the Egyptians when they'redown in Egypt and so in here in Genesis16 um we find that Sarah deals harshlywith an Egyptian and God reveals inGenesis 15 and also in Exodus 3 thatwhen the when the Israelites are goingto be down in Egypt the Egyptians inturn are going to deal harshly with thechildren of Abraham as you might saywhat goes round comes round so Hagar isnow on her own Abraham will not defendher Sarah is cruel to her Eleazar issilent God is nowhere to be foundthere's nobody to turn to nobody willspeak up for this teenage pregnant girlwhat is she to do is she to stay withinthe household of faith the household ofGod-fearing Abraham and Sarah a placewhere she has experienced physical andsexual abuse what is this teenage girlto do and so does she decide she's goingto run away from this unhappy householdof faith and she's going to run awayback to Egypt so Hagar In this story sheloses her home while pregnant she losesthe father of her unborn child she losther economic future within thathousehold Sarah lost her maid Abrahamlost a wife and an offspring possiblyeven the child of promise and the homeis torn apart Abraham and Sarah havechosen to mistreat an Egyptian and yearslater the Egyptians would mistreat thedescendants of Abraham and Sarai in bothStories the story of The Exodus and thestory of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar wefind oppression in both Stories thevictim fled Into the Wilderness trulythe seed of sin can yield a bitterHarvest for Generations so choosecarefully how you live your lives todaythere is a knock on effect not just inyour life but for generations to come sohow do we find the resolution to thisproblem so we come to the resolution ofthe story here we find the resolutionbeginning in verse 7 now it says theangel of the Lord found her that isHagar by a spring of water in thewilderness the spring on the way toshore now Hagar is fleeing back acrossthe saai Wilderness to the Easternborders of Egypt I don't know if you'veever been to to Israel or to Egypt butif you ever go there um you'll know thatbetween Israel and Egypt youve got theSinai desert and the Sinai Peninsulait's about as inhospitable place as youcould imagine on planet Earth is theclosest you're going to see to amoonscape there is no water by day it isscorching hot and there's no vegetationon the ground it's just like Golden Rockthere's nothing there most placesthere's no dirt there's no sand it'sjust rock and there's nothing to seethere there's no water and if you go outthere you're going to die of thirst notwithin a few days but within a few hoursbecause the heat is so intense and Hagaris fleeing as a runaway teenage girlwho's pregnant away from an abusivefamily relation family situation she'sfleeing back to the land of her originback to Egypt it's almost certain deathunless she finds water but on the wayshe found a spring of water in thewilderness which in itself you might sayis a miracle if you know that part ofthe world and it says that the angel ofthe Lord found her it's a beautifulpicture of God isn't it that God foundthat runaway teenage pregnantgirl God has a concern for teenagepregnant girls for teenage runaways shemay have fled the household of faithwhere Jehovah was worshiped where altarswere set up a household where sheexperienced physical and sexual andemotional abuse and so she runs awayfrom this household of faith and shemeets God in the place she least expectsto meet him that is in the ininhospitable SII Wilderness and it saysthe angel of the Lord found her by aspring of water and so we ask ourselveswho exactly is or what is the Angel ofthelord well if you read the bookPatriarchs and Prophets and we readthere that it was an angel Alisa thisverse here if you read the theexpression the angel of the Lord whichappears multiple times in Genesis itrefers to Jehovah or Yahwehhimself and as you go through this storyit becomes clear that she is talking toGod that God has found her in thewilderness here so we're going to workon the Assumption here as we go throughthe story that is God who finds her andas you you you study this a bit furtherthat God says to Moses in the burningbush I am that I am and Jesus Takes thatname for himself in John 8 and John 10so it's actually that Jesus finds her inthe wilderness here that the angel ofthe Lord is you might say is thepre-incarnate second person of thegodhead that is Jesus Christ and hefinds her in thewilderness whoever this is Hagar is notalone it says that the angel found hermeans this meeting was intentional inher darkest moment God was looking forthis runaway teenage pregnant girlnobody else was Abraham wasn't lookingSarah wasn't looking elasa wasn'tlooking the 318 trained men of ofAbraham had not been sent out to findher she was on her own out there but Godknew where she was and God came to findher God was looking for her God caredfor this teenage girl he found her andwhen he spoke to her the first wordswere beautiful it says Hagar slave girlof Sarai where have you come from andwhere are you going she said I'm runningaway from from my mistress Sarai so thefirst thing that God says to Hagar issimply this tell me yourstory what's goingon he gives her the chance to tell herstory from her perspective nobody elsehas been interested in Hagar's viewsHagar certainly didn't ask her would youlike me to have a child through youSarah didn't ask her she has no Mom andDad to stand up for her doesn't seemthat anybody's concerned about whatHagar actually thinks or feels aboutanything but God is God has a concernfor those who are voiceless for thosewho are abused for those who aretrampled on or ignored by Society or bytheir families and God does not condemnHagar here as this runaway teenage girlmaybe polite Society will look downtheir noses at this runaway girl whereare you going no where have you comefrom Hagar and where are you going tellme your story to be listened to to beheard to be heard without interruptionto be heard without condemnation it isto turn turning point it is a startingpoint of the healing process for HagarHagar the name actually means flight Godknows her name we see there in Isaiah 43this is a verse you often read next tosomebody when they're dying in hospitalbut now thus sayith the Lord or thusthus thus sayith the Lord he who createdyou oh Jacob or o Hagar he who formedyou oh Hagar do not be afraid for I haveredeemed you I've called you by name andyou are mine when you pass through thewaters I will be with you and throughthe rivers they shall not overwhelm youwhen you walk with fire you shall not beburnt and the flam shall not consume youfor I am the Lord your God the Holy Oneof Israel your savior I give Egypt thatis your Homeland Hagar as your RansomEthiopia and SRA in exchange for youbecause you are precious in my sightHagar and honored and I love you I givepeople in return for you nations inexchange for your life do not be afraidHagar for I Am With You it's a beautifulpassage here in Isaiah 43 thatoriginally God applies to His PeopleIsrael we see in this passage here thatthat God does not um he treats thepeople of Israel he knows them by namenow you know I was in a hospital lastyear and you know I had a procedure andthey everywhere I go they kept asking memy date of birth have you ever noticedthat in the hospital I watch your dateof birth they put little Coke thing onyour wrist and they kind of scan it fromtime to time you're basically abiometric code to the hospital and tothe government you're just a numberyou're a social security number yes andthey keep saying what's your date ofbirth what's your date of birth andyou're just a number to the system youknow she asked the nurse asked me shesays well are you male or female and Isaid well what are theoptions and and she said well this iskind of a Side Story and she says wellI've got male and female I said oh Ithink I'm going to be I think I was aparrot that day and and then I said toher does the surgeon know how to operateon parrot's legs and uh she wasn't shewas non plusus not quite sure how torespond but the point is is that to thesystems of this world you and I are justanumber but God knows Us byname and he sees where we've come fromand he sees where we're going and oneday he's going to give us a new namebecause he knows the ins and outs of ourspiritual experience that nothing ishidden from him and so God says to Hagarhere Hagar slave girl of Sarah wherehave you come from and where are yougoing he gives her the time to to tellher story her name means flight whichmay sound strange but it was not atAbraham's altar that she met God butwhile fleeing the God-fearing householdof Abraham where she had experienced herabuse now God opens his pH hisconversation with Hagar by calling herHagar slave girl ofSarai now go God does not say HagarAbraham's wife he does not say Abrahamuh Hagar Abraham's concubine he startsout by speaking the truth Hagar you arethe slave girl and you belong toSarah now the truth may be painful butunless there is truth in a conversationthere can be nohealing if I go to the doctor and I havea pain in my chest and the doctor sayswhat's wrong is I have a pain pain in myleft hand am I likely to walk out ofthat that consultation with the correctdiagnosis no if I go to let saycounselor and I'm suffering fromdepression and the councel says what areyou struggling with you say well youknow I think I've got two personalitiesthat's not going to be helpful startingpoint to thatconversation truth is essential forhealing if there's be truth in ourmarriages or healing in our homes or inour marriages or in our relationshipsthere must be truth it may spoken inlove but there can no there can be nohealing unless there is truthfulness andso when God confronts Hagar in thewilderness he starts out by telling herthe truth and she affirms I'm runningaway from my mistress Sarah so both Godand Hagar are on the same starting pointthey both recognizethat she is the slave girl of Sarah andthat is the starting point of Hagar'shealing uh the truth may be painful butwithout truth there can be no healing inyour life or in my life Jesus echoedthis when he told this story he says butthe tax collector about a Pharisee and atax collector standing in the temple andand the Pharisee says oh God I'mgrateful that I'm not like these otherpeople I'm not a sinner I'm not a womanetc etc etc and he's full of himself butthen Jesus points to the tax collector aman who's viewed as was a traitor who isprobably financially corrupt and it saysbut the tax collector standing far offwould not even look up to heaven but wasbeating his breast and saying God bemerciful to me a sinner so he wastruthful with God I tell you said Jesusthis man went down to his home Justifiedrather than the other that was theself-righteous Pharisee for all whoexalt themselves will be humbled but allwho humble themselves will be exalted soin this story here from Jesus we seethat truthfulness and honesty with Godis essential for our own healing as wellnow the verb to heal in the NewTestament also means to save so if wewish to be saved if we wish to be healeduh spiritually and for eternity we wishhealing and salvation within ourmarriages a really useful starting pointis to start telling the truth to behonest about not just the other personbut to be honest about ourselves andwhat's really going on within our heartsand our minds and so then the angel ofthe Lord says something to Hagar saysthe angel of the Lord said to her returnto your mistress and submit to her nowthis word return is used throughout theOld Testament to refer to repentancetime and again throughout the OldTestament Prophet God says to the peopleof Israel return unto me return unto mereturn unto me turn back turn back turnback this verb it means to repent and sohaving established a commonunderstanding both God and Hagarrecognize I'm running away from mymistress and she is my mistress now Godmoves on to the next stage of Hagar'shealing process which is an invitationto repent it is the first step ofSalvation and finding God's path for ourlives you see without repentance Hagaryou are goingnowhere This Is The Moment ofTruth Hagar I want you to turn aroundand go back to the household you've justfled from if I've met you in yourdarkest moment you can trust me withyourfuture so is Hagar going to trust God ornot if I found you in the wildernesswhen nobody else came looking for you ifI found you in the darkest and deepestand the most bitter moment of your lifeif I found you there and I came lookingforyou I'm asking you to trust me that I amgiving you a path forward that will be ablessing for you and you may notunderstand it you may not like it rightnow but I'm asking you to trust me HagarI'm asking you to trust me brothers andsisters here thismorning this is the Moment of Truth forHagar she must make a decision will shecontinue fleeing to Egypt or will shereturn to to Abraham andSarah Hera s according to God Hagar isto return and submit meekly to Sarahagain now notice this God does notcondone Sarah's treatment of Hagar Godwill punish those who misuse theirAuthority and hurt others but he rarelyentrusts this duty to those who aresuffering the unjust treatmentthemselves because the chances areyou're not going to get Justice you'regoing to getVengeance God does have a concern formarital relations what goes on in afamily later on we read in 1 Peter 3:7says husbands in the same way showconsideration for your wives and yourlife together paying honor to the womanas the weaker sex since they too arehirs of the gracious gift of life sothat nothing May hinder your prayersit's an important V verse here becauseif a man misuses his wife abuses hiswife does not treat her with honor Godis not going to hear hisprayers and if a man kneels at the endof the day and says Lord please forgiveme but he's he's continuing to engage inabuse of his wife this text tells usGod's not going to hear that confessionand that man's not going to receiveforgiveness which means that for a manto remain in an abusive relationshipwith his wife a man to be hurting hiswife not treating her with honor he'sactually living in a state of lostnesseven if he goes to church everySabbath so if a men in the congregationday if you want God to hear your prayersyou want God to hear your ask your criesfor forgiveness and your confession ofsin and request for the gift of eternallife you need to treat your wives withdignity and cherish them because theyare also Heirs of the gracious gift oflife you know this is not um this isn'tjust kind of academic theology here thisis this is brutal reality if you wanteternal life treat your wiveswell and turn away from what oftenhappens in Christian homes which is allnice and polite on Sabbath morning butthere's a whole lot lot of abuse thattakes place behind those doors Sundaythrough Friday so men hear me hear me asI say this if you want God to hear yourprayers treat your wife with honor lifther up treat her with dignity showconsideration for her and turn away fromany abuse that you may be perpetratingupon her your eternal life is on theline so we come backto Genesis 16: 10 having told Hagar togo back says the angel of the Lord alsosaid to her I will so greatly multiplyyour offspring that they cannot becounted for multitude this is a promiseto a runaway pregnant teen that shewould become a great nation it issimilar to The Promise given to Abrahambut this has a crucial differenceAbraham was promised that through hischild of Promise all nations of theEarth Earth would be blessed but thispromise was not given to Hagar nor toher child but God's promise to Hagar wasconditional upon her obedience to hiscommand to return to the household ofAbraham and Sarai Abraham and Sarah hadforgotten if they waited and submittedto God's will God's promises to Abrahamwould be fulfilled now how would Hagarrespond to the same test of obedienceunlike Abraham and Sarah she chose shechooses obedience to submit to God andto wait for him to work out his will inher life and so she returns to the homeof Abraham and Sarah and likewise wetoday God gives us promises and thosepromises are often conditional Upon Ourobedience to his word they call theblessings and the curses in the OldTestament but um if we want God'sblessings in our lives we need to seekto live in the light that God has givenus we cannot ask for God's blessings ifwe choose willfully to ignore the lightthat God has given us when God gives usa command it comes with a promise thatpromise is fulfilled as we are obedientto hiscommand and so Hagar goes back toAbraham the angel of the Lord said toher now you have conceived and shallbear a son you shall call him Ishmaelfor the Lord has given heed to yourAffliction he shall be a wild ass of aman with his hand against everyone andeveryone's hand against him and he shalllive at odds with all his with all hiskin now the name Ishmael means God shallhear like I have heard you in yourdistress that God hears the cries ofrunaway teenage girls in the midst oftheir distress as they flee abusivesituations God hears their cries ofdistress and God sees them and this is athis is the first child that God namesin the Bible there are a few othersthere's Isaac there's John the Baptistand there is Jesus this affirms that Godhas a profound concern for Hagar and forher unborn son at this difficult momentand the name will be a reminder to bothof them of God's Providence in theirlives and it's reminded to us today thatGod hears those who cry to him in theirdistress it's a living witness names docarry a message now the the phrase awild ass of a man I used to read that asa boy I think think that's an awfuldescription I wouldn't want to be calleda wild ass of a man would you I mean itreally is an unfortunate description umbut that verse is used else that word isused elsewhere in the Old Testamentparticularly in Hosea and job there's ades there's a desert animal known as thehonorer it looks like a donkey or a mulebut it is known in the Middle East forits um Fierce Independence its stubbornpride and its untamable strength andit's really an accurate description ofthe Arab Nation even today and Hagarresponds with the name of of God shesays so she named the Lord who spoke toher you are Elroy for she said have Ireally seen God and remained alive afterseeing him it's a beautiful name of Godum in Exodus 3: 7 and 8 God says I'veobserved the misery of my people who arein Egypt I've heard their cry on accountof their task Masters I know theirsufferings I've come down to deliverthem from the Egyptians he uses the samelanguage as here in Genesis um chapter17 it tells us that God both sees andhears his children in distress and sothis name Elroy means the God who seesme and hears me in my distress he seeshe hears he knows he acts and he willdeliver Jehovah God is the one who seeshears and acts on behalf of those whotrust him he hears the Cry of pain hesees the anguish of our hearts and hewill act to deliver those who look tohim to him she then goes on to name thewell Bey Roy which lies between Kadeshand Barett it's a very a as name hasmultiple meanings it means The Well ofthe one who sees and lives or The Wellof the living one who sees me this namehas multiple meanings reflecting themultiple um ways we can look at thestory Hagar first saw a well then Godsaw Hagar and then Hagar saw God thename is ambiguous invite reflectionamong us today on how we see God and howGod sees us and uh we're invited in thestory to see ourselves the way that Godsees us not the way that we tend to seeourselves or those around us may lookupon us in our own lives and so Hagar isobedient to God she goes back to Abrahamand says Hagar bore Abraham a sonAbraham named his son whom Hagar boreIshmael Abraham was 86 years old whenHagar bore him Ishmael so clearly fromthis verse here Hagar gave her tesy toAbraham and Abraham listened to theteenage runaway girl because he calledhis son ishma Hagar Abraham realizedthat God had spoken to this runaway girlin a way that God had maybe not spokentoAbram but God had revealed himself tothe girl who who somehow didn't feelsafe in his household yet God wascomfortable in her presence God waswilling to come into her life in a verypersonal way so God honored Hagar'sobedience and he resolved the situationof abuse at the hands of Sarah sheshared her test with Abraham who joinedHagar In obedience to God and callingthis boyIshmael and for 13 years Abraham thinksIshmael is the child of promise justlike before he thought lot or eleazermight be the child of Promise untilIsaac comes along but that's a story foranother day now this name of God Elroydoes not appear anywhere else in thescriptures but there are some verses inthe scripture that reveal what Eloy islike the one the God who sees me in mydistress for the eyes of the Lord rangethroughout the whole earth to strengthenthose whose heart is true to him God islooking for people today whose heart istrue to him who are faithful to theCovenant relationship that they'veentered into the Lord looks down fromheaven he sees all humankind from wherehe sits en throned he watches all theinhabitants of the earth he who fashionthe hearts of them all and observesdeserves all their deeds it's abeautiful promise that God looks downfrom heaven in order to Fashion thehearts to shape the hearts of those whoare faithful to him truly the eye of theLord is on those who fear Him on thosewho hope in his steadfast love todeliver their soul from death and keepthem alive in famine and so we have thisrelationship here those who fear Godthose who hope in God's steadfast loveit's that same word said once againthose who hope in God's covenantfaithfulness God's eyes are upon on themnow I don't know how you feel but whenmy father was looking at me um it eitherinspired love ordread yes I'd be playing with my twinbrother at the kitchen table we bepunching each other my dad would look atme and I'd know that he'd seen me and Iknew that if he'd seen me and I didn'tchange my behavior I was in troubleanybody else have that experience yes Iwas also stuck once going across certainBeach I think I've told this achildren's story and I was sinking inthe mud and my young my twin brother ranoff and found my dad and he came andwhen when I knew that he'd seen me andhe could see me from the sand lookingout to me stuck in the mud peace filledmy heart because I knew that my fatherhad his eye on me he was going to takecare of me so it says here the eye ofthe Lord is on those who fear Him in2022 on those who hope in his steadfastlove that his steadfast love is hisCovenant faithfulness and we're in thatNew Covenant the heaven is your he willkeep your life the Lord will keep yourgoing out and you're coming in from thistime on and Forever More Beautifulverses then from Psalm 121 once againthe idea is this that God has a watchover those who are faithful tohim the eye of the Lord are in everyplace keeping watch on the evil and thegood God sees the good in this earth andhe sees the evil and as Daniel said tobelshazzar there are Heavenly Watcherskeeping record of everything and one dayevery evil deed will be made known andthose who are faithful to God will beVindicated before the universe becausethe eyes of the Lord are in every placeso what do he say in conclusion todaywell the psalmist wrote this and thosewho know your name put their trust inyou for you Lord have not forsaken thosewho seek you it's a beautiful promiseyes if we know the name of God we canput our trust in him this name of GodElroy tells us that he is the one whowatches over his children he watchesover his children even when Society hasturned their back on him he watches overhis children even when they're in themidst of an abusive situation he watchesover his children even there a runawayteenage girl with an out of wedlockpregnancy God watches over his own andhe invites us today in these passages toput our trust inhim because in the Old Testament Jehovahwas the pre-incarnateJesus it was he who sought the womanHagar by this well just as he latestspoke to woman at a well in John chapter4 and just as he watched over Hagar sohe promises to watch over those who arefaithful to him today he says behold IAm With You Always even to the End ofthe Age Elroy is the god who knows thepast he's with you today and we canplace our trust in him because he lovesus he is the god who sees and he's theonly God who sees into the midsts ofTomorrow Elroy is the god who sees theGod who hears the God who knows the Godwho cares and the God who delivers so Iinvite you today to put your trust inhim bow your heads with me and we willjust commit Our Lives to God HeavenlyFather we thank you today that you arethe God whosees we thank you that you see us youhear us in our distress you see maybethe anguish of our homes the distress inthe marriages the cries of frustratedchildren you see the paths of runawaykids aswell and yet father you seek out thoserunaways but nobody else will you listento their story you know their story andyou offer them a path toRedemption I pray father that each of usin this coming week will experience youas the God who sees us who sees ourdistress who hears our cries for helpand who places each one of us on a pathto Redemption thank you Father that youare the God who sees who knows our pastwho understands our present who sees intomorrow and therefore we can trust inyou thank you Father for hearing theseprayers in Jesus name we ask amen