In the middle of people’s sinful ways, and dysfunction of society, God is able to break through and bring comfort to a desperate person. God sees.
Sermon Transcript
Genesis 16 (New Living Translation) To be read by Eve
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. 3 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife.
4 So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!”
6 Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that Hagar finally ran away. 7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. 8 The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied.
9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.” 10 Then he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.”
11 And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress. 12 This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.”
13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” 14 So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”).
Luke and I are currently enjoying watching a series called Digging for Britain.
Could we have those pictures please?
It’s a cool series concerning the archeology of Britain.
Archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material, most of which is found underground.
England has a lot of archeological artifacts.
Over the centuries there have been people group after people group invading Britain. We’re talking Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans (just to name a few)… Not to forget all the people who were there before the Romans ever set foot on British soil. And each people group left evidence of their existence by way of skeletal remains, building foundations, food, jewelry, coins, treasure, tools, pottery, weapons, chariots and much, much more.
I tell you, if I had a house in England I would be digging up my backyard. Just in case there’s ancient treasure buried there. I would. It’s everywhere.
Now the people running the series Digging for Britain have a strong bias towards evolution, so they make assumptions about their findings through the lens of evolution. But Luke and I are, as you know, creationists, thank you Jesus. We view everything through the lens of God being the Creator of the universe in the way, and the timing, the Bible lays out. I believe what the Bible says, it makes perfect sense.
Watching the programme, it has become evident that the more they unearth concerning pre-Roman people, the more they realize they got them wrong. For so long, archeologists were living with the assumption that people before the Romans were barbaric and uncivilized savages. But recent evidence dug up reveals that the people were indeed civilized, with well-functioning communities, with often much less violence than when the Romans invaded in AD43.
Much of what Luke and I have seen concerning these ancient people groups reminds us of what we read in the Old Testament period which runs parallel with these times. Often what we see affirms our faith!
Repeatedly, I’m reminded of how blessed we are to have the Bible which is an amazing book of archeology. If you dig into this book you will find the best everlasting treasure in the world.
But when we read it we also get an in-depth insight into ancient culture. There are no other ancient writings to compare with the Bible.
The account Eve read today gives us an interesting insight into an ancient culture. A culture over 4000 years old.
A culture we find very hard to understand living in our society in which the law has been greatly influenced by Christianity over the last 500 years or more.
The account of Hagar can be quite disturbing on many levels because the culture is so different. For example, in that ancient society men often had multiple wives, women were not valued or perceived as equal to men, racism wasn’t a dirty word it was a given, and slavery was a “given”. Mind you, slavery still goes on today in many cultures. And remember, even the underworld of our own culture is tainted with human trafficking.
So, let’s be careful not to be too judgmental when reading this scripture and shut off to what God’s trying to tell us because even in the middle of people’s sinful ways, and the dysfunctions of human society, God was able to break through and bring comfort to a desperate person.
Let me make this clear, God is not in agreement with how things are run on this earth. He wasn’t happy back then, He’s certainly not happy now. Mankind has made a mess. The political systems of this world are mostly run by sinful men & women who come under the influence of the spiritual powers of darkness. The bible makes this clear in the New Testament.
The story of Hagar is a powerful story of God’s miraculous intervention in the midst of a dysfunctional society.
Most Christians understandably pay more attention to the story of Abram and Sarai but within Abram and Sarai’s story, we discover the faith and perseverance of Hagar, a young, foreign, unimportant female slave who was pulled into the family and then cast out into the wilderness by impatient, jealous, and imperfect people.
Hagar shows us that even when we wander in wilderness places, even when life circumstances and systems of power push us down and toss us out, God can still draw near to us.
To understand Hagar’s journey, it is helpful to examine the broader narrative of Abram and Sarai. God promised Abram that he would become the father of a great nation, Israel. But to become a father of a great nation you MUST HAVE CHILDREN. IT’S A NECESSITY – RIGHT?
This is where the story of God’s promise to Abram meets Sarai’s pain and longing for a child. And consequently, Sarai’s yearning and impatience for a child pulls Hagar into that story of the great promise. The ramifications of Sarai’s decision would have long-lasting consequences for Hagar.
In the beginning of the story, we understandably might feel sorry for Sarai, the wife who was dragged halfway across the Middle East because her husband was driven to pursue a vision that God had revealed only to him. We might empathize with Sarah’s agonizing situation of childless years after her husband first heard God’s promise to make him the father of many nations.
It was not uncommon in biblical times for people of power or status to seek children through their slaves. This is exactly what Sarai did. Sarai suggests that Abram sleep with her Egyptian slave, Hagar, to secure an heir. But once Hagar conceives, Hagar looks down on her mistress Sarai (not a wise move), who later comes to regret the entire strategy. Sarai complains bitterly to Abram, and Abram apathetically abandons poor Hagar to the wrath of his dissatisfied wife.
The pregnant Hagar, subjected to Sarai’s cruelty, eventually runs away to the wilderness. She runs from humiliation and oppression into certain death.
Hagar was homeless, hungry, broke, all alone and pregnant in a vast wilderness. She was a “nobody” with nothing to offer. Worst of all, the very people who should have helped her, Abram and Sarai, they were the ones who were hurting her. That was naughty, very naughty on their part!! But God did not abandon Hagar. God went to her right where she was.
God knew exactly where Hagar was, and He knew just the moment when she would be ready to listen to what He had to say.
In your darkest moment, when your problem seems too ugly and twisted and complicated to solve, God sees you. God sees you. God knows exactly where you are, and He will come to you.
The bible tells us IN Genesis 16:7 that an angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur.
And the angel said to her,
“Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
Have you noticed that whenever God speaks to people throughout the Bible it seems that He begins by asking the most obvious of questions!
“Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
God obviously already knows the answer to the question. But the question is more for Hagar, to provoke logical thinking about her current situation.
“Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
I believe God has asked this very question to millions and millions of people down through the ages.
“Where have you come from, where are you going?”
Hagar replies,
“I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,”
Short, succinct, straight to the point.
“I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,”
God doesn’t muck around with this succinct response rather He offers an immediate solution to this horrible mess. And it probably isn’t what Hagar would have expected.
You see it doesn’t matter how tangled and messed up your life is, even if you’ve done all the messing and tangling yourself (which is more often the case), God knows the next step you need to take.
God knows the next step you need to take.
In this case, God had an immediate response to her plight. He said, through the angel,
“Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”
That’s why God called Hagar – Sarai’s servant – that situation had not changed and was not about to change in the immediate future. She was Sarai’s servant and she will continue to be Sarai’s servant.
And before she could retort in anyway He said,
“I will give you more descendants than you can count.”
“I will give you more descendants than you can count.”
In other words, she’s getting a promise almost as big as Abram’s.
Hagar, a young lowly Egyptian slave was receiving an awesome promise from God. She was going to become a mother of a very large people group herself but there was more valuable information coming. Let us read on,
11 …the angel said to her, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress.
for the Lord has heard your cry of distress.
12 This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.”
Hagar was privy to a vision of the future concerning her son. He was going to be a fighter and there were no surprises regarding what he would turn out like. God gave her a glimpse of the future of her son… Wow, not too many people get that. What a gift she received that day. Now it wasn’t so hard for her to go back to Sarai because she knew that God was going to keep her and her son safe. Her future was secure in His hands. But she needed to remain obedient to His instructions.
So, she returned and submitted to her mistress Sarai.
Maybe she was better behaved after that because now she knew that God was listening and watching.
The bible says,
13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” 14 So that well was named the “well of the Living One who sees me”.
Hagar, a non-Israelite, a woman with no power or status, a runaway slave who found herself in the middle of a hopeless, tangled mess is the first person in Scripture to be visited by an angel and the only person in Scripture to give God a name—El Roi, “the God who sees me.” Amid her pain and struggle, Hagar receives God’s blessing and promises.
From this account, I sincerely believe we can safely conclude that He understands your turmoil.
There is no one hidden from His sight or hearing, God is there with you at your lowest point. He is YOUR El Roi – He is the God who sees you. Of course, God does more than see you. God also offers you a SOLUTION to all your problems.
The solution to every single problem is the LORD Jesus!
There is no perfect person in all of the Bible’s stories. Every character in Genesis is as flawed as each one of us. Abram and Sarai doubted God’s plan and promises. Hagar suffered sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of a man and woman who were bound to protect her and her child. At the same time, we can relate to Sarai and feel sorry for her. Perhaps we even feel sorry for Abram as well. We recognize in this weird, strange story people who are, like us, deeply and irrevocably human. They are us. All of us.
But make no mistake about it, wherever you might be found in your own wilderness stories, God is there with you. He sees you; He hears you and has the solution. The solution may be different to what you think. You need to be obedient to His voice.
I don’t know where you are at today. I don’t know how you’re feeling. Or what trouble you may be in. But God knows.
He sees you; He hears you. He offers you the perfect solution of His Son. So, stop worrying and start trusting in Your Saviour.