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Good morning, everybody. I'm Cheruba, and I lead the Women of Prayer Fellowship.
Today's lesson is taken from the Old Testament from the book of Genesis as printed in your liturgy.
Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
So she said to Abram, the Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my slave. Perhaps I can build a family through her.
Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai, his wife, took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Then Sarai said to Abram, you are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.
I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.
May the Lord judge between you and me.
Your slave is in your hands, Abram said. Do with her whatever you think best.
Then Sarai mistreated Hagar, so she fled from her.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert.
It was a spring that is beside the road to Shur.
And he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?
I am running away from my mistress, Sarai, she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord took her.
Go back to your mistress and submit to her.
The angel said, I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.
The angel of the Lord also said to her, you are now pregnant, and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man.
His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand against him.
And he will live in hostility towards all his brothers.
She gave this name to the Lord, who spoke to her.
You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the one who sees me.
That is why the well was called Bir Lahai Roy.
It is still there between Kadesh and Bered.
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had born.
Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.
Thanks, Truba.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Lord God, we pray that you would speak to us, convince us that you are the God who sees,
that that would be a comfort to us, and that you would open our eyes to see as you see.
So Lord, be honored in the preaching of your word, and would your spirit move in this place.
For Jesus' sake, amen.
So I want to start with a personal question.
The question is, have you ever felt utterly invisible and unable to do anything about it?
Have you ever felt utterly invisible and unable to do anything about it?
Overlooked, unnoticed, unthought of, uncared for, perhaps even neglected and disregarded?
Like the last player all the way at the end of the bench, the most expendable colleague,
the least worthwhile person in the room.
Have you ever felt like no one cared about your story?
Like no one ever noticed or considered the heavy things you might be carrying or even cared to know?
And then have you ever felt so unseen that you've also wondered if you and your story
were even insignificant and invisible to God?
As a church, we've been going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis.
And in the past two weeks, our focus has been on this character, Abram, and God's special promise to him
to make him a great nation, to use him to bless the world, to protect him,
and to give him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.
But while Abram does have a unique calling in God's redemptive story for the world,
the teaching of Genesis from the very beginning was that actually every human being, not just Abram,
is made in the image of God.
Every one of us has a unique and valuable calling and purpose in the eyes of God.
No one is insignificant.
No one is invisible to God.
And our text today, Genesis chapter 16, is a great example of this really revolutionary teaching
in the Christian Scriptures.
It's a reminder that as important and blessed as Abram was, he wasn't the only one who had God's attention.
He wasn't the only player that God intended to use for his purposes.
No, actually, in our text this morning, Abram actually plays a very, very passive background role
while two women in his household, they take center stage.
One, his barren wife, Sarai, and two, his wife's maidservant, Hagar.
And, you know, this is something that's incredibly unique about the Hebrew Scriptures
compared to all other ancient Near Eastern literature.
The story today begins with, and it features women, and not just as accessories to the male lead,
but as incredibly significant characters in their own right.
See, unlike other ancient writings, the Bible actually gives remarkable attention to the voices
and the agency and the emotions and the inner thoughts of multiple women,
whether rich or poor, fertile or barren, slave or free.
Women who would otherwise, and in every other culture and religion,
be virtually invisible and insignificant.
So as Genesis 16 distinctively and intentionally, like, shifts our focus from Abraham to the women in his life,
God's Spirit is inviting us to open our eyes today,
to hopefully see as God sees.
And I have four points this morning to help us see as God sees.
The burden of barrenness, the cycle of sin,
the sovereign who sees, and the glory of grace.
Right, so let's start with the burden of barrenness.
Now, Genesis 16 starts with Sarai in verse 1 saying,
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.
And listen, that's not a throwaway detail here.
No, actually, that's basically her whole identity in the story of Genesis so far.
When we first meet her, her whole identity in the story of Genesis is that she is barren.
We meet her all the way back in Genesis chapter 11, verse 30,
and it goes out of its way to tell us,
Now Sarai was barren.
She had no child.
This is the headline of her life,
the ache she probably feels when she goes to bed at night and rises each morning.
Up to this point in Genesis 16, all we know about Sarai are three things.
She's Abram's wife.
She's beautiful.
Beautiful.
And then three, the most prominent thing that we know about her,
it's repeated twice, is that she's barren.
So here in chapter 16, it's ten years later from when we met her in chapter 11,
and we're reminded once again she's still barren.
That's the frame around her life,
probably the lens through which she sees herself,
through which everyone else sees her,
beautiful but barren.
And not just barren as a biological fact,
but to her social and psychological shame,
even threatening her family's economic situation.
Remember, this was a culture where a woman's whole worth
was tied to her ability to make babies,
to produce more arrows for her husband's quiver, right?
Barrenness wasn't just a private sorrow,
it was a public shame.
When the text tells us that Sarai is barren,
it is signaling to us that in the eyes of her society,
perhaps even in her own eyes,
she is a failure of a woman,
providing far less value than what is expected of her.
So put yourself in Abram and Sarai's shoes for a second.
Abram, by the way, means exalted father, right?
And Sarai means princess or noble lady,
and yet this exalted father is childless.
And this princess,
her life seems more like a nightmare than a fairy tale.
Every day, their names probably reminded them
of their barrenness,
like a cruel joke that they could never escape.
And maybe you're thinking to yourself this morning,
well, okay, I can see how that was sad for them,
but also maybe some of us are, you know,
modern Western folk,
we're like, well, childlessness isn't so bad.
My kid was a pretty tough one this morning, right?
It's not so bad.
Or maybe you're thinking,
well, I can see how barrenness
was especially devastating in ancient times,
but good thing we're living in the 21st century, right?
But, you know, while we modern Western folks,
we might think of barrenness differently today,
though honestly, I know a lot of people in my life,
actually, who do feel Sarai's pain,
who wish that they could have children that they can't.
But even if that's not,
you want to suggest that this discussion
of Sarai's barrenness,
it's still relevant for all of us,
because, you know,
regardless of whether or not you're infertile,
what Sarai was really faced with in her society,
it's something we're all faced with,
is the question of whether or not we're enough.
The question of whether or not we're bringing value
to our families, to our society.
For Sarai, barrenness meant she wasn't bringing value
in the eyes of most people in her life.
And while the goalposts may have changed
thousands of years later,
and while our standards and values
might be different from the ancient Near East,
has there ever been a culture
that didn't have some kind of critical standard
determining who in society brought value and honor
and who brought liability and shame?
I was just speaking with a family last week
who recently moved here from a place
where it felt like people with special needs
and disabilities were liabilities
to be overlooked rather than valuable members of society.
Truly, every culture has its own definition of barrenness.
We all feel the burden of barrenness
in some way or another, don't we?
In Sarai's world, barrenness meant no children,
but in ours, barrenness might mean
you're not attractive enough,
you're not wealthy or accomplished enough,
you don't have that picture-perfect,
Instagram-worthy family.
See, every kingdom built by sinful human beings,
every culture whispers,
unless you have this, you're nothing.
You're barren.
And so Sarai's barrenness isn't just an ancient problem,
it's our problem too.
We're all dealing with some kind of barrenness,
some kind of deficit and lack
that's keeping us from satisfaction, security,
or some kind of salvation.
And so the question for us is,
what do we do with the burden of barrenness
that we all feel?
This brings me to my second point,
the cycle of sin.
And again, verse one tells us
that Sarai had born no children,
but it says what she did have
was an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
In other words, she didn't have what she longed for,
but she did have something,
something she could use,
someone she could use,
someone vulnerable,
over whom she could exert the little power
that she did have.
She had an Egyptian slave.
Now, if you were an Israelite
listening to this origin story,
you'd catch the irony immediately, right?
Wait, Sarai had an Egyptian slave?
That's what we were.
But apparently,
before the Egyptians had Hebrew slaves,
these Hebrews had an Egyptian slave.
This was a reminder to Israel and all of us
that the line between the oppressed
and the oppressor in history
is actually quite thin.
It can go back and forth quite easily.
And so now,
who was this Egyptian slave?
Her name was Hagar,
which literally means
the immigrant,
the sojourner.
It's the same word that's used
in the chapter before in Genesis 15.
We looked at that last week
when God reiterates His promise to Abram,
but also mentions to him
that His people are going to be strangers
in a country not their own for 400 years.
That word strangers,
it's the same word as the name Hagar.
Strangers, sojourners, immigrants.
And according to some Jewish traditions,
in Midrash,
Hagar may have even been a princess
in Pharaoh's household,
maybe even Pharaoh's daughter,
which if you think about it,
makes this even more tragic and twisted.
So now we have two princesses
in this story, right?
Both vulnerable in a patriarchal world,
but instead of being allies,
they become rivals
in Abram's household,
caught in a cycle of sin.
And it starts with Sarai, right?
She's burdened with her barrenness,
and yet she's unable to see herself
in Hagar.
She only sees Hagar as an object
to be used,
a tool to build her own family,
a biotechnological object
to deliver herself
from the burden of her barrenness.
As the saying goes, right?
Hurt people hurt people.
Sarai couldn't see
what she proposed to do to Hagar
was the same thing
that was done to her in Egypt.
And in case you're not familiar
with what I'm talking about,
we didn't have time to go over this
a couple weeks ago
in Genesis chapter 12,
but back in Genesis chapter 12,
Abram and Sarah,
they flee to Egypt
because of a famine.
And there,
because of Abram's cowardice,
because of his lack of faith
and the promises of God,
Abram, he lies,
and Sarah is just his sister.
So his beautiful wife,
she gets objectified,
she gets taken
into Pharaoh's harem,
she's given over
into another man's bed,
basically.
So like Sarah,
you know,
no one knew better than her
the painful feeling
of being trafficked,
of being objectified
by the powers that be.
And yet in her desperation,
in her unbelief
about the promises of God,
in her unbelief
regarding God's goodness,
His power,
His faithfulness,
she takes matters,
she takes Hagar
into her own hands.
Verse 2.
So she said to Abram,
the Lord has kept me
from having children.
Literally,
the Lord has restrained me,
has limited me.
In her mind,
just like Eve's mind,
the Lord is a prohibitive,
restrictive God
rather than a generous one.
So she says to Abram,
go sleep with my slave,
go depart from God's ideal
in Genesis chapter 2
of a one husband,
one wife,
marriage,
and family,
go the polygamous way
of Cain's descendants
of Lamech,
take another wife,
go sleep with my slave,
she says.
She doesn't even mention
Hagar's name
because she's just
an object to them.
And perhaps,
she says,
maybe because it's all
up to chance anyway,
not God,
perhaps we might get lucky
going this alternative route.
Perhaps,
she said,
I can build
a family through her.
If you think
that sounds funny,
I can build
a family through her.
It is,
but it's very intentional.
That word build,
it's the same word
that's used
when God built
the first family
in Genesis chapter 2,
verse 22.
He took Eve
from the side of Adam
and he built
that first family.
But it's also
the same word
that's used
when Cain's descendants
defy God
and build cities.
It's also the same word
that's used
when the people
at Babel
build their city
to sustain
their own security.
All of them,
Cain,
the Babylonians,
and now,
even Abram's wife,
they're all trying
to build their way
out of barrenness.
And all these
building projects,
they depend on
anything
but the promises
of God.
All of these
building projects
depend upon
violence
and harshness,
oppression,
rivalry,
and selfishness.
So verse 3 says,
so after Abram
had been living
in Canaan
10 years,
Sarai,
his wife,
took her Egyptian
slave,
Hagar,
and gave her
to her husband
to be his wife.
Does that language
sound familiar to you?
She took
and she gave.
Same as Genesis
chapter 3.
When Eve took
and gave
to Adam,
the cycle
of sin
continues.
Abram is passive
as Adam was.
Abram takes
a second wife
like Lamech.
Sarai repeats
the oppression
once done to her.
And then verse 4 says,
Abram slept with Hagar
and she conceived.
When she knew
she was pregnant,
she began to despise
or look down upon,
even curse her mistress.
So the cycle
of sin continues.
The oppressed
Hagar,
she's proved fertile.
She's got some cards
to play now.
And now she
becomes the oppressor
looking down
on Sarai
just as Sarai
looked down upon her.
Hurt people
continue hurting people.
And this creates
more conflict
in the household,
verse 5,
than Sarai said to Abram,
you are responsible
for the wrong
I am suffering.
I put my slave
in your arms
and now that she knows
she is pregnant,
she despises me.
May the Lord
judge between you
and me.
Just like Adam
and Eve, right?
Blame shifting.
No one takes
responsibility.
Verse 6,
your slave is in your hands,
Abram said,
not acknowledging
that he got to have sex.
He wasn't some
passive actor here.
He wasn't innocent.
And then,
just like Sarai,
also treating Hagar
as not,
he just callously says,
do with her
whatever you think best.
And literally,
in the Hebrew,
it says,
do what is good
in your own eyes.
Does that remind you
of anything?
Maybe of the fruit
that was nice
and pleasing
to Eve's eyes.
Also,
the book of Judges
where the refrain
of Israel's downfall
is that everyone
did what was right
in their own eyes.
Here,
Abram,
the father of our faith,
he checks out,
shrugs his shoulders
and leaves the bearer
of his firstborn child,
he leaves her hanging.
And verse 6 ends,
then Sarai mistreated
Hagar,
so she fled from her.
It could also be translated,
she afflicted Hagar.
It's the same word
that's used
of how the Egyptians
mistreated
the Israelite slaves.
So do you see
what this story
is showing us?
When we don't entrust
our barrenness to God,
when we refuse
to trust in his timing
and in his promises,
when we take things
into our own hands,
we only perpetuate
the cycle of sin
that began long,
long, long ago.
We objectify others,
we use them
rather than love them,
we misuse
what little power we have,
we look down on people,
we see them as threats
and rivals,
we shift blame.
And when it suits us,
we escape into passivity,
we shrug our shoulders
and we think
we're being so tolerant,
we think we're being
so chill and open-minded
and we say,
hey, just do whatever
seems good
in your own eyes.
But really,
we're not doing anyone
any favors,
we're merely enabling
the evildoers.
When we,
like Abram and Sarai,
experiment with
building our own ways
out of barrenness,
our pain and shame
are only compounded
and it spreads to hurt
and enslave everyone
around us,
multiplying selfishness
for generations
upon generations.
You know,
that might be
the scariest part
of all of this,
the generational ripple
effects of sin.
We're still feeling
Adam and Eve's today.
So just as Adam and Eve
thought that they were
advancing humanity,
Sarai,
she thought she was
solving her own
barrenness problem,
but her sin set in motion
a rivalry, right?
Between Hagar's son,
Ishmael,
and her eventual son,
Isaac,
a rivalry that's lasted
even to today
between the Jewish
and Arab peoples.
So a question for us
is have we reckoned
with the implications,
the consequences
of our sinful patterns?
Have we considered
their effect,
not just on us,
not just on our
immediate neighbors,
on our children
and our neighbors
and our children's
children
and our neighbors'
neighbors?
Our unbelief,
our addictions,
our short tempers,
our selfishness,
our prayerlessness,
our greed,
and lack of generosity.
What are the vices
that we are perpetuating
in this world?
And what legacy
do we hope to pass on
to the next generation?
Christchurch,
we need to deal
with sin
in our church.
As John Owen,
the Puritan wrote,
be killing sin
or sin will be killing you.
And listen,
I'll be the first one
to recognize
that sin is complex
and it often comes
from a place
of having been sinned
against, right?
I'll be the first
to agree that hurt people
hurt people who hurt people
and I know that many of us
in this room,
I'm the pastor of care here,
I know that many of you
are hurting,
that you've been
badly sinned against
and that many,
if not most,
of our sin patterns
are themselves ripple effects
from the sins
of those who've gone
before us.
Trauma is real
and it's devastating.
Genesis 16
has taught us that.
Hagar is its proof.
She didn't ask
for this story,
she didn't choose it,
she was taken
and given over,
she was used
and then discarded,
a traumatized victim
of another traumatized victim
and her whole life
was undoubtedly shaped
by this trauma
and victimization
just as many
of your lives
are indebably marked
by your own wounds.
But the danger,
the danger in our current
often trauma-obsessed
cultural moment
is that because trauma
is real
and because we long
to be seen
in our trauma,
many of us
can let our trauma
take over our identity
as if trauma
is the truest,
most important
and most essential
thing about us.
And I want to be careful
not to minimize
the pain in this room
or to suggest
that we sweep
our trauma
just under the rug.
I'm totally in favor
of people working
through their trauma,
acknowledging it,
naming it,
lamenting it.
It's all definitely
a part of healing
and of being seen.
But,
if we believe
in God's story
about the world,
if we believe
that God's story
isn't just creation
and then fall
and then,
oh man,
that really sucked,
right?
If we believe
that God's story
is creation,
fall,
and then redemption,
if we believe
that Christ is risen
as the first fruits
of a new
and incorruptible creation,
then whatever your trauma,
it is not,
it must not,
it cannot
be your truest
and final identity.
To let your trauma
be your most significant
identity
is to say
that the most significant
part of a book
is the problem
and the conflict
right in the middle
of the story
rather than
the resolution.
what if our fixation
on trauma
actually comes
from a deeper
desperation
of wanting someone
to see us
in it?
Someone to notice,
someone to care,
someone to say,
I see what happened
to you,
I see what you're
carrying,
and I feel for you,
and I will never
leave you nor forsake you.
Maybe for some of us,
airing our trauma,
it feels like
the only way
will ever be seen.
Like if I can convince
them of how terribly
I've been wounded,
then maybe,
finally,
people will have
to see me.
But don't you see
what this is doing
to us
in our society?
How it's become
a race to the bottom,
people vying for power
or credibility
by showing that
they've been
more traumatized
than others,
everyone clamoring
for a platform
and fighting
for visibility.
I love how
one of my favorite
thinkers,
Alan Noble,
puts it when he writes,
everyone is on
their own private
journey of self-discovery
and self-expression
so that at times,
modern life feels
like billions of people
in the same room
shouting their own name
so that everyone else
knows they exist,
to be recognized
and to draw the gaze
and the attention
of others.
And then trauma sharing
is quite a popular
way to do this.
And yet God's word
here in Genesis 16
has better news for us,
that we don't have
to win the trauma
Olympics to be seen.
We don't need
to out-suffer
everyone else
to be worthy
of care and comfort.
This brings me
to the third point,
the sovereign who sees.
Verse 7 says,
the angel of the Lord
found Hagar
near a spring
in the desert.
It was the spring
that is beside
the road to Shur.
So Hagar has now
fled into the wilderness
and she's at a spring
beside the road to Shur
which indicates
that she's fleeing south,
probably back to Egypt.
And she's all alone
and no one's come
after her.
Sarah's still hostile,
Abram's still passive,
but the sovereign Lord,
he is neither hostile
nor passive
toward Hagar.
No, verse 7 says,
the angel of the Lord
comes after her.
And by the way,
this isn't just any angel,
it's the same angel
of the Lord
who spoke to Moses
from the burning bush.
This is the Lord himself
entering into creation
to be present
with his people.
And what's crazy is
this is his first appearance
to anyone in history,
at least what's recorded
in Scripture.
This first person
in Scripture
to encounter
the angel of the Lord.
It isn't Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob,
it's not Moses,
not some Jewish man.
No, it's Hagar,
an Egyptian slave girl
who was used
and abused
by her masters.
And notice what he says
in verse 8.
He says,
Hagar.
He calls her by name,
slave of Sarai.
Where have you come from
and where are you going?
This is crazy, you know.
Throughout the story,
Abram and Sarai
never speak Hagar's name.
They always refer to her
as my slave,
your slave,
but God,
he says Hagar.
He knows her.
He calls her by name.
The first person
in this entire narrative
to call her by name,
treat her like a person
and not property.
And this is also
the only known instance
in all of ancient
Near Eastern literature
where a deity
addresses a woman
by name.
The God of the Bible
is a God
who sees Hagar
individually,
personally,
comprehensively,
and compassionately.
He sees her
and he dignifies her
and he dignifies her,
how?
With a promise.
Now think about that
for a second.
Think about what
a promise is.
A promise
is a binding commitment.
So here you have
this slave girl
who no one ever
made a promise to.
No one ever felt like
they owed her anything,
but the maker
of heaven and earth,
the I am,
Yahweh,
here,
he is committing himself.
He is binding himself
to her story
by making a promise
to her.
And it's a promise
that sounds a lot
like it has the same
scale as Abram's.
Verse 10,
I will increase
your descendants
so much that they
will be too numerous
to count.
See,
God is saying
everyone else
is trying to use you
for their own plans
to elevate themselves.
But Hagar,
I have a plan
to elevate you.
Your child
will be so much more
than a trauma-born baby.
Verse 11 through 12
detail how this child
will not be forgotten.
This child will be strong
and free,
independent,
and a force
to be reckoned with.
Hagar's son Ishmael,
which means God hears,
would be a reminder
to her for the rest
of her life
that God has not
shut his ears
to her misery
nor overlooked
her affliction.
And so impactful,
so transformative
is this moment.
Look how Hagar responds.
Verse 13,
it's one of the most
remarkable verses
in the entire Bible.
It says,
she gave this name
to the Lord
who spoke to her.
You are the God
who sees me.
Did you know
that this is
the only place
in all of Scripture
where a human being
gives God a name?
Normally,
it's some higher authority
that's supposed
to bestow a name, right?
But here,
Hagar is giving God
a name,
and not because
she's higher,
but because she's humbled
and she's bearing witness
to his character.
She names him El Roy,
which means
the God who sees me.
In verse 13,
it literally says,
she is calling upon
the name of the Lord
just like the descendants
of Seth.
She's naming him
according to her experience
of him.
The God who personally
found her
when she was lost
and miserable.
The God who called her
by name
and promised her
a better tomorrow.
This overwhelms her.
Like,
have I actually
just right here
gazed upon the one
who gazes upon me?
Hagar is blown away.
She is transformed
by this encounter
with the sovereign
who sees,
precisely because
he's the sovereign
who sees her,
her of all people.
A well is even
dedicated by her
to this remarkable moment,
Bir Lahoy Roy,
which means
well of the living one
who sees me,
and so transformative
is this moment for her
that she is even willing
to heed and obey
the Lord's command
to her in verse 9
to go return
to her mistress
and even submit to her
is what it says.
And listen,
this is not
a prescriptive story.
This is a descriptive one.
This isn't God saying
you should go back
to return to those
who abuse you,
but it is a story
telling us that
sometimes God
has a better plan
than what we think.
God has a distinct
and unmistakable plan
for Hagar,
and Hagar believes it
having seen the one
who sees her.
And my question is,
is this how you understand?
Is this how you view God
as El Roy,
the God who sees you,
as the God who sees
all your tears,
hears your cries,
who observes
all your affliction?
Have you experienced him
in this way?
Would you dare believe
this about him?
My really good friend,
author, biblical counselor,
her name's Esther,
she puts it this way,
the story of Hagar
throws us off
because it expands
the scope of
who matters to God.
We're not sure
we expect God
to inscripturate this story
for all eternity,
but he does care
about this seemingly
insignificant character,
maybe in part
to confound our notions
of who he cares about,
who he sees.
God cares about people
we're not sure
he would care about,
and we find hope
that maybe
his watchful regard
is for us too.
This is a word
to the Hagars
in the room,
those of us
who feel unseen,
unnoticed,
and unhopeful.
But get this,
this is also a word
to the Sarai's
and the Abram's
in the room.
The God who saw
Hagar's suffering
also saw Abram
and Sarai's sin.
He sees both
the oppressed
and the oppressor,
victims and the victimized.
That's a word
for us too.
The sovereign who sees
is both comforting
and terrifying
at the same time.
But what's even
more beautiful
than God simply seeing
is that this isn't
just God's mind
being like a massive
data collector, right?
When Hagar is calling
upon the name
of the Lord
as the God who sees,
she's not marveling
at God's knowledge
simply about her.
But she's marveling
that he knows her,
that he gets her,
that he's tenderly present
and attentive to her
and powerfully working
in her life.
And this doesn't mean
he just snaps his fingers
to transform all
her circumstances
around her, right?
Sarai's still hostile.
Abram's no advocate.
God seeing Hagar
doesn't mean giving her
exactly the kind of story
she'd write for herself.
No, he's too wise.
He's too good
to do that for her
or for any of us.
But what the sovereign
seeing God does mean
is that the sovereign maker,
the sustainer,
the maker of heaven
and earth
does not find it
too lowly
to bend down low
and to personally
and privately assure us
one-on-one,
I see you.
I hear you
and I will not
abandon you.
My promises are sure.
He assures Hagar
that her future
isn't determined
by Sarai's spitefulness
or Abram's apathy
nor even by her own trauma.
Her future and ours
are sure
just because God says.
They're sure
according to the word
and promise
of the God
who sees us.
And this is what
helped Hagar
to live another day.
And this is what
we can all find
help from
to live a new day
as well.
When we're tempted
to believe
that our stories
are too broken,
not worth living on,
because of the people
who hurt us,
the failures that haunt us,
the burdens
that weigh us down,
God says,
no, I see you.
I hear you
and your story
isn't invisible to me.
Let my promise
sustain you.
Let my promise
have the final word
and not your pain.
And my question
for us this morning
is do you think
you could believe that?
Do you think
you could believe that?
Do you want
to believe that?
Do you want
to live as though
God's good promises
were true for you
and for those around you?
Here in Genesis 16,
Sarai couldn't
and neither could Abram,
but Hagar,
she could believe that.
When Sarai and Abram
lived by technique
and human strategy
rather than trusting
the promises
of God by faith,
they chose to live
by human ingenuity.
Rather than by divine grace.
And this is where
we'll land the plane.
You see,
Genesis 16 isn't just
a touching story
about how God
sees the underdog
in Hagar.
It's a story
of the transformative
power
and the glory
of grace.
So powerful
was God's
gracious encounter
with Hagar.
So convincing
was His gracious
promise to her.
Seeing the one
who saw her
transformed
how she saw
her own circumstances.
It was no longer
a choice
between living
under the empire
of Sarai
and living
under the empire
of Egypt.
The choice
was now between
the gracious plan
and kingdom
of God
and everything else.
The choice
was now between
depending completely
on God
to show up
for her,
to see her,
to meet her,
to provide for her,
or depending
completely
on someone else
or something else
to show up
for her
and to meet her
and to provide
for her.
Grace gave her
the strange freedom
of entrusting
herself to the
goodwill
and pleasure
of God
instead of having
to engineer
her own salvation
as Sarah
was trying to do
for herself.
The glory
of grace
is that we
don't have to
bear the burden
of our barrenness
any longer.
The glory
of grace
is we don't
have to build
our way
out of barrenness
ourselves.
So ironically,
Hagar,
the slave girl,
the one Abram
and Sarah
used to try
to expedite
the plans
of God.
Hagar returns
from the wilderness.
She turns away
from Egypt.
She gives birth
to Ishmael
whose name again
means God hears
and thus Hagar
becomes a sign
and a reminder
to the people
of God,
to Sarah
and to Abram
of the way
God graciously
fulfills
his promises.
For every time
Sarah and Abraham
would hear
Ishmael's name,
they would be
reminded of the way
that they pursued
their own salvation
by works of the flesh
rather than calling
upon the name
of the Lord
who hears
and actually
are encountering
the good and gracious
living God
as Hagar had.
Hagar and Ishmael
were a reminder
to Abram and Sarah
that the promises
of God
will not be expedited
nor engineered
to fulfillment
but only divinely
delivered by grace.
And that's the gospel.
That we cannot
save ourselves
but God.
And we've beheld
an even fuller picture
of this God
than Hagar
who met
the angel
of the Lord.
We met him
in Christ.
For God
has not merely
come to us
as an angel
but as Jesus Christ
the Son
in the flesh.
He's the one
the angel
of the Lord
was pointing to
who is not only
the sovereign
who sees
he wasn't just
the one
who saw
the Samaritan woman
at another well
but he's the Savior
who suffers.
Like Hagar
he moved back
toward those
who afflicted him
out of faith
in the promises
of God
and perhaps
better than Hagar
out of love
for those
who'd crucify him.
So what do we do
with this?
Well like Hagar
we should bear witness.
We should bear witness
to what we've seen
to the one
who's seen us
and better yet
to the one
who's saved us.
That was Hagar's gospel.
That was her good news
her testimony
that she saw
the one
who saw her.
So what's your good news?
What's your gospel?
What's your testimony
about how God
has saved you
from having to save
yourself?
This is my practical
challenge to all of us
to help others
see the God
who sees
and saves us.
Let's pray.
Lord convince us
of our barrenness
and our inability
to bear that burden.
Save us,
deliver us
from the cycle
of sin.
Oh God convince us
that you are
the God who sees.
Lord lift up our eyes
to the glory
of your grace
in Jesus Christ.
We ask in his name.
Amen.