This is Your Story

hey this is pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA church in Houston texas thank you for listening

to the message today i hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with god bless you

Just a brief second, brief moment.

Just take a little breather there after that.

Powerful worship. Amen.

Can we give it up for our worship team, man?

Worship team here early every Sunday.

Take some time out of the week to come and practice and praise the Lord for them and their anointing.

I want to just remind you of a couple things.

This Wednesday, we won't be having classes, but we will be having a service.

We will be joining with our Spanish ministry.

We're going to have a combined service.

We're going to have a guest speaker who's been with us pretty much every year for the past maybe three or four years.

And he's an awesome man of God, awesome minister.

So please join us for that.

Amen.

Seven o'clock, we'll have worship, we'll have word.

And the fire of God will just descend upon this place.

Amen.

And then next week, next Wednesday, we have our night of worship, man, which I'm excited for.

So make plans to be.

If you've never been at one of our night of worships, they're fire, man.

They're fire.

Amen.

and the Holy Spirit just completely ministers to everybody.

And so there's no word.

It's just we're just the people of God are coming together

and we're joining with heaven and the angels

and we are just declaring the glory of God.

So that'll be next Wednesday.

So for the next two Wednesdays, we won't have class,

but we will still be here at seven o'clock.

Amen?

Don't forget, show up.

Amen?

All right, we're going to get into the word this morning

and I'm going to ask you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 16.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

And I'm going to ask you to stand. Genesis 16. We're going to read a little bit. 1 through 13.

Genesis 16, 1 through 13. When you have it, say, I have it. Amen.

You're ready. All right. We ready for the word this morning? Amen.

This is what the word says. It says, now, Sarah, Abraham's wife, had born him no children.

And she had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Go into my servant. It may be that I shall obtain children by her.

And Abram listened to the voice of Sarah.

So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan,

Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant,

and gave her to Abram as a husband, I'm sorry, as a wife.

and he went into Hagar and she conceived and when she had saw that she had conceived she looked with

contempt on her mistress and Sarai said to Abram may the wrong done to me be on you

how many a story of our lives huh men of God she said I gave my servant to your embrace and when

she saw that she had conceived she looked on me with contempt may the Lord judge between you and

me. But Abram said to Sarai, behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. Then

Sarai dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. And the angel of the Lord found her by a

spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, servant of

Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress,

Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. Then the angel

of the Lord said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered

for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son.

You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a

wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he shall dwell

over against all his kinsmen. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God

of seeing for she said truly here i have seen him who looks after me let's pray heavenly father i

thank you for this word that you've spoken over me my god that you gave to me lord that you burden

my heart for father i pray that today that as i deliver it my god it would be your holy spirit

speaking through me father god and into our hearts my god i pray lord that nothing i say would be of

me, but of you today. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. And then you can be seated. I entitled

the message this morning, This is Your Story. This is Your Story. And that'll make sense a little bit

later. I don't know why early this week I had a burden in my heart for two people. These are

two people that I've never met. These are two people that are not even alive today. And that's

Hagar and her son Ishmael. Out of nowhere. I don't know if sometimes God just puts a word in you and

you don't know where it came from. You weren't thinking about it. That's how it came about this

week. So I pray that God is really wanting to speak to somebody through this word. So I went

over to their story here in Genesis and I began to read it and I started to feel compassion for

these two people who were products of a mistake made by God's chosen people. Like this is church

church even before there was a church. And just to kind of provide some context, you know, Abraham

and Sarah, they have this great promise over their life and they've been walking faithfully and

obediently, but it's been 10 years of Abraham walking in this promise without seeing even a

hint of it. And so he's old, his wife is old, and they're already living in this other land as

foreigners, but there's no sign of this promise coming into fruition. And so Abraham and Sarah

are in a season of how they're in a season of how, you know, how is this promise of God going to

unfold? I have been in seasons of what, I don't know if you've been in a season of what before,

where it's like, what the heck God are you doing? What, what are you saying? You've probably been

in seasons of why, why are you doing this? Why are you allowing me to pass through this affliction?

Why are you saying this? Why am I being allowed to walk into these doors?

But you've probably also been in seasons of how.

And, you know, there's a danger whenever you're in any one of these seasons, because when you start to ask questions like this, you have to you have to do it so carefully, because especially when we ask God how we oftentimes feel like we have to help God out a little bit.

and that can be a pretty slippery slope

to feel like you've got to help God out

with the promise that he gave to you.

You know, that's kind of what I'm going through right now

and I'll talk about it in a second,

but that's what's happening here with Abraham and Sarah.

They're in a season of how.

Abraham and Sarah in this moment of weakness

and impatience, they kind of start to brainstorm

on how is God going to fulfill this promise

and in that process of brainstorming,

they unknowingly rush the plan of God.

So you gotta be careful with that question, you know,

and I don't wanna talk too much about Abraham and Sarah,

but I do wanna say something that is so true.

You know, we often use this story as a reminder to us

to not rush the plan of God, to trust in the process,

to trust that God has got everything under control,

but I also think that,

I wanna give Abraham and Sarah the benefit of the doubt.

You know, maybe they shouldn't have been asking themselves

How is God going to do it? But, you know, they're human. They're going to ask those questions.

And so they thought that maybe this could be the way that God brings this promise into fruition.

Sarah even says that she says, it may be that I obtain children through Hagar.

And so here's another thing. Sometimes we simply don't know. I want you to hear me.

Sometimes we simply don't know whether we're rushing the plan of God or we're trusting the plan of God.

because sometimes we might think that rushing looks like trusting.

Well, maybe I have to take a step of faith.

Maybe that's what faith is.

Maybe I've got to move forward because that's what God is waiting on me for.

Or maybe I've got to just sit back and do nothing.

Maybe that's faith.

But if I do nothing, it's God waiting on me to do something.

And the ball's in my court.

That's what Sarah's saying.

maybe Abram we have to move forward

maybe we've got to do something

maybe God is waiting on us

and if we've got the faith

well then maybe we need to take that step

so sometimes it takes discernment just to have faith

I'll give you a personal example

because this is what I'm going through right now

I'm in my own season of how as a pastor

you know God has promised this church

many many things

by multiple voices

by multiple means.

And we've already been seeing the beginning of it.

You know, expansion has been a word

that has been spoken over and over again.

Growth was a word that my first year as a lead pastor,

God put into my spirit

and I held onto it for like a year.

I didn't say anything

because I didn't want to be a pastor

that talked about growth.

I care about the growth of the spirit,

the growth of the heart,

the discipleship,

the growth that I saw

And Brother Juan yesterday, because knowing where he came from, now speaking in a room full of men, the gospel of Jesus, like that is the growth that I care about.

And I think that the church should care about and that Jesus cares about.

That's real growth.

Because you can have thousands of people in a church who are zero in spirit.

And that's not what we want.

But God very, very firmly spoke that word, growth.

And I shared it.

I shared it with our leaders.

I shared it with the church very hesitantly, but I had to share it.

And so we been seeing that More than we been seeing it we been feeling it How many of you feel in that parking lot You feel it in between the services

You feel it. We feel it.

We see it and we feel it.

And so I'm telling God, God, we need more space.

We need more property.

We need more money.

Come on.

Right?

See you now.

And so I was just talking to Melissa about this the other day.

I said, my dilemma right now is, do we just wait for the provision?

Is that trusting?

Do we just wait for a multimillionaire to come in here and say, I believe in what God is doing in this Pentecostal church in the heart of Houston.

Here's $5 million to do what God wants you to do in this community.

Is that faith?

Or is faith saying, okay, God spoke expansion into the church.

Maybe we need to take a step.

Maybe we need to start looking.

Maybe we need to go out and start looking for property and getting loans.

but you know how I feel about debt.

And so there's my dilemma.

I can have faith either way,

but I want to make sure that I'm trusting, not rushing.

There's a difference there.

I don't think Abraham and Sarah only had a doubt problem.

I don't think that they had a faith problem at all.

I think their faith was still strong.

They had a wisdom problem.

They had a discerning issue

because when you start to take matters into your own hands

without prayerfully considering it

and gathering wisdom from other people,

you might find yourself rushing the plan of God

while trusting that he will do it.

And so, I don't know, maybe you're asking how.

How is God going to do this?

But I want to caution you

because it needs to be asked with extreme fear

and reverence and caution.

And I'm, again, even in my own season of how, I'm like, God, I want you, I don't want to rush anything.

I can have faith either way.

I just, I want to trust you, not rush you.

I don't know who needs to hear that.

But whenever you rush something, let me tell you this.

Whenever you rush something, it only leads to a mess.

And that's what we read in this story.

It's messy.

It's like a novella.

right and I feel for my boy Abram because he's in the middle of all of this but you know at the end

of all of it Abraham is still God's chosen instrument Sarah is still God's chosen instrument

Isaac is still the child of the promise they get to mess up and still get the promise

the ones who have a right to be hurt the ones who have a right to be angry because they weren't

really the orchestrators of any of this are Hagar and her son Ishmael. Hagar was used and then thrown

out. Ishmael didn't even have a voice. And sure, they weren't perfect and they got a little arrogant

and cocky and contemptuous, but they're not the villains of the story. And whenever we look at

the lessons learned from this story, we always hear preachers say, don't birth an Ishmael while

waiting for an Isaac. Don't be an Ishmael, be an Isaac. Don't rest the promise of God while waiting

on God. Thousands of years later, Hagar and Ishmael still don't really get a break.

They're even still getting cast aside. We don't honor them the way that we do Abraham and Sarah.

But if we're honest, if we can be completely honest, we have all birthed an Ishmael.

We have all rushed the process. We've all failed to wait on God. We've all tried to manufacture

something of God into fruition. We have all incorporated some type of Hagar into our lives

and in our attempt to be obedient. Sometimes we're still disobedient. Like we have all been on the

wrong side of the mess. So the question becomes, well, what do we do with these Hagar's and Ishmael's?

What do we do with them? Do we just, do we just send them away to the wilderness? Is that what

we're supposed to do? Am I just supposed to forget about all of these Ishmael's that I've created in

my life out of a moment of wanting to rush the plan of God? Am I just supposed to oppress it and

forget about it and repent from it? No. Hagar and Ishmael don't represent sin,

but they do represent products of disobedience that we have to learn how to deal with.

Somebody say deal with, not forget about it, not sweep it under the rug,

not turn away from it, not send it off. Deal with.

And you know what? Forget just dealing with Ishmael. Some of us might feel like we are Ishmael.

Some of us feel like we are the ones being cast aside. Some of us feel like we're second class.

How many of you have been in a room full of people feeling like the least favorite person?

The one, praise the Lord. Y'all are my favorite people.

But you feel like Ishmael, you feel like the one that everybody seems to be against.

Nobody celebrates Ishmael.

He is at best tolerated.

Maybe you feel like a Hagar.

I like what one commentator said about Hagar.

He says this, Hagar's struggle is alive today.

The lowborn, hardworking, domestic laborer used and misused and cast out by her employers.

The single mother abandoned by the father of her child.

The foreigner and the refugee far from her native land.

Desperately trying to survive.

Frantic in her maternal concern for the safety of her child.

This Hagar I have met many times.

Let me tell you this.

Everyone at times will feel like an Ishmael or a Hagar.

You might feel like an Abraham in one place and an Ishmael in another place.

Because no one is ever the main character in every story.

You know, in this story, it's about what God is doing through Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac.

God chose them for this task.

He didn't choose Ishmael.

He didn't choose Hagar.

It's not about them.

And many times we're going to feel, look, let's be real.

Sometimes we're going to feel not just cast aside by people, but sometimes we're going to feel cast aside by God.

Because we are not the instruments that he's going to use every single time.

Pastor Danny spoke about this a little bit last week.

Kind of on the lines of where he was saying that sometimes other people's anointings might make other people jealous.

Because God may have chosen them for a specific task.

God wanted them to be the leader.

He wanted them to be the pastor.

He wanted them to be the ones who carry this certain anointing.

We all have thems in our lives.

There's always a them.

and when we're not careful, we can become bitter towards them.

We can become jealous towards them

because they have a story

and you feel like you're not part of that story.

I'm sure Abraham at times felt like an Ishmael

being in the middle of this land

where nobody even knew his name,

where God said, I'm gonna make your name great

and for 10 years he's there

and people are like, who are you?

I feel like at times he felt like an Ishmael.

I feel like at times, Sarah felt like a Hagar.

She might have even felt like a Hagar during their time together.

Like we all have these moments, we're all going to have these moments of Ishmael and Hagar

when you go into certain rooms and you deal with certain people

and you feel like you're the one just being tolerated.

You feel like you're the one always getting passed by.

You're getting set aside.

You are the smallest deal in that room.

And, you know, maybe maybe you're mature enough to not have a victim mentality, but sometimes you are absolutely a victim.

Not every time, but but for but for the true Hagar's and for the true Ishmael's of the world, you were wronged.

You were hurt. You were abused.

And so you're trying so hard to deal with all of this emotion because you don't want to make a big deal about it.

But it's eating you alive from the inside out.

and you're constantly feeling rejected and unloved and alone.

And God is saying today, I see you.

I have always seen you.

Because every son and daughter of God has a God-given purpose.

We tend to lose sight of all of that when we feel hurt and we feel cast aside.

When we feel like the Hagar's and the Ishmael's,

we tend to forget that we are still anointed by God.

We are still called by God.

We are still seen.

We have not been forgotten about.

You are seen by God.

And so what we have to do as people of God is to learn how not to get our value from people.

You hear me?

Is it hot?

Is it hot in here?

All right, hold on.

Give me a second.

I'm a little bit hot.

Can someone get the other one, please?

That's right, baby.

Got to be a servant.

Got to be a servant.

Let me go back to my points.

As people of God, we have to learn how not to get our value from people.

We have to get it from God, all of our value from God.

And I'm going to be the first one to admit that that's hard to do.

it's it's it's it's hard to genuinely love people and see people as valuable and open up yourself

to people and then not feel devalued when they hurt you that's really hard to do

this is something that i've i've really genuinely grown in you know i love having a counselor as a

wife bro because we have some deep processing conversations and she don't even charge me for it

Maybe when she gets her license, she'll charge me.

But there's been times where I have given all of myself to other people, man.

I have loved them.

I've listened to them.

I've given them my time.

I've given them my energy.

I've spent time with them.

I went the distance for them.

I swallowed my pride when I felt wronged when I felt dismissed when I felt unseen And it really really tempting for me to say if I supposed to value them they need to value me

And if they're not going to value me, then I'm not going to value them. But if I stop valuing them, I stop loving them.

I can't, I can't, I can't love you and not value you.

But I also have to know that my value doesn't come from you.

Gosh, it's so hard.

because we have to give it, but we can't expect to receive it the same way.

And a lot of us, I believe a lot of us, I believe 90% of the people in here don't know how to do this well.

And it leads to very unhealthy and very toxic ways of dealing with relationships.

Many times we just do what Hagar did.

We flee.

We rather just not deal with people.

we just close ourselves off to people

because that's the only way we feel like

we can truly guard our hearts

so listen to this because this might be you

you always have to be careful

with what you say

and with who you say it to

because in the back of your mind you know they can hurt you

and you don't want to give them that kind of power

that might be a sign that you gain too much value from people

imagine if Jesus

was too prideful to be vulnerable

go there with me

for a second

Imagine if Jesus was too prideful to let it all out.

Would he have ever really gone to the cross?

Would he have ever bared so much humiliation?

If Jesus worried so much about what people are going to say about him and think about him on the cross.

If he worried so much about the people who were going to mock him saying he thinks he's God and he can't even get himself down from that cross.

Would he have ever gone to the cross if he got his value from people?

This is just another thing that Jesus perfected, man.

Valuing people with the cost of his own life while simultaneously not drawing his own value from people.

But when we are in those Hagar moments and in those Ishmael moments, we just rather stop dealing with people and stop loving people who hurt us.

So we just flee and we shut down.

And maybe you're here, but you're not really even here.

Maybe you're here and you leave as quickly as we say amen at that very last prayer

because you don't want to deal with some of the hurt that people have caused you.

You don't want to deal with some of that feeling of rejection when somebody doesn't say hi to you.

So you flee.

You leave.

You tell yourself, all I need is Jesus, and that's true.

But you have closed yourself off to the church.

I don't know who that is today.

And Hagar was feeling this moment of she was hurting.

She was abused.

She was unnoticed.

So she leaves to the wilderness.

And look at verse 8 and 9 again.

It says, and the angel of the Lord said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?

She said, I am fleeing from my mistress.

She said, I'm done with her.

She said, I hate drama.

The drama queens are the only ones that hate drama, right?

What they really mean is I'm the only one allowed to cause drama.

She says, I don't need this.

I'm done.

I'm better off alone.

I'm better off just trying to figure it out on my own.

I don't need people.

She doesn't even want me there.

And look at what the angel says.

The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her.

How many of you feel that?

Golly.

I want you to get the weight of this.

I really, really, really do because I believe that there is some healing here.

The Hebrew word for submit is anach.

And it is so much more harsh than we read it in the English.

It's not just submit.

It literally means to be afflicted.

Literally means be afflicted.

The Bible says that Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar.

And I don't exactly know what that means.

Who knows?

I think that in this season of Sarah's life, she was pretty petty and immature.

I really do.

and she's frustrated because she knows that she's the one who asked for this mistake

and now she's reaping the consequences,

but she still knows that she's got the power to make this person's life miserable

and so she's going to do everything she can to make it miserable.

It's a mess.

And the angel of the Lord says, go back and submit to her.

He's literally telling Hagar to be subject to this affliction.

have you ever been in a season where you know the will of God involves your discomfort

have you ever been in a season like that have you ever been in a season where you know that God is

saying this is where I want you and you're like oh I don't want to be there because you know that

this is a struggle you know that this is a pain point you know that this is going to test every

ounce of your character, this is not a place you want to be, but it's a place that God wants you.

And if you are to be obedient and faithful to the God who calls you, the God who loves you,

and the God who sees you, you have to be okay with this as uncomfortable as it may be.

imagine Hagar

look man I don't mean any disrespect

but you know how women can be okay

come on y'all know it y'all know it

women y'all know it y'all know it

I told a group of women one time look I told

I told them like this look I'm not

Look, yeah, I'm just going to speak the truth.

I told a group of women one time, 90% of the problems in our church are caused from women.

Some of the women aren't going to come back next week, but look, we've got godly women in this place.

Amen.

That was years ago.

but put yourself in these shoes please please please put yourself in these shoes

imagine hagar going back to sarah knowing sarah doesn't want her there

and it's like hey i'm back and it's like i wish you weren't

look no listen listen listen listen to this nobody talks about the spiritual and mental

maturity that this Egyptian Gentile slave woman was being asked to step into against a family who

was handpicked by God to be the people of the promise. You are going to go back to the place

where you're not wanted, where you're treated poorly, where your son will be treated unfairly,

where hardly anyone will remember your name. And years later, everybody will celebrate the

people who hurt you. This is the affliction that Hagar was being asked to submit to.

But what I love the absolute most in this story is Hagar's response to all of it.

Because he says, return to your mistress and submit to her. And then he says, you're pregnant

and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to

your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone against

him. And he shall dwell over against all the kinsmen. Listen, that's not a great word.

Have you ever been like prophesied over and you're like, ah, amen.

I don't know if I want to receive that. That's that kind of word.

the angel of the lord is is telling hagar that her son is going to have a really rough life

and in chapter 21 uh it says that he became a skillful bower because he kind of had to be he

was a man of battle he had to defend himself everybody was against him but what's interesting

to me is that she receives this word and she doesn't protest she doesn't ask questions she

doesn't even acknowledge it. She doesn't even acknowledge the word that was given to her that

her son is going to have this type of life. I mean, how many of us would have received that and been

like, ah, I'll just stay here in the wilderness. Because I don't want that life for me. I don't

want that life for my son. I don't want to have to submit to affliction and then subjugate my son

to affliction. This, this is what Hagar says. You are a God of seeing. For she said, truly here I have

seen him who looks after me. I believe the reason that Hagar didn't protest, the reason that Hagar

willfully went back to submit to her oppressor, the reason that Hagar celebrated this moment

between her and the Lord is because for the first time in probably all of her life, Hagar was given

her own story. And maybe it's not a story like Abraham, and it's not a story like Sarah, and it's

not a story like Isaac that leads to the birth of Jesus, but it's a story that still points people to

Jesus. It's a story that reminds us that God can clean up what you mess up. It's a story that reminds

us that obedience, even in affliction, still honors God. It is a story that reminds us that

even when nobody else is looking, when nobody is knowing your name, when people are passing

you by, God is still with eyes of love, looking at his child, seeing you. And so I don't know

who walked in today feeling like Hagar, feeling like an Ishmael. Maybe you have created some

Ishmael's in your life. Maybe you have incorporated some Hagar's all over your life because you tried

to do things your way and you feel like you messed up the plan of God. God is saying today, I still

see you I not forgotten about you I still for you I still doing something in that life with you and through you I still see you

If you would just give God today all of the mess, all of the mess that you've ever created,

you still have a story that points people to Jesus. You know, I'm almost done.

I almost didn't want to call this message, this is your story.

Because, you know, that kind of sounds like man centric and I don't, you know,

you're always hearing me say, this is not about you.

It's not about me.

This is about God.

So I almost didn't want to call it, this is your story.

I typed it out and I was like, I don't know how I feel about that.

This is really a story about God and his love for humanity.

It's not about what I do for God.

It's not about what you do for God.

It's about what God does through broken people that can still point to the perfect Jesus.

That's what it's about.

And isn't that a beautiful thing that God can use broken, messed up people to point to something that is perfect?

How did God do that?

I have no idea.

How did God do it through me?

How did God do it through Abraham and Sarah and Isaac?

How did he do it through Hagar?

How does God point broken people to Jesus who was perfect?

I don't know.

What is so beautiful about this story is that even though God, listen, listen, even though God is so big and God is so infinitely powerful, even though God is in need of nothing and no one, he still finds time to see me.

He still finds time to listen to me.

he still finds time to lean in when I'm in a in a moment of weakness and I'm and I'm crying out to

God in my bed at three o'clock in the morning God still sees me God still hears me

and I want you to I want you to understand that God what God was doing through Abraham

Sarah and Isaac, it was, I mean, it was massive, right? This is why we celebrate them. This is why

we honor them as people of faith. What God was doing through Abraham and Sarah was eternal.

And it wasn't even about them. It was about Jesus, but it was the beginning of God's people.

Please listen to me. Listen, in Abraham, God was creating a model of faith for the people of faith

to later live by. In Sarah, he was creating an example of priesthood submission as one who

trusted the one who was trusting in God, even against all odds. He was creating an Isaac,

an example of sacrifice and God's perfect provision. God was writing the story of redemption

through Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, the greatest story ever told. But in the midst of all of that,

He finds time to visit this poor Gentile slave woman in the middle of nowhere.

He still takes the time to talk with her and ask her questions about how she's feeling.

He finds time to write her a story that will later point to Jesus.

And so the word that I pray would encourage you today is simply that God sees you.

God sees you.

You may walk into these doors week after week, and you think that nobody knows what I'm going through.

Nobody knows what I've been through.

You might walk into these doors week after week, and you've been comparing yourself too long to the Dems in your life.

There's always somebody that you're trying to compete with, and you're wondering why people constantly pass you by.

Sometimes you wonder why God is allowing you to go through so many things.

God is writing your story, man.

That's his best way as I can put it.

And in your story, there might be some pain and there might be some injustice and there might be some loneliness.

But you got to know that God is leading you to something beautiful.

if you would just give it to him

if you would stop holding on to it

if you would stop creating in your heart a bitter spirit

if you would stop creating in your heart

a spirit that just wants to flee

every time there's confrontation

every time there's conflict

if you would just go back and you would submit to the affliction

that God is asking you to submit to

God will write your story in a beautiful way

so I don't know who needs to hear that today

but stop fighting

the affliction.

Stop fighting it.

Because if you know that this is where God has you,

God might be teaching you something in this moment

where your marriage is being tested.

And all you want to do is just leave.

Yeah, I just want to quit. I'm done.

There's too much.

Too much drama.

Too much pain.

Too much hurt.

I'm sick of it.

I'm always angry.

And God is saying, wait.

Wait, wait, go back.

I want you to submit to it.

I need you to submit to it.

Maybe there's an issue with the person in your life,

and maybe it's an actual person that you're being asked to submit to.

Maybe it's a leadership thing, and there's somebody that you don't like,

and maybe there's a boss that you don't want to work with anymore,

and it pains you every single time.

He tells you to do something, and God is saying,

I want you to stay there.

I want you to submit to it.

Submit to it.

It might hurt.

It might not feel good.

I'm not saying what they're doing is right, but I need you there.

I need you to submit to it.

I don't know.

I can go on and on and on and on and on with examples.

But I want you to simply hear this today.

God sees you where you're at.

God sees you where you're at.

And he is writing your story through your pain.

And in chapter 21, and I'll close with this.

I'm going to ask you to stand.

chapter 21 Isaac is born and and you know whatever strife was between Hagar and Sarah

is now intensified because now there's children involved now you got two mama bears going after it

and so this time this time it's not Hagar who flees but Sarah tells Abraham to send her away

Sarah says I'm tired of the way that Ishmael is talking about my son he's always making fun of him

no Isaac Isaac is the child of the promise and God even says it to him God even tells Abraham

Isaac is the child of the promise I didn't choose Ishmael for this

so Abram sends him

his son away

but God assures Abraham

that Ishmael will be okay

he says whatever Sarah says to you

do as she tells you

for through Isaac

your offspring will be named

again the story that

that concerns Abram

does not involve Ishmael

but that doesn't mean

that Ishmael doesn't have a purpose

verse 13 says I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman because he is your offspring

he will have his own story in the plan of God

and and when Hagar and Ishmael are sent off to the wilderness Hagar fears that her son is going to die

and she leaves him right there in the middle of some bushes and she has to look away because she's

like, I can't watch this. I have been abused all my life. I went back, God, to the thing that you

told me to submit to. And now I'm over here again, where, where, where you found me the first time.

And this time I have to, I have to worry that my son is going to die. And this is what God says.

He says, fear not woman. I have heard the voice of the boy for I will make him into a great nation.

And so God is saying today, I not only see you, I hear you.

If you are a Hagar, if you are an Ishmael, if you have birthed some things in your life that you know do not belong and you don't know how to deal with them, God is dealing with them.

If you would just submit to him, if you would just submit to him, if you would just be okay with the struggle for a moment, if you surrender everything to God, God is listening.

God is seeing you.

and so right now as the worship team sings

I'm gonna

this is my call this morning

if you're here

and you've got some Ishmaels in your life

maybe you've got some Hagar's

that you're trying to deal with

maybe you feel like an Ishmael

maybe you feel like a Hagar

you've got so much mess in your life

and you've been fighting it for so long

there's an opportunity

for you here

to submit it to God

and surrender to God

that's my call this morning

if you have something to submit to and say

God I will dwell in this

pain as long as you have me

here because I know that you're doing something

if that's you this morning I want you to make that

that conscious decision

in faith to step into

what God is calling you to step in and if

you need prayer man we're going to pray for you our prayer

team is here but the altars are

open if that's you this morning

come on

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church, visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media and tag us at mypneumachurch.

Thanks again and God bless.

Thank you.