God Already Knows // Missing Peace (Part 3) // Pastor Brie Davis

Welcome to Transformation Church Podcast, where we represent God to

the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so

glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe

God will transform your life. Do today's message.

If we haven't met before, my name is Brie and

I serve as one of the.

Pastors here at TC. I love y'all, I love y'all, and.

I am your substitute teacher for today.

Okay.

We have been in a sermon series with Pastor Tim

Ross sharing with us the Missing Piece talking about the

peace of God.

And for week three, I'm gonna bring.

The message and Tim will be back next week. But

I'm not just your average substitute teacher, okay, because I

know when you was in school, you had your favorite

teacher and the sub you walked in you was like, dang,

the substitute today. Okay, I'm not just a regular substitute.

Been here for a long time, okay, fourteen years. I've

been on staff here at Transformation Church. I am not

new to this. I am true to this, okay. And

I'm not your avereub that don't know what she's talking about,

so she just kind of keep you busy until the

next teacher come back. No, No, I have a word

from God for you today, one that I truly believe

has the potential to change your entire life because of

it has done.

That for me.

I can't teach you anything that I haven't experienced. And

one of the things that this is, this word today

that I want to give you, it's one that God

has shown.

Me in my own life. And I'm really excited about this.

If you don't know my story, I'm married to my husband, Aaron,

who was up here jumping around a minute ago. We've

been married for eleven years and I'm gonna tell y'all

I've received every single one of them class because baby,

we did the work to make it to eleven years Okay,

happy and the love, in absolute love with one another.

And we have experienced some really hardships in our life.

And today I'm gona talk a little bit about that.

But if you haven't heard our story, you can go

to YouTube and hear our story where we talked about

our marriage and how it was jacked up ten years ago.

Especially my God, we didn't know if it was gonna

make it. I had the Google divorce. Okay, we didn't know,

but God did a miraculous work in our marriage. And

two years ago we experienced a tragedy with the loss

of our son who was two weeks old Ace and

there are two. Those are the two I would say

biggest hurdles that I've experienced in my adult life. That

tragedy of not knowing if our marriage was gonna make it,

and our marriage was absolutely enshambles at the time, and

also experiencing what it's like to lose a child. Two

heartbreaking situations.

And the truth is, in those.

Two situations, I had two very different responses. First, ten

years ago, I was questioning God on every end, God,

who are you? You told me to get married? Why

would you allow me to go through this heartbreak?

Lord?

What is going on? I did not see God as

good or real at all in that situation.

But then I took a ten year journey. And when

I started taking.

That journey, I didn't know that two years ago, in

twenty twenty four, we were gonna lose our son. And

when we lost our son, there was such a different

response and Aaron and I than ten years before when

we experienced some hardship. And I believe that the word

that I'm sharing with you today is the reason why

when Ace passed away, there was nothing in us that

wondered if God was good. Nothing in us wondered if

God saw us. Nothing in us wondered if God knew

what was going on in our lives.

And it's because God.

Has shown himself to me through even this story that

I'm gonna share today, but through the words that.

I'm gonna share today.

And so my hope and prayer is that hearing this

word today, that your roots will go down deeper and

who God is. Because when your roots are deep, that

the winds can come, the weather can change, you may

sway from side to side, but you're not gonna break

because you will be like a tree planted by the

rivers of water that will bear fruit in every single

season of your life. I believe that, and I believe

that because I have experienced that. So I want you

to go with me today to Genesis sixteen, and we're

gonna look at a story here.

One that is not told often.

Actually, as a matter of fact, there's parts of this

story that are told. But the part that I'm gonna

lean into today is not normally the part of the

story that we actually share in church a lot. Today,

I want to talk to you about the story of Hagar. Now,

if you know that name and you know this story,

you know Hagar was in a story where she was

not the main character.

Hagar was a third character in a story that.

Really was about God giving a promise to Abram and SARAHI.

At the time, their name had not changed yet.

And God came to Abram and said, I'm gonna make

you a father of many nations. You're gonna have a child,

you're gonna have a son, and you're gonna be a.

Father of many nations.

Well, Abram and his wife were very old and they

waited ten years for God to make this promise a reality,

and it didn't happen. So they did what we do.

If God made us a promise, we don't see it happening,

we immediately try to come up.

With our own strategy to make it happen.

So, instead of waiting on God, they decided to pull

in an innocent bystander into the situation named Hagar. And

Hagar was a maid servant to SARAHI. She was one

that was forced into labor and obviously for into this

situation and This was not an abnormal thing. It was

very customary actually that if a wife could not get

pregnant back in this day, what they would do was

had their maid servant sleep with their husband get pregnant,

and then the wife would raise that child. It would

no longer be the maid servants instead. Now this child

is a child of the husband and the wife. So

Sarah and Abram couldn't wait, and so because they couldn't

wait on God, they went ahead and decided to get

Hagar pregnant. And what happens is once Hagar gets pregnant,

she starts to treat SARAHI with some contempt.

She's mad at her.

Aka assist the wives in the house and they can't

stand each other. Okay, so they get to fight in

and cussing and fuss and I don't know if they

cuss and fuss, but I'll just make that up.

Anyways, they get to fight in one another.

And what happens is Hagar has such a nervous system

response that she decides instead of fights or freeze, that

want to fleet and she runs away. And this is

where we're going to pick up. In verse seven Genesis sixteen.

Verse seven, Hagar is on the run because she is

so upset about her situation.

It says in verse seven.

The Angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring

of water in the wilderness along the road to Shirt.

The angel said to her, Hagar, sarahis servant. Where have

you come from and where are you going? I'm running

away from my mistress, Sarah SARAHI, she replied. The Angel

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

To her authority.

Then he added, I will give you more descendants than

you can count. And the angel also said, you are

now pregnant and will give birth to a son.

You are to name him Ishmael, and Ishmael means.

God hears, for the Lord has heard your cry of distress.

The son of yours will be like a wild man,

as untamed as a wild donkey. He will raise his

fists against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes,

he will live in open hostility against all his relatives. 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? This story about Hagar is

not one that we. Like I said, we usually focus

on in scripture when we tell the story about Abram

and SARAHI. But Hagar had a profound encounter with God.

When she was running away from her situation, and what she.

Found out is several things about God knowing her fully

in a way that she didn't even know that he

knew her. Now, this is a crazy thing because we're

so used to living.

Our lives compartmentalized.

To think of a God that knows us fully almost

doesn't make sense. So for me, there are several people

who know different parts of who I am. My husband

who calls me sweet sometimes and sometimes I'm not sweet,

so he doesn't call me that as a nickname, and

that's how I know I haven't been sweet. He knows

me in a way that other people don't know me.

He knows the way that I sleep, the way I snore.

He knows different things about me around our house that

other people will never have to be privy to. I

come to this church, people call me Pastor bri here,

which you know, I'm still working it out, but whatever,

Pastor bri here, and basically you know me as a leader,

as a teacher. You may not know parts of me

that my husband knows about me. And honestly, sometimes because

I'm not my husband's boss or pastor, he is not

seeing me in the way that people here may see me.

My family sees me in a totally different way. They

see me because they know who I was from the

day that I was born. When I was a little

girl with the buck teeth and the glasses.

I had to get glasses in first grade. Anybody else

have to get glasses early?

Anyways, I had to get glass not these these are fake, okay,

see right here anyways, but I had to.

Get glasses long time ago. My family knows me differently.

And the beautiful thing was when I left my hometown

in two thousand and seven, I moved to Tulsa. And

when I moved to Tulsa, none of my family came.

Well about two years ago my family joined me in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and I actually am really glad about that.

Except one thing.

So, my dad has a nickname for me that you

didn't know I was gonna say this.

My dad has a nickname for me. And the thing is,

it's okay for dads to have nicknames.

It's just when your dad starts working at the place

that you're a boss set that you really don't.

Want him saying that.

Nickname just in the hallway, right, that's the part of

me that I don't want nobody else knowing, so that

my dad has for me. And I'm gonna tell you this,

and y'all better keep it to yourselves.

I ain't like if one did y'all come up to.

Me and say, if you come up to me and

say the nickname, We're done. The conversations over the nickname

that my dad says to me is Buddha Bear.

Okay, Buddha Bear.

And daring you know, I love it a lot, except

for when I'm walking down the hallway at work, being

past to breath and I see my dad, because if

you see my dad.

To see my dad is to hear my dad. Okay,

if you.

Know anything about my dad, I got this.

Volume from him, all right.

So I see my dad sometimes in the hallway and

before I even get close enough to him and say, hey,

Buddha Bear, and I'm like, dread, I'm pastor bree here.

Because there are parts of us sometimes that we want

to keep to ourselves. And the truth is that people

in our lives no matter how that person, how long

that person has lived life with you.

Only knows a part of who you are.

It doesn't matter how deep your relationship is, how many

of your secrets you have told, how long you and

your best friend has been friends. I don't care if

you are a twin. It doesn't matter. There are everybody

in your life only knows a part of who you are,

except for one person. God does not know just a

part of who we are. God knows fully who we are.

And this is what Haygard realized in the story is

I don't have to be one way in front of

God in another way someplace else. I don't gotta be

one way in church and to go home and be

something totally different. God knows fully who I am, so

much so that God knows me better than I know myself.

Sometimes I confuse my own self. Why do I do that?

Paul said, There's things I want to do that I

don't do. There's things I don't do that I.

Want to do. I confuse myself.

God is the only one because when something is creator,

you have to go to the creator to find out.

What's going on inside of it.

And so oftentimes we try to go to ourselves, our therapists,

our friends, whoever to learn more about ourselves, which is great,

except for no one will ever fully know you the

way that God does. So in verse seven we pick

up and Hagar is running away from her home, and

at this point she has decided she is done. She

is pregnant, She is aware that she is pregnant at

this time, and yet she decided she's done living in

this house because it was not.

A situation that was a good situation.

Honestly, if you think about it, this is something that

would absolutely cause you to have some type of trauma response,

some type of nervous system response, because it wasn't a

pleasant situation. And in verse seven it says, the Angel

of the Lord found Hagar. Now what you have to

do you know about this word found is it is

not like God was scouring the earth looking for Hagar.

Trying to find out where does she go? I can't

can't place a finger on to where she goes.

This is the same word that's used when they say

Noah found favor with God. Noah wasn't searching for a favor.

Noah encountered favor. So this Angel of the Lord was

not looking for Hagar and couldn't find her, and then

happened to stumble upon her and found her. Instead, God

set up and encounter with Hagar while she was on

the run.

This is what I love about God.

He knows you so much that he knows exactly where

to set up an encounter. He knows exactly where you

are gonna meet the end of your rope, because Hagar

and at the end of her rope, and God's address

is at the end of your rope. As soon as

you are done and I am done striving and trying

to make it work for myself, that's where an encounter

has been set up.

So the Angel of the Lord encounters Hagard, and not

just in any place.

The scripture says that Hagar was by a spring of

water in the wilderness on the way to the Land

of sure Now, this scripture is action packed, y'all, because

God specializes and putting water in the middle of a wilderness.

All you have to do is look at the story

of the children of Israel.

Four different times they encountered a thirst that only God

could quench. Four different times on their journey to the

promised Land. God made water out of a rock he

made water out of.

A bitter stream.

God specializes and bringing water in the middle of the wilderness,

and this is what happened with Hagar. While Hagar was

on the run trying to get away from her situation,

God stopped her not just anywhere, but he stopped her

by a spring of water.

It is the same situation.

And knew the New Testament when the woman at the

well met Jesus. And when she met Jesus, she not

only ran into a well of water, she ran into

living water. And this is what Hagar experience. On the

one This is what I love about God. He doesn't

wait until we fix ourselves up and get ourselves together

in order to bring a spring of water. No, he

does it in the middle of the wilderness and a

place that doesn't make sense with this being her on

the road to Sure. The crazy thing is Hagar was

actually an Egyptian Egyptian slave, So what happened was in

this story is Theologians believe that when Pharaoh gave some

servants to Abram and SARAHI a few chapters ago, what

happened was that Hagar was probably one of those servants.

That was given to them.

Well, the land of sure was a territory outside of Egypt,

because the truth is Hagar was likely on her.

Way back to her past.

If you think about your own story, if I think

about my own story, how many times do I run

up against something that seems like it's insurmountable, too big

for me to address, too big for me to overcome,

and it makes me want to just go back to.

Where I came from.

Obviously, Hagar was not well respected in the land of

Egypt because.

She was sold to someone else.

So it wasn't like she was going back to a

place that was once good to her.

It's not like she was going back to a place

where she was once.

Respected or seen as worthy or significant. She was obviously

already a servant there, but a lower level servant to

the point that they sold her to someone else with

no care for her well being.

And and just like.

The children of Egypt who said, if you're gonna bring

us out here in the wilderness and God tend us

back to slavery, this is what Hagar did. Can I

tell you that on your way backwards, God will set

up an encounter for you to meet him.

And here's to stop you before you go backwards in

your journey.

The situation she was in with Abram and Sarah was

not lovely. It was not pleasant, but it was not

her past. And today, if you think about the things

in your life that maybe you know what, this is

not working the way I want to, you know what,

I'm just gonna do it the old way that I've

done it before.

Find yourself in this story.

Find yourself in this story because God wants to have

an encounter with you.

Now. As we keep going.

In this scripture, the story gets better and better. So,

Heygar has this encounter with this angel, and the angel

in verse ed says to her two questions, where did

did you come from?

And where are you going? Now?

When we talk about one of the things I love

to study is psychology. Not a therapist, but I love

the idea of psychology human behavior. And we talk a

lot about trauma. We talk a lot about your history,

your childhood, different things like that that was not made

up in twenty twenty six. Okay, In this scripture, the

angel is asking about her history.

Where have you come from?

Don't think that the angel is just asking about her

coming from Sarah in Abram's house.

He is asking what is your story?

Because God is emotionally aware enough to ask us, what

is your story? Tell me where you have come from.

Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about the people

that raised you.

Who knew you and who did not know you.

Tell me who celebrated you and who took advantage of you.

Tell me your story.

This is a question that's being presented to Hagar, where

did you come from? And the second question attached to

that is where are you going? Because God doesn't want

to just know our history. He wants to know our hopes.

He wants to know our dreams. He wants to know

the desires because likely he placed them in your heart anyways.

He wants to.

Know where are you going, what's your intentions?

Where are you headed?

Because what I want to do is not only speak

to who you are in the present. I want to

speak and heal your past, but I also want to

give you some guidance for where you're going in the future.

This is the kind of God that we serve. And

Hagar found out point number one that God already knows you.

He's asking questions, but it's not really for him to

get answers, to understand you or to know you. It's

really for you to know yourself. When we are looking

for peace in our life, one of the things that

help gives us peace is understanding that God already knows us.

So he goes on in this story and he's talking

to Hagar and he says a couple different things to her.

How you know how you know that Hagar has had

this encounter with God is when the angel tells her

what to name her son. He says, you're pregnant, now

I want you to name him Ishmael.

Point number two.

Is God already hears you, because Ishmael means God hears.

And he goes on to say, God hears your pain.

How you know someone hears you well is how they

respond to you.

And people act like they hear you all the time.

But have you ever been in a conversation before and

someone's talking and you honestly miss everything that they said,

and then it's like a pause, and you like, did

you ask me something?

Was that what they got of your question? We never

have that encounter with God.

God hears everything that we say, and how we know

is how he responds to us. The Angel of the

Lord is talking to Heygard. He asked her a question.

She responds, and the angel responds to her with four

different things. He gives her a promise. He says, you

are pregnant with the son, name him Ishmael.

He gives her a path forward.

He says to her, you go back to your mistress,

go back to Sarah and submit to her. He also

gives her the pressure. He knows that when he has

this child, he's going to be like a wild donkey.

God does not.

Ignore our reality in order to give us a blessing.

This is not the kind of God we served. God

that avoids real, tough conversations. That's not the kind of

God we serve. That's Church people. I'll never forget when

our son passed away and having conversations with the saints,

and sometimes having conversations with the saints didn't make me

feel no better, honestly, because I believe the conversation questioning

whether or not they see my reality, because God says both.

And can be the truth.

The truth can be your actual reality as well as

a greater reality. But God doesn't tell us a greater

reality about his blessings and his provision and all the

things he wants to do in our life. Without first

addressing our reality. Don't let us church people make you

think that God does not care about your actual reality.

He's not saying for you, you too blessed to be stressed.

He's not saying that to you.

He's saying, that's a actually very stressful situation. I understand,

and I have blessed you, and I have called you,

and I'm more than enough for you, and you have

what it takes to walk this out. And I see

you and I hear you. That is the kind of

God that we serve. And Hagar had no idea that

God was this relational, had no idea that God was

this intimate with her, had no idea that God cared

about the details of her life, because no one in

her life ever did, knowing in her life, ever cared

about what her desires were, knowing in her life cared

about the pain that she had experienced.

And sometimes, when we haven't.

Been witnessed by other people in our life, we think

that God too does not hear us. But God heard Hagar,

and he gave her a promise. You're gonna have a son,

and you're going to be a mother to many nations.

Who would have ever thought that Hagar, if you just

looked at the way that she was raised, the place.

In society, and you have to.

Remember, this was not a time where there was advocacy

for people that were marginalized. There was no me too movement.

There was nobody going around trying to look out for

the minorities. That was not the case if you were

in the lower level of social status, that's where you stayed.

But God look down from heaven, and when he saw Heygar,

he didn't see what everybody else saw in her.

He didn't see that she was lower than anything else.

His thoughts outnumbered the grains of sand when it came

to Hagar, she was his masterpiece, beautifully and wonderfully made.

When we know that God sees and hears us like that,

it changes how we show up in the world. It

changes who we care about hearing us when we know

we are heard by God. If I know I'm heard

by God, I don't have to get anyone else's attention.

I have his undivided attention. And Hagar learned this about God.

He spoke to her pain, her path, her promise, and

her pressure.

Then we go on to verse thirteen.

And here Hagar, after having this encounter with God and

the Angel of the Lord speaking back to her. She

then comes up with a name for God, and this

was the first time in scripture that someone ever gave

God a name from an experience with him. Hagar, the

person in the story that seems like she's the third

most important character in this whole story. She had an

encounter with God that changed her view of him, and

she named him a name that meant the God who

sees me. This name, you know, I'm gonna tell you

how I thought it was said, and I'm gonna tell

you how it's really said. The name is Roy, and

I thought it was like a roller, your cousin, you know, everybody, every.

Black person know it at least an elworyal le roy.

You already know that, okay, But it's actually pronounced l

roe and it means the God who sees me. Earlier

today while praying some of the names of God, this

is what you need to know that God is. He's

a god that you never He never loses track of you.

He never loses.

Track of you. Not he knows. He knows you so well.

He knows a number of hairs on your head.

Every time one of them fall out, he minus one.

This is the kind of God that we serve, a

God that we can never get. There's no such thing

as periphial vision for God, there's no such thing as

him needed to go get go see an optrometrist, and

go get some contacts of glasses. He sees every single

detail in our lives. And for somebody that might feel like,

oh shoot, I don't know if I want God see

you and everything, honestly, but the only way that you can.

Embrace that and find peace in that is to know.

He sees the invisible parts of you. He sees the

parts of you that you don't even see yourself see.

Our God loves to see the invisible. Not only did

he see Hagar and her invisible situation, he saw Hannah

and hers, and he saw Leah in hers and blind

barn Maas even though he couldn't see Jesus, Jesus saw

him and zach kids although he was shorter than everybody

else and had to get up in that tree to

see Jesus, Jesus saw him. The people that feel the

most invisible in their lives and in this world, God

sees every ounce of their life. He sees the injustice

that was done to you. He sees how they betrayed you,

he sees how they hurt you.

He sees your successes that you even.

Try to keep on the hush because you don't know

if anybody's going to be excited for you. He sees

every part of your life, and Hagar, after having this

encounter with God, realize that not only does God hear.

Me, he sees me.

I think that there's some comfort in knowing that I'm

being witnessed by God, and knowing that there's not a

part of my story that I'm ever introducing to Him,

and knowing that when I pray to him, I'm not

initiating a conversation. He'd already been knocking at the door.

Of my heart.

There's a scripture in Psalms that says, my heart has

heard you say come, and I am coming to talk

to you. You're never starting a conversation with God and

your prayers. You're never initiating a relationship with him. The

Holy Spirit drew you into a relationship with him long

time ago, and you know why, because God knows you

so well, he knows when to set up and.

Encounter with him.

Scripture tells us that before we were ever ever in

our mother's womb, he knew us. Now, sometimes we make

God out to be just a really good human so

sometimes we think that he is having the same experience.

As we have.

When a child is born, that's when we are first introduced.

To that child.

Oh No, when it comes to God, the earth was

groaning for our existence. It wasn't just by happenstance that

your mama and your daddy got.

Together and you ended up being here.

God knew from the beginning of time, the exact day,

the exact hour, minute, and second that you would enter

this earth, and what kind of impact and calling he

places inside of you.

That's how much God knows you.

If you know you're known and heard and seen by

a god like that, how would you show up every day?

How would you go after the things that he called

you to do?

How would you have courage to live the life that

he's called you to live? How would you stop caring

about the people who don't hear you, or see you,

or know you or understand you. Because I am fully

understood by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Even the parts of me.

That I don't understand he understands. He says, I know

you don't know why you got that habit.

I do. I know why you. You don't know how

you why you can't just stop running your mouth. I

know why you can't break that addiction. I know. And

when we know that, it changes our relationship to God.

Instead of running to and fro trying to figure out

answers about our lives and trying to find peace in

other kind of ways, we go to the ultimate source,

who fully knows us, fully hears us, and fully sees us.

The only reason that God fully knows us, hears us,

and seize us is because of point number four.

God already loves you.

God loves you, and love has been such an unconditional,

a conditional thing in our lives with the humans in

our lives, that we sometimes sum that up to how

God loves us. I think that I love my husband unconditionally.

I think I do.

But the truth is there are certain things that he

does that when he does it, it just makes me swoon.

It just makes me fall more in love with him.

And oh how beautiful that is in a human to

human relationship. But that is not our relationship with God.

God cannot love you anymore than he already loves you

right now. There is nothing that you can do or say,

no performance that you can put on that will make

him swoo over you more than he already swoons over

you right now. Scripture tells us that he sings songs

over us.

You are God's dream come true. You are the apple

of his eye.

And I know because most of us in our lives

never felt like we were anybody else's apple of their

eye or anyone else's dream come true, not outside of

performing well that sometimes it's hard for us to receive that.

That's how God sees us. How you know that you

are loved by someone is how much they are willing

to pursue you. In this story of Hagar, Hagar didn't

run to God. She wasn't trying to have this encounter

with God. She was just trying to get away from

her situation. And in her trying to get away from

this situation, she found out that there was a god,

God that had been pursuing.

Her all along.

And because he had been pursuing her all along, she

ran smack dab in the middle of his love and

found out that he was a God who all ready

loves her. This is the beautiful thing about God is

there's nothing you can do to decrease his love for you.

There's nothing you can do to increase his love for you.

And I know because of the human relationships that we have.

It's almost hard to even think because a lot of

times we think, oh, God loves us because he has

to love us, but he don't really like me. He

don't really like me because I keep making decisions that

I shouldn't make it. And because we see God partially

only at just the parts of who he is. You know,

he's king, you know he's judged, you know he's Lord,

but you don't understand he's also father and friend. So

although he does care about fairness and righteousness, he also

cares about you. He also has compassion towards you. Because

God is never in heaven thinking why did they do that?

I don't understand.

He understands why we make every decision that we make

in our life, and because of that, he loves us.

That's why his grace covers a multitude of our sins.

Hagard realize that God already loved her, and I think

about the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, we see that

God has been passionately pursuing us from the beginning of time.

In Genesis, he's passionately pursuing Adam and Eve, finding them

in the garden where are you? But in Revelations he says,

I stand at the door of your heart knocking, and

if you invite me in, I will come sit at

your table like a friend. This is the kind of

God that we serve. And when we know this about God,

it changes how much peace we behold in our lives.

I can live a peaceful life. You can live a

peaceful life because I know I'm never unknown, I'm never unheard,

I'm never unseen, and I'm never unloved. This reality is

true enough that when our son passed away two years ago,

there was parts of the situation that, honestly was just

I don't even know how our nervous system even was

able to contain all the stuff that was happening, honestly,

but I would remind myself over and over again how

much God loved us and saw us and hurt us,

and over and over again, I'd have to remind myself

of that, because when you're going through something really hard,

naturally you start to feel alone. And in this situation,

there was one day. You know, I'm gonna ask you,

Ki if you can hear me that. There was one

day that I was at Aces Incubator in Nick You,

and when I was preparing for this talk, I was like, God,

was there's something in that experience that I could share today.

And a lot of times we would sitting nick You.

We were only there for two weeks. Ace only lived

two weeks, and for two weeks we would sit in

Nick You and there's nothing you can do. Our son

was on paralytic medication, and that meant that he his

body wasn't moving, his eyes weren't opening. He was alive,

but he was on a breathing machine. So we couldn't

really interact with him. We would just you know, sing

to him or read books to him, or talk to

him so he would.

Know our voice.

And it gave me insight on how God feels about me.

And on this day, I was sitting in Nick You,

sitting by Aces incubator, and I wrote this in my

journal and I wanted to read it to you because

it blessed.

Me reading it again.

Honestly, what I learned about the love of God is

that it really has nothing to do with you at all.

God is love. He can't act outside of love. And

when I know that God loves me in that kind

of way, I show up differently in my everyday life.

So this day, this was July sixteenth, twenty twenty four,

and I was sitting in Nick You, and this would

have been have been five days before our son passed away.

And this is what I wrote. It says, I'm sitting

here with Asa nick You.

It is the oddest and most natural thing to just

sit and admire him. He's not doing anything, not even

breathing on his own, and yet I absolutely adore him.

He's the apple of my eye. He is my dream

come true. And then to God, I said, that's how

you feel about me? Huh, doing nothing at all?

You swoon over me. How would I live day to

day if I really believe that? What changes in me?

What do I allow myself? And what do I not allow?

If I believe that you love me? This kind of way,

that sums up in my mind how God feels about you,

not just us, you individually.

The way that God loves you.

Is almost inconceivable. We almost can't even fathom it in

our minds. But if I knew that every day, all day,

the eyes of Heaven were on me, hearing not only

the words that I say, but my thoughts are far off,

hearing not only my thoughts, but bottling my tears.

Every single day.

The things that I can consider countless or worthless, he

bottles them as a treasure. This is how God feels

about you. If we believe that, if we live like that,

we will.

Live in more peace.

Because when we talk about the missing peace, it has

to do with the fact that God knows you, hears you,

sees you, and loves you. This is the kind of

God that we serve. What I love about the story

of Hagard is that this is essentially a foreshadowing of

the Gospel. Jesus came to to earth, came to you

and to me to encounter us, to have an encounter

with us, because he heard our pain and he saw

us from far off. And when he came, he did

not come to just do miracles, signs and wonders. He

did not just come to have arguments with the Pharisees.

He did not just come so that he can have

a group of disciples that followed him. Jesus came to

this earth in order to show you and me how

much God loves us, how much he hears us, sees us,

and knows us. This is the kind of God that

we served, so hegar story is not onto itself, it

is a part of a greater story of how when

we were in the wilderness of sin, there was a

spring of water. And in that spring of water, it

wasn't just any old spring of water, it was a

living water.

And when the living.

Water encountered us, he let us know. I want to

know all about your story. Don't think because you're a

new creator in Christ that you do not have to

share your story and where.

I want to know all of it.

And you know why, because we overcome by the blood

of the Lamb and the words of our testimony. I

want to know all about your story. But I also

want to know where do you want to go in life?

What do you want to do? Because I called you

to those things. That's not something you came up with

on your own. I put that desire in your heart.

And because of that, I'm not only going to just

check your reality.

I want to give you a promise. The thing that

you think you are. You are more than that. Well,

for the beginning of time.

I knew who you were, and I called you into

this earth, and the earth was groaning for your existence.

And that's the wasn't the only one that came for

such a time as this. You came for such a

time as this. You are supposed to be here on

this earth right now, doing the things of God. You

have my full attention. God says, you have my full attention.

Not one second of your life did I miss out on.

I've seen it all, and I know you better than

you know yourself. So what is God asking from us today?

And Proverbs, it says the Scripture, it says, my child,

pay attention to me. I've been paying you attention. I've

been paying you attention. But you've been looking everywhere else

for your worthiness. You've been looking everywhere else for your peace.

You've been looking everywhere else to fit in and to belong.

But today, pay.

Attention to the one who's paying attention to you.

Heyguard says, I.

Have seen the one who has already seen me. Today

God is asking us to open our eyes and set

our attention on him. When you set your attention on God,

what you'll notice is he's already been paying attention to you.

Let's pray God today, we're really really grateful to serve

a God like you, Really grateful to know that you

are a God who knows us, hears us, sees us,

and loves us. And because of that we can find

peace for everyday life. To know that there's not one

second that you've missed out on our life. To know

that even the things that we whisper to ourself, you

hear to so that the moments where we may be

thought you didn't see us, you already saw us. There's

been times, honestly that we thought, like a child playing

hide and go seek, that when we don't see you,

you don't see us.

But the truth is you've always seen us.

Every single day of our life was already written out.

You already know us, and you already love us. Today, God,

and whatever wilderness we may be in, maybe it's a

wilderness in our relationships, Maybe it's a wilderness and our finances,

Maybe it's a wilderness and our bodies and our health,

would you set up an encounter with us today, just

like you met Hagar where she was at Would you

do that same thing for us today. God, help us

to embrace your love in a way that changes how

we show up every day.

Send the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

I'm gonna do something a little different today. I've asked

the worship team to come up. Typically, what we do

at the end of service is you'll come up to

the altar and have an encounter with God and we'll

have our altar.

Workers come up a little bit later.

But what I'm gonna ask you to do for a second,

I'm just gonna ask you to hold in your seat

for one minute and allow God to encounter you right

where you are. Haygard didn't go looking for God and

found him. He found her where she was already at.

And today I'm asking the worship team to sing a song.

You can sing with him if you want to.

But more than anything, what I'm asking you to do

is where do you need from What do you need

from God?

Today?

Do you need to feel like you are known, heard, seen,

or loved? And today can you have that encounter with

Him right where you are?

Because our God sees you, he hears you, he knows you.

And my God, with every ounce of his being, he

loves you. So before we run out of here into

our everyday lives where we go around striving.

Trying to be heard and seen and loved and known.

Maybe today before we leave, we allow God to encounter

us right where we are.

Amen.

God has given us this thing that's called our imagination.

We use that imagination for his glory.

We have encounters with Him.

Then maybe we wouldn't have if we didn't use those

faculties in that kind of way. So today, with your

hands open, I want you to imagine God hand in

hand with you. You know how you'll maybe grab your

grandmother's hand and she squeezes it in a way to

let you know I'm here, baby, I love you, I

see you, I know you. Today, with your hands open,

when you receive the love of God.

He says that he's a father to the fatherless. He

knows that you weren't loved by your father the way.

That you should have been. He said that he is

a mother to the motherless, and maybe today you're carrying

some mother wounds. He said that he is a friend

of sinners. Today, maybe friendship has hurt your heart, maybe

you have felt betrayal or rejection.

He is the lover of your soul.

And honestly that may feel a little even awkward at first,

but it means that he loves every ounce of who

you are.

Today. Would you receive that love?

God?

Today, we receive your love. We receive your love. You

bottle every one of our tears. You give us peace

that not only calms our mind, but calms our nervous system.

You give us healing that binds up the wound, the traumas,

the wounds that we had from a long time ago.

You don't stand on the other side of our miss

and ask us to clean it up. You stand shoulder

to shoulder with us and say, let me help.

Today. God, we are.

Asking you to open up our eyes to see you

the way you see us, To open up our ears

to hear you the way that you hear us. God,

open up our minds to know you in a new way.

And open our hearts.

To love you back. When we say I love you God,

essentially what we're saying is I love you too, God,

because we love you because you first loved us. And

we don't want this to be just some church experience,

but one that follows us to work. And when we

think we got to get the boss to see us

to get a promotion. We know promotions come from You.

And God. When we go home and we're with our

families and we're trying.

To be seen or understood by our spouse or our kids,

or our friends, or our siblings, our parents, that we

can lean back in confidence knowing that we are fully

known by You. Let this understanding bring us peace that

passes all understanding. We love you so much. We love

you too.

In the name of Jesus, we pray Amen.

Amen. You may be in this room right now or

even watching online, and we've been talking about this God

that loves you from head to toe and you may

be wondering who is this God and how do I

get a relationship with him? Well, today I love for

you to take a next step, and that is to

receive this free gift of salvation. This God who loves

you so endlessly, so unconditionally, came to this earth, died

on the cross, not just for the sins of the world,

but for you.

If it was just you on this earth, he would

have done that.

If today you want to receive this gift of salvation,

I'm going to ask you a prayer, to pray a

prayer after me. All you have to do is believe

in your heart and confess with your mouth. And so

if that's you today, and I'm going to ask all

of our church online and in the room to pray

this prayer together and say, Dear God, I admit I've

made mistakes.

I admit I need a savior I lead.

I ask that you change my heart, change my motives,

change my mind, and transform me.

Today. I believe.

That you know me, that you hear me, that you

see me, and that you love me. Today I am

saved in the name of Jesus. We pray, and everybody

says a man and a man. If you pray that

prayer today, either in this room or online, we want

you to text Saved to A two A two A two,

and we want to get you some more information about

how to walk out this life of salvation.

Don't do it on your own.

And also if you're heading out of here today, there's

a booth in the back that you can also get

some more information the next steps. And I believe we

might even have some free bibles back there for you,

So we go back there and get that information. I'm

gonna ask our all to workers to come up here

to the front.

Maybe today you want prayer about anything at all.

Maybe something that we talked about today, or anything else

that's going on in your life. You can come up

here to receive prayer. We love you so much.

Go out and live a transformed life.