Names of God: El Roi (S09, E04)

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast today, we are continuing to go through an eight-episode series on the names of God.

In the teaching today, we are going to be learning about the name of God,

El Roy, the God who sees me.

Thanks for joining us as we dive into the discussion on how this name shows

how God sees us individually.

Jillian and I started dating one month after I turned 17 years old,

and we got married the final week that I had at college, right before I graduated.

And I was so I'm telling you that to show you how naive that I was as a as a

boyfriend and as a very young husband.

I didn't know very much. And so I went in just haphazardly.

I didn't really put much effort or energy into learning about what married life was like.

And one of the things that I have learned along the way is that people receive

love in different ways. There's a book called The Five Love Languages,

which helps to describe how people receive love.

And how we receive it is whether or not we feel that tenderness,

that love, that connection with another human being.

I didn't know that going into that relationship or going into our marriage,

that this was different for people.

So I thought what I liked, she would like. I thought what I enjoyed,

she would enjoy. But it is quite the opposite of that.

In fact, Jillian receives love by gifts, getting thoughtful gifts.

And I am the worst at giving thoughtful gifts.

It is so hard for me, but it is something that I have tried to get better at

after learning that she is someone who receives love this way.

She wants somebody to really know her, to really think about what is her style,

to think about what she wants, what she desires, what would be helpful to her.

She wants somebody to research online. What are the reviews of this?

Are they five-star reviews? Are they two-star reviews? And I am not interested in any of that.

But for the sake of showing her love and for the sake of having me to sacrifice

for her, like this is something that I need to do.

But I learned something else along the way.

And that is that acknowledgement of the work and the effort that you put in,

is also important to human beings.

I walked in thinking that praise was just for ego.

I walked in thinking that a thank you was just something that if you were weak

enough, you would need it to move on.

But after putting in the work and effort of finding these gifts for Jillian,

I found myself wanting to be thanked.

Do you know how much effort I put into this? Do you know how much time I spent looking in the store?

And then after I found something in the store, looking at the reviews on my

phone, it's something that I wanted to be thanked for.

And so I come acknowledging two things, that I am somebody who can change and somebody who can learn,

but I also acknowledge that I need to constantly learn and to be growing and developing things,

like thanking people for what they do.

So like when Karen was upstairs before the Sunday school class sweeping the

flies that had accumulated this week. I thank you for that.

For when Sheila and Margaret and Janice last week took their time and their

effort to count for our assets as we continue along the disaffiliation process.

I thank you guys for that.

So when Bill comes out on Tuesday, every Tuesday, to wheel out the trash cans

and then drives back into town and comes back out on Wednesday to wheel back

the trash cans after they're collected, I thank you for that.

So when Greg, when he spends time and effort and energy seeing that there is

a cord hanging down, and then he finds the solution and he puts in the raceway

that you can see back in that corner, I thank you for that.

Thanks helps us to understand a couple of things.

One thing is that other people are paying attention.

Other people are seeing the work and the effort that you are putting in.

And that's important. There are a lot of things that fly under the radar in

our lives and in our congregation.

And people deserve to be thanked for it because they are working to enhance the kingdom of God.

But it also shows the point of the scripture lesson today, which is that not

just you and I can see things that people are doing, but it's that God sees what we are doing.

And he is right here with us.

And as we continue to go through our Names of God series, We're going to be

in Genesis chapter 16 today, and we're going to learn a new name of God.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

But before we do that, let's recap where we have been.

We've learned three names of God thus far. The first name is the word Elohim,

which is more of a title than an actual name.

It's something that we would like call mom or dad. It's not their actual names,

but it's a title, and it means the strong one.

And one of the examples we used of this is in the Chronicles of Narnia,

when the three children who have lost their fourth sibling, when the three children

come into the beaver's household, Mr.

Beaver tells them about how Aslan is who they need to see and that he is a lion.

And then they have fear and trepidation about this.

And they ask, is he safe?

And Mr. Beaver says, of course he's not safe.

But he's good. And so this is the attribute of God that we have.

He is strong and so strong that we have this fear of him like a lion can come

and just crush our skulls with one blow of his mighty Paul, just intensely strong.

And so there's this trepidation that comes with approaching him and seeing him and experiencing him.

And so that's the word, that's the name of God called Elohim.

Then we talked about Yahweh, which is the personal name of God,

the name that God gives to Moses, the name that we translate as I am,

but it literally means he will be who he will be.

He is the eternally self-existent one.

He is existent and he is not reliant upon anything else for his existence.

He's not reliant upon the heartbeat like you and I are.

He's not reliant upon oxygen. He's not reliant upon water or nutrition.

He is eternally self-existent.

He is.

And this is a good thing because we can trust him.

His schedule doesn't get too busy. His plans don't change. He is.

And he always will be.

And then last week, we went over the title Adonai.

And Adonai means the sovereign one, the one who is in control.

And this is important for us so that we can trust what the end is going to be.

God is the one who is overseeing it all and his plans will come to fruition

because he is the one who is sovereign.

He is the one who is in complete control.

And our new word, our new name of God this week is the name El Roy,

like George Jetson's son.

El Roy. It's spelled a little bit different. It's E-L and then a space and then it's R-O-I.

And this means the God who sees me.

And we're going to look at how this name came to be for one particular person,

and what it means for us today.

But before we get into scripture, let me pray.

Lord God Almighty, we come before you today and we give you thanks and praise.

You are the God who sees, and it is so good.

Please give us ears to hear what we need to hear and open our hearts to receive

your glorious truth, Father.

I pray that you will implant your goodness on our hearts so that we know you,

love you, and believe in you with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name.

Amen. Genesis chapter 16, starting in verse 1.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

This is in the story of Abraham and Sarah, but at this point in time,

they are called Abram and Sarai.

So now Sarai, Abram's wife, had not been able to bear children for him,

but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.

Sarai said to Abram, the Lord, and the Lord in all capital is a name that we've

already covered. it's the name Yahweh.

It's the one that means I am or the eternally self-existent one.

So Sarah says to Abram, the Lord Yahweh has prevented me from having children.

Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.

And Abram agreed with Sarai's proposal. So Sarai, Abram's wife,

took Hagar, the Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram as a wife.

This happened 10 years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.

So Abram slept with Hagar and she became pregnant.

And so we learn a lot of important, valuable information in this.

First is who Hagar is. Hagar is an Egyptian slave.

She is somebody who is in the household of Abraham and Sarah,

and she is under their mastership. They are the controlling agent over her. So she is not free.

She is a servant in this household.

All right. So she's already, we already know that she is under some pretenses

that you and I would not want to be under. Like she is low class.

She is the servant class.

And she is not that well off. She is not high up in society.

She is someone who is low, of low esteem.

And we learn that she gets put in a very vulnerable situation here.

This isn't a uncommon thing that had happened because the most important thing

back then for a married couple was to produce children.

That was their goal. That was their objective. And archeologists have found

inscriptions of marriage covenants that said, if the wife doesn't produce children,

these are the options for the husband.

All right, and one of them was divorced. One of them was taking on a second wife.

Of equal standing. One of them was taking on a servant or a,

like Hagar here, and having her as a wife, but second class wife,

not as in high esteem as the first wife.

And then the last option was adoption.

And so they found these inscriptions all over the area, dating back to about the time of Abraham.

And so this was a common practice. And Sarai was just doing what she thought was best.

It's not as outlandish back then as it is today. Like this is a crazy story for us today.

And one we don't, we're not comfortable with discussing.

But this is something that was commonplace back then.

And so what was going on and what was happening is Sarai, she was barren.

She could not have children.

And so she was like, I know that God has promised that Abraham's descendants

would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

I know that God has promised him descendants, but we've been 10 years.

Abraham's now 85 years old.

I'm 75 years old at this point. And there's just no humanly possible way that this can happen.

And so she took matters into her own hands and said, all right,

this has to be God's plan and purpose for us. I know what our neighbors are doing.

I know how important this is.

And so I'm going to offer Hagar to Abram to take as a second class wife.

So there's desperation here on Sarai's part.

There's just absolute total brokenness all around.

And this, they feel, is their last resort. This is the last thing that they can do.

But as is the case in most of the stories where there is multiple wives in the

Bible, it creates a lot of conflict.

And so this is, we're going to continue the story now.

But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt.

Then Sarai said to Abram, this is all your fault. I put my servant into your

arms, but now that she's pregnant, she treats me with contempt.

The Lord, Yahweh, will show you who's wrong, you or me.

Abram replied, look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.

Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.

So we already have Hagar being a servant in Abram's household and then elevated kind of to,

a second tier wife for him, whose whole goal and objective is not connection

and love, but to produce progeny. That's her whole objective.

She is there for fertility only.

And now we learn a couple of things in this passage. She is a broken human being.

She treats Sarai with contempt. Like she is not loving her as she would love herself.

All right. And we can justify this all she wants. Yes, she's lived a hard life,

but she is a sinner here and God corrects her later on.

But we also learn that she is now wandering the desert. She is a runaway.

She is all alone. No one is around her.

This puts her in an exceedingly vulnerable situation in the desert,

traveling from Israel to Egypt by herself.

At the whim of anyone who comes across her, who can easily hold her captive.

And at the threat of starving to death or dying of thirst, she is super vulnerable.

She is a sinner. She has lived a very hard and difficult life. And she's all alone.

Verse 7. The angel of the Lord, Yahweh, found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness.

Along the road to Shur, the angel said to her, Hagar, Sarai's servant,

where have you come from and where are you going?

I'm running away from my mistress Sarai, she replied.

The angel of Yahweh said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her authority.

Then he added, I will give you more descendants than you can count.

And so someone comes along right next to her and there's debate about who this

angel of the Lord is, but I like to think of him as God himself or a pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

And so he comes to her and he says, so he knows exactly where she is.

Like this isn't just a happenstance. The angel of the Lord is just wandering

around the desert and sees her over there.

No, God knows exactly where Hagar is.

And he sends this angel to her.

This is a huge, huge revelation. It doesn't matter if we're all alone.

It doesn't matter if we feel like we're neglected or if we really are abused.

It doesn't matter what kind of state we are all in. God knows exactly where we are.

He never loses sight of us.

He sees us constantly and knows us intimately.

This is an amazing revelation.

And then God also comes and says to her, works on her heart a little bit.

Go back and submit to Sarai.

I know she's a lot right now. She's a lot to handle.

But this is what I want for you. I want you to be in a good estate with her.

I want you to work on this relationship, but you know what? I'm going to be with you further.

I'm going to be with you all the time, and you're going to have numerous descendants,

more descendants than you can count.

And remember what I said earlier, progeny is the goal.

It is the objective of this culture, and so God is blessing her in that capacity.

But we're not done. The angel of the Lord continues in verse 11.

And the angel also said, you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son.

You are to name him Ishmael, which means God hears, for Yahweh has heard your cry of distress.

The son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey.

He will raise his fist against everyone and everyone will be against him.

Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.

Okay, that's not the greatest announcement you want to hear about your kid.

It's not something you really want to pray for your kid either,

that you want that to come into fruition in his life.

So we'll break it down in a moment. But the most important thing in this section,

I think, is the fact that his name is God Hears, because God has heard Hagar in her distress.

God has heard this lowly servant who is not just mistreated in by having her freedoms taken away.

She's being mistreated by making him, making her go and be a vehicle to produce

children for her master.

Not the love and affection that a marriage is supposed to have,

but it's about really love.

Only about one thing, and that's her womb. Barefoot and pregnant, that's the object here.

And I know that's coarse, but this is what Scripture is saying that she was.

And God says, someone like that, I hear them.

I hear your distress.

And this is so, so important and good for us because we need to know that God is listening.

We need to know that God is in control and that God is sovereign.

We need to know that God is existent, that he is.

We need to know that God is so strong, but we also need to know that he hears us individually.

The cries of distress that we have, the thanksgivings that we exude, God hears them.

And in this section where he's untamed as a wild donkey, that's kind of good

news to Hagar because this means he's not going to be a servant.

He's not going to be in someone's household like she is, but he's going to have his freedom.

He's going to be able to go wherever he wants to go. And yes,

his anger is going to get the best of him at times, but he's going to be free.

And that has to be beautiful news to a servant mistreated like Hagar.

And so Hagar takes all of this in. She receives what the angel of the Lord is telling her.

And then she goes and renames God. Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer

to Yahweh who had spoken to her.

She said, you are the God who sees me. You are El Roy.

She also said, have I truly seen the one who sees me?

So that well that she was at, that the angel came and visited her,

was named Bir Lahai Roy, which means well of the living one who sees me.

It can still be found between Kadesh and Berid.

And so Hagar takes all of that in. She takes this message from God.

She receives it. she processes through it and it blows her mind.

I, in my low estate, I, as I'm traveling this wilderness all by myself,

who am hungry and thirsty,

I, who am running away like I'm a wanted criminal because I've ran from where I was supposed to be.

I, who have treated people with contempt in the past, and I who am just so low,

as a servant, you see me now.

It's a marvelous, marvelous name of God.

And when we need to be reminded that God sees us in our distress,

when we need to be reminded that God is right next to us,

we remember the name El Roy, the God who sees me and who cares enough to bless me,

to bless me with children, to bless me by having descendants as numerous,

more numerous than I can count.

The God who is all-knowing and all-seeing chooses to know the numbers of hairs on my head.

It is completely insane that the God who created all of this by speaking it

cares about us individually enough to know us, to hear our calls.

It is absolutely breathtaking.

Richard Wurmbrand was a pastor in the 1940s in Romania.

And in his time as a pastor is when communism really came into Romania and really took over.

And so at one of the national gatherings of all the pastors,

they were honoring and extolling Joseph Stalin in this ceremony.

They were propping him up as a really good guy. and they were allowing the pastors

one by one. There were like 4,000 pastors that day to come up and pledge allegiance

to the Communist Party of Romania.

After several of these went through, Richard's wife, Sabina,

turned to him and said, when it's your turn, I expect you to do the right thing.

I expect you to proclaim the name of Jesus.

Richard turned to her and he said, if I do that, you're going to lose your husband.

And she shot back at him.

I don't want a coward for a husband. So when it was Richard's time to go up

on stage, instead of proclaiming allegiance to the communist state of Romania, he shared the gospel.

He told them about Jesus's love for them. He told them about his great affection

and his mercy and his love and his justice.

And from that moment on, he became a wanted man in Romania.

On leap day, February 29th, 1948, Richard was taken into custody by several

agents from the secret police while he was traveling to his church.

He was taken, he was interrogated, he was tortured, and he was put under in

a cell 30 feet under the ground in total solitary confinement.

He was in solitary confinement with nothing to do for so long that he said when

he came out of prison he forgot what a capital D was like how to write it.

But in his prison cell, something amazing happened. And I'm going to read his words to you now.

I was in the depths of this remorse and pain when suddenly the wall of the jail

began to shine like diamonds.

I have seen many beautiful things, but never have I seen the beauties which

I have seen in the dark cell beneath the earth.

Never have I heard such beautiful music as on that day. The King of Kings, Jesus, was with us.

We saw his understanding, loving eyes. He wiped our tears away.

He sent us words of love and words of forgiveness.

We knew that everything which had been evil in our lives had passed away and

had been forgotten by God.

Now there came wonderful days. The bride was in the arms of the bridegroom. We were with Christ.

We no longer believed about God and Christ and angels because Bible verses said it.

We didn't remember Bible verses anymore. We remembered about God because we experienced it.

With great humility, we can say with the apostles, what we have seen with our

eyes, what we have heard with our ears, what we have touched with our own fingers, this we tell you.

And so Richard, 30 feet under the surface of the earth, in complete and absolute

isolation, without a pencil to keep up his writing,

he saw Jesus.

Because God knew where he was, because God was right there with him.

And in his distress, God showed him grace and mercy and love.

The crazy thing was that this encounter with Jesus changed Richard and he began

to love his captors, to love those who tortured him and who kept him in solitary confinement.

And he began to tell them more and more about Jesus because he hated the idea

that they would go their whole life without knowing him.

Hagar changed the way she communicated with God.

She no longer called him Yahweh. She called him El Roy because God saw her and

she wanted to be reminded of that.

Richard forgave the people that were oppressing him and several of them came

to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

You and I, we can do marvelous things on our own.

We can do things that deserve thanks and praise, but we cannot do the ultimate

good thing without Jesus Christ and his grace and his mercy in our lives.

He is the God who sees us. He is the God who hears us.

He is our El Roy.

Let's pray.

Father I give you thanks and praise That you are always with us That you see us That you hear us,

You are so amazing And we don't deserve your love And we don't deserve your

grace But you give it to us anyway It is completely unearned And Father I pray.

Thank you again for joining us in the discussion about the name of God,

El Roy, which is used by Hagar, Abraham's Egyptian slave.

El Roy shows God's individual care for each of us.

The story of Hagar shows us that God is present with us even in our most trying

and difficult seasons of life.

He never leaves us or forsakes us.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week we continue the series on the different names and titles of God in the Bible.

Each of these descriptors shows us something about who God is.

Join us next week as we look at the name Abba, Father. Have a great week.