The God Who Sees

Good morning. Thank you. Good

morning. I was just about to jump in and not even say it, so thank you.

So back in 1992, to go way back, I know the younger generation sometimes calls that the late 1900s,

there was a television show that began, and it was kind of an instant hit, but it was interesting.

It was an interesting show because it didn't really have a storyline or a plot.

It was interesting. It ended up shaping a lot of how the world viewed teens

and young adults in many ways, and it's largely considered the very first reality

show of the modern era that we live in.

It paved the way for a lot of modern things, including what I'm going to call

encouraged voyeurism, or as our social media culture likes to call it, live streaming.

And so some of you may know exactly the show I'm talking about.

Some of you might be too young, some of you might be too old.

But it was The Real World debuted on MTV on my 12th birthday of all times, May 21st, 1992.

And if you're unfamiliar with the show, it was a show that followed seven or

eight young adults, they did not know each other, and they were put into a house

together, and they were filmed basically 24 hours a day.

And then they would mash that all together and broadcast it to us once a week on MTV.

And while it was celebrated for addressing modern issues and what was going

on in our culture at the time, that's not why we watched the show.

We watched the show because we wanted the drama, right? We wanted the dysfunction that came with it.

Ooh, man, they really like each other. Ooh, they're going to kill each other.

I think she's got a knife. Oh, my gosh.

That's why we tuned in each week to watch the drama.

So why, why is it that millions of people around the world would tune into a

show every week that had no storyline and no plot and just drama. Why?

I had a mentor who once said to me, we really like train wrecks and car crashes because it's not us.

We're not the ones who are involved. We can look at people failing.

We can look at news stories that are happening around the world.

And we can watch people falling again and again and again.

And we can look and say, oh my gosh, that's crazy. Look at those people.

Thank God I'm not like that. Thank God that's not me.

And so our passage this morning would fit very well into this reality TV genre. It fits super well.

And remember coming off last week where Abram had this incredible experience with God.

He received this incredible promise. If you remember that he's gonna have descendants

as numerous as the stars in the sky and the lights went out,

right? You guys remember this?

It's a very good memory device right there. I don't have anything that cool this morning, sorry.

But we have this incredible moment that Abram has met God in this place and

he's received this incredible promise.

And then we come to the scripture this morning and it's a real cautionary tale

for us because we can sit and we can say, well, I don't wanna be like that.

I don't wanna live like the world lives.

I wanna follow God and I'm going to follow God.

But things happen.

Drama happens.

We end up living life on our own terms so often so

the story this morning is a place for us to

read and have a little caution as we read it we're going to break it into two

sections as we go um let me pray for us as we begin jesus we thank you for bringing

us here this morning i pray that you um would just speak to us i pray that we

would be seen by you this morning,

God we would be seen by you,

and that you would bless us this morning with your presence with your grace and with your truth,

in the name of Jesus.

All right, Genesis 16, 1 through 6. And listen carefully, there's a lot here.

So Abram's wife, Sarai, had not born any children for him, but she owned an

Egyptian slave named Hagar.

Sarai said to Abram, since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children,

go to my slave. Perhaps through her, I can build a family.

And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

So Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her

husband, Abram, as a wife for him.

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

He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant.

When she realized that she was pregnant, she treated her mistress with contempt.

Then Sarai said to Abram, you are responsible for my suffering.

I put my slave in your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant,

she has treated me with contempt. may the Lord judge between me and you.

Abram replied to Sarai, here, your slave is in your hands. Do what you want with her.

Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.

Now, this is more than just a crazy story of the Bible. This is a mess.

This is a disaster. I mean, you've got infidelity that's being encouraged by the spouse.

You've got polygamy. You've got slavery. We can drop a little sex trafficking

in there by our modern standards.

You've got sexism, chauvinism, verbal abuse, physical abuse,

abandonment, abdication, lust, pride, arrogance.

In six verses.

We're not even talking about the marriage issues that are here.

In general, disobedience to God.

And maybe the most challenging part of this whole thing as we read it this is

abram god's chosen man right what are we supposed to do with this.

Stories like this are in the Bible, and we wrestle with them,

and we're supposed to wrestle with them.

We're supposed to look at this and say, what is going on here?

And what does this mean for me?

So let's wrestle a little bit with our passage this morning.

So we first are given the main players here, Abram, his wife Sarai,

who we've met before, and then Sarai's Egyptian slave, Hagar.

So she's from Egypt. Hagar is from Egypt. And if we remember,

Abram has been to Egypt before, hasn't he?

He went there, he lied and deceived, and what happened?

He was blessed because of it, with livestock and with people.

She is one of the people coming from Egypt here. And she now belongs to Sarai.

And so we're reminded again that Sarai cannot have children, she's barren.

And we have to really understand this to

understand this passage because this is at the at

the heart of what's going on here she can't

have children and we can have empathy for her with that that's difficult that's

tough and there are people in this room who have dealt with that and it's tough

you know the pain of what that means the latest data from the world health organization

says that one in six people in the world today are dealing with infertility,

This is an issue in our world, and it's a painful issue.

But there's something, there's an even bigger layer that goes on in this culture

that we've just read about here.

Because as painful as it is, this culture basically said to the woman,

children are everything for you.

If you're not bearing your husband a son, it's your fault.

That's on your head. And it is very important that you bear him a son.

You need to make sure that this happens.

I mean, even look at how she responds here in verse two. Perhaps through her,

I can build a family. I can build a family.

It's a statement of identity, of value, of worth. I mean, this is everything to her.

She has to bear him a son. This has to happen.

There's cultural shame that's being poured on her at this point in time, at no fault of her own.

And from the male perspective, this is also a bigger deal than we can really

fully appreciate today within our modern context.

To die without an heir, and specifically a male heir, a son,

was more than just a death.

This was your name that was being snuffed out at that moment.

If you remember the genealogies that we've read, that Doug has actually done

a great job reading all of those really crazy names each week.

Thank you, Doug, for not giving me those weeks. I appreciate it.

Right? You remember? It's like, and this person lived so long,

and he had, you know, a son, and then he lived for so much longer, and then he died.

And then that person had a son for so many years, and then he died.

You remember these genealogies?

So in the Jewish culture, this is called the toldot.

The toldot. It means generations or descendants.

But it's more than just a genealogy in the way that we think of genealogies.

We think of, you know, genealogies is a list of people that have led to us.

For them, this is a list of people that now are inside of them still.

They are carrying these people into the future. They are part of them.

And so to end this, to see this end, is terrible.

You do not want to be the one where all of these generations end in you.

So again, we find shame and just a really tough thing that they're both wrestling with here.

But Sarah is the one who's responsible.

She's the one who's at fault here.

And generally speaking, we no longer have these cultural stigmas,

you know, the same cultural stigmas, but have we really found freedom?

Or have we just traded these things for new and different things?

Many of you know Ozzy Osbourne died recently. And in the process,

his daughter, Kelly Osbourne, was kind of brought back into the limelight.

And turns out she's been dealing with this whole weight loss journey for a long

time and she's apparently on this drug ozempic which is kind of controversial

and sweeping through our culture right now but she was at a health summit recently

and what she said is very interesting,

she said we live in a fat phobic world osborne 40 told the summit attendees

i have been a drug addict an alcoholic, I've been a complete mess,

disrespectful to people, horrible.

But I got more expletive for being fat than I did for anything else. It's insane.

She got more grief over her weight and beauty than she did about being a drug addict.

And the irony is this article is celebrating her weight loss journey that she's

been on, affirming the very thing she's talking about.

And she's still on this journey herself, trying to fit in, find her place in this world.

It could be beauty and health that we place this ultimate worth in,

but it can be other things as well.

We were recently visiting with some friends from New York City where we used

to live, and their son is the same age as my oldest, and who'll be going into high school this year.

And we're reminded that at that age, in middle school, you interview for a high school.

You go and interview for a high school and you choose the high school that you

want to be a part of in New York City because this is when you begin choosing

your career at 12 and 13 years old. Good luck with that.

And so parents are going to hire coaches to help train their kids for these

interviews that are happening.

Yeah, this is not college, this is high school. And you're in middle school

when you're doing these interviews.

And just think about the heartbreak that comes for so many as they're relegated

to lesser institutions and therefore perceive lesser life ahead of them.

No pressure, 12 and 13-year-old.

See, the narrative has shifted for us, but nothing has really changed, has it?

We still build these systems of value and worth into our society that if we

don't achieve, we wonder what's really left for us.

What is there? The pain and the weight is enormous on Sarai.

And they've received this incredible promise from God, haven't they?

But now they've been in the wilderness for 10 years.

The pressure and the shame is mounting.

So what are they going to do? what do we do when we're

in these situations do we trust god or do we take the bull by the horns

and make things happen for ourselves let's see

what they do sarah i said to abram in genesis 16 2 since the lord has prevented

me from bearing children go to my slave perhaps through her i can build a family

so it's an interesting statement the lord has prevented me from bearing children

This could be just a statement of fact. God is in control.

But I think just as we read the passage here, there's got to at least be a little

bit of bitterness and resentment that's there.

Abraham, you've received this promise, but now she's wondering,

maybe that promise isn't for me, just for him. Maybe I've been left out.

And so they take God's promise and they attempt to achieve it through their

own ways, their own means, their own plans, and their own understanding.

And we have to understand that this was not necessarily an uncommon practice within this culture.

This is what they did. It was so important to continue your family line,

that you might take your slave, somebody that worked for you,

and you might give them to your husband so they can have a child.

And then you would take that child and raise it as your own.

And that child would become the heir.

That's what's being proposed here.

And so Hagar does become a wife, as the scripture is about to tell us,

but it's sort of a second-tier wife.

She's not really at the same level as Sarai is, but she's still a wife.

She's still considered a wife, but she's also subservient to Sarai.

And also, Hagar was a slave. And I appreciate the translation of the HCSB here

where it says the word slave.

A lot of translations say things like maid or servant or maidservant.

No, she was a slave. Her life was not her own.

She was owned she could be sold she was told what to do with her life she wasn't asked,

she's not considered an image bearer of god in this passage she's a tool,

a means of achievement for abram and sarai she's property she doesn't get a say in any of this,

she's merely useful for their purposes and i hope the gravity of this situation

is sinking in for us of what's really happening here.

Let's see what happens next. And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

So Abram's wife Sarai took Hagar,

her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife for him.

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

He slept with Hagar. She became pregnant.

Hagar hasn't had a say in any of this. This isn't up to her.

She's been told what to do, she's been given as a bride.

And I want to be clear here, the Bible is not justifying or condoning polygamy in any way.

It's mentioned several times in the Bible, go and find those sections.

It is not presented in a good way.

Every time, it is drama, drama, drama. It never goes well.

It's also not justifying Abram and Sarai's actions in any way as well.

Even though this is what happened within the culture, this isn't justifying

their actions and what they've done.

And the scripture doesn't let let them off the hook either.

Genesis 16.2 says, and Abram agreed to what Sarai said. And this is where the

author of Genesis, Moses, is pretty brilliant in what he does here.

Because he's going back, this is pointing back to us, scholars agree,

you look at the language here and it's pointing right back to Genesis 3.17.

So, and Abram agreed to what Sarai said. Because you listened to your wife's

voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, do not eat from it.

Do you remember this from the story of Adam and Eve?

This right here, this language, it's the same language. It's the same words

that are used here. Translate a little bit different for us,

but it's the exact same words.

They are calling us back and saying, look, they knew.

And it doesn't stop there. Genesis 16, 3.

So Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her

husband, Abram, as a wife for him. Again, back to Genesis 3.

Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at

and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

So she took some of its fruit and ate it.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.

And again in Genesis 6, which we've read already, when mankind began to multiply

on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters

of mankind were beautiful and they took any they chose as wives for themselves.

It's the same language in here that's being used as Adam and Eve.

It's the fall all over again.

And moses is telling us here as he writes this we can't escape the fall,

it's brokenness it's sin and destruction are coming for us i mean this is a

dark passage of scripture and it's one that's repeated itself through human

history over and over and over and over and over again,

the devaluing of human life around us.

And we know the obvious examples, sex trafficking, slavery, but it's not just those things.

We can do this every day.

The relationships that we have, the people that are around us,

are they merely useful to us?

Or do we value people as image bearers?

Do we keep people in our lives because we need something from them,

a connection, or something like that that we're looking for?

Do they really matter to us?

Our passage continues here, and it just continues to spiral down and devolve.

While Hagar wasn't brought into this within her own will, now she's got some power.

When she realized that she was pregnant, she treated her mistress with contempt.

Societally, Hagar is still a slave. She's still subservient to Sarai.

Socially, her lot just went up big time.

She's valuable now. She has worth that she has never had before.

And so she turns it on Sarai.

Who's valuable now? Not you.

Hagar is getting to watch the train wreck now. But it's not her.

Then Sarai said to Abram, you are responsible for my suffering.

I put my slave in your arms. And this is a graphic, this is graphic language that's being used here.

Okay, we are wanting to get the emotion. We're wanting, Moses is wanting us

to feel what Sarai is going through. So I put my slave in your arms.

The actual literal translation is, I put my slave in your lap.

This is what I did for you.

And look what's happened through this. And ever since she saw that she was pregnant.

She has treated me with contempt.

May the Lord judge between me and you.

Do we get the graphic language here that's being used? She is upset.

The weight is crushing her because she's finally realizing that what she's always believed is true.

It's not Hagar that's worthless. It's her.

Do we see the ravages of sin in this world,

do we see what's going on and abram doesn't help the situation he replies to

sarah in a cowardly way here your slave is in your hands do whatever you want

with her and sarah mistreated her so much that she ran away abraham abdicating

his role as a husband to watch over and protect his family,

you think you're so right do whatever you want,

and this word that's mistreated here it's the same word interestingly of what

happened to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt,

but now it's an Egyptian that's running away from the father of the Israelites,

so Hagar runs away from her problems sure none of us have ever been tempted to do that either.

Sin, dysfunction, brokenness. And yet when you read the story,

they're just doing what they think is right.

They're just doing what they think they should be doing. Proverbs and Jeremiah echo this.

Proverbs says, Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

And Jeremiah, the heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable. who can understand it.

What is this saying here? We always think we're right.

Our hearts are going to be deceitful to us. It's going to tell us what's right

and we're going to think it's true.

But so often it ends in a mess.

Abram, Sarai, and Hagar are all doing what they think is right.

Sarai encourages her husband to go into another woman and then she abuses her.

Abram sleeps with the wrong woman, takes an additional wife,

which causes even more pain, doesn't stand up for the abused and the oppressed,

and he's taken two wives now and abandons them both in six short verses.

Haggard does the very same thing that's been done to her. She belittles and

dehumanizes Sarai and runs away from her problems.

This is a mess.

This is a disaster. What are we supposed to do?

With all of this because every time they try to fix things it just gets worse

and worse and worse what do we do how do we undo the messes that we've made in this world.

The second part gives us some answers,

genesis 16 7 and 8 the angel of the lord found her by a spring of water this

is hagar in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.

He said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?

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

Hagar, the Egyptian slave, is heading back to Egypt.

That's where she's going. This is a pathway to Egypt.

And again, we're brought back to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve have sinned and

God comes looking for them.

In the same passage, this angel of the Lord found her. She wasn't looking, the angel found her.

And much like the questioning that Adam and Eve get in the garden,

he questions, Hagar, where have you come from and where are you going?

And she's honest, but she blames just like Adam does.

I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai.

We have to look at who exactly this angel of the Lord is that Hagar is talking to. Who is this person?

Where have they come from? What is going on here? The Hebrew word is angel.

However, as the passage goes on, we realize this isn't just a mere angel that Hagar is talking to.

We'll see in a moment that this angel is going to say things like,

I will greatly multiply.

Not normally language that an angel is going to say. And by the end of the passage,

we see Moses, the author, calling him the Lord and Hagar actually calling him God by the end.

And this isn't uncommon in the Bible. There's other places in the Bible where

this angelic being or the angel of the Lord shows up.

It happens here. It happens to Abram a bit later. Jacob wrestles with an angel.

It happens in the Psalms. And most scholars agree that this is really pointing

to Jesus as his pre-incarnate self.

In other words, Jesus before in the Old Testament, before he's ever come to

earth, to be with us, this is still him coming to minister.

And this angel of the Lord continues with three messages to Hagar here.

And he says, you must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment.

The angel of the Lord also said to her, I will greatly multiply your offspring

and there will be too many to count.

Then the angel of the Lord said to her, you have conceived and will have a son.

You will name him Ishmael for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.

This man will be like a wild donkey, his hand will be against everyone,

and everyone's hand will be against him.

He will live at odds with all his brothers.

So he's told to go back, submit to Sarai, and her mistreatment and abuse. Wow.

Now, I don't think, I don't believe that the Bible is telling us here that we

should be okay just being in abusive situations.

I don't believe that's what the Bible is saying here. That's not the point the

Bible is making. And we're going to circle back to this in just a moment.

But I want to be clear on that. I do not believe the Bible is telling you,

go and be in an abusive situation.

It's not what it's saying. We'll come back to that though.

The angel of the Lord continues with a very similar blessing that God has given

to Abram. And she's now carrying Abram's child.

So the blessing is naturally going to flow through her from Abraham.

But this isn't the promised child. So it's not the full blessing,

but it's a blessing nonetheless.

And then you get to this interesting section, which is kind of encouraging,

sort of, saying that she's going to have a son, which again, this is a massive deal.

Not a daughter, but a son. This is the one that carries the name forward.

This is a big deal. She would have been overjoyed at this. And God has heard

her cry of affliction in this.

In fact, the name Ishmael means God hears. He's heard her.

He's heard what's going on.

And he's here for her.

These are encouraging things. The rest, he's going to be a wild donkey against

everyone, at odds with his brothers, and everyone will be against him. Okay.

And as we've mentioned in the past here, it's through the line of Ishmael that

we have Islam that rises in the world.

We still see these things happening today in our world right now around us.

And so it's in the midst of this as we said this is this is just isn't just

an angel of the lord this is the lord and he's coming for this pregnant runaway slave who's been abused,

he's coming for her i love what happens here next so she called the lord who

spoke to her the God who sees.

For she said, in this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?

That is why she named the spring a well of the living one who sees me.

It is located between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar gave birth to Abram's son and

Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son Hagar had.

Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him. She goes back.

She listens to the voice of the Lord, and she goes back.

She gives birth and apparently told Abram what happened because Abram is the

one who gives the name Ishmael to this son.

But something else had to have happened here.

It had to have happened. Because why would somebody do that?

When you are running away from an abusive situation, why would you run back to it?

Even if you're told to go back, what is there for you in that place?

And we see the answer in what she says. She called the Lord who spoke to her

there, El Roi, which translates literally to the God who sees me.

And she says it three times.

We have to understand what's going on in her heart here.

Yes, God has seen her afflictions and he's met her there and he's heard her

prayers, but he sees her.

He sees her. everything about her, he knows her. He's seen her plight as a slave.

He has seen her abusers and what they've done to her, but he's also seen her

lord and gloat her position over Sarai. He's seen her run away.

And just in the fact that he's telling her to go back is acknowledging you've

done something wrong here.

He's seen her, but rather than treat her like everyone else has,

He doesn't do that. He gives her purpose.

He gives her vision. He gives her value. He gives her worth.

He gives her grace. And it impacts her so much that she is literally the only

recorded person in the Old Testament to actually give God a different name.

The God who sees me?

Do we see what has happened here? Abram and Sarai, in trying to obey God,

they take things into their own hands, and they just create a mess.

But rather than abandoning them in their mess, God sees, and he shows up,

and he begins to set things right.

Go back to where you came from, Hagar.

The promise isn't here it's in going back it's not just for you it's for abram and sarai as well,

do we see the theme in genesis here not just

abram's life but in genesis humans take things in their own hands which leads

towards death and destruction of human lives and god's created world and then

God comes along and rescues and even blesses.

And he's not blessing them because they've done something right.

He's blessing them because everything that he touches just naturally gets blessed. This is God.

This is what he does.

Romans 5, 20 through 21 says, but where sin multiplied, grace multiplied,

even more so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness,

resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Is this a promotion of sin so that grace may multiply?

No, this is grace reigning through righteousness.

This is what's happening in our story. We can't be righteous or accomplish God's

purposes or his promises in our ways, in our terms, or our strength.

Our righteousness in this world is a grace in and of itself.

God giving us strength and the ability to be righteous that we don't deserve.

This is the famous hymn reminds us, Oh, to grace how great a debtor.

Daily, daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace now like a fetter bind my

wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, but take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.

In his grace, he gives Hagar the strength to go back.

And in his grace, even through disobedience, a son is born.

This is the God who comes to set things right, to redeem the messes that we've

made, which means that sometimes we're going to have to go back to hard places,

but this is the god who sees us sees us he sees all of us every part of us and what we've done,

and decided not to abandon us not to leave us in the wilderness instead he wants

to lead us to promise and to lead us home romans 8 18 says for i consider that

the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing,

with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. Let's pray.

Jesus, we thank you for who you are. God, that you don't leave us here.

God, we are so broken.

God, we mess up every day.

And we think we're right every time, and we think we're just going along in

this world, doing what we need to be doing, and yet we can't help but create messes around us.

And yet, you didn't leave us,

and you came to fix it.

Jesus, I thank you for what you've done for us on the cross,

coming to fix the world that we live in, but coming to fix our lives.

God, we can't do this on our own. It is purely by your grace.

How would you help us, help that truth just to set in for us?

We thank you, God, in the name of Jesus. Amen.