The God Who Sees You
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Intro:
The newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck wrote a famous Mothers day column back 1974 called “When God Created Mothers”. God is putting the finishing touches on the first mother while an angel marvels at the detail and work that god has put into this amazing new creation. Despise the six pairs of hands and the three pairs of eyes that every mother needs, the angel thinks she has discovered a flaw.
“There’s a leak,” the angel pronounced.
“It’s not a leak,” said the Lord. “It’s a tear.”
“ What’s it for”?
“It’s for joy,sadness,disappointment,pain,loneliness, and pride.”
“Your a genius,” said the angel.
The Lord look somber. “I didn’t put it there.”
For as long as there have been mothers, there have been tears. Mothers carry a special burden for their children. They love our children, and they bring us a lot of joy, but they can also bring us a lot of pain. And that was the case for Hagar here in our text in Genesis.
Genesis 16:1–16 (LEB)
Now Sarai, the wife of Abram, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian female slave, and her name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Look, please, Yahweh has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my servant; perhaps ⌊I will have children by her⌋.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, the wife of Abram, took Hagar, her Egyptian female slave, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband as his wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, then her mistress grew small in her eyes. And Sarai said to Abram, “may my harm be upon you. ⌊I had my slave sleep with you⌋, and when she saw that she had conceived, ⌊she no longer respected me⌋. May Yahweh judge between me and you!” And Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your slave is ⌊under your authority⌋. Do to her that which is good in your eyes.” And Sarai mistreated her, and she fled from her presence.
And the angel of Yahweh found her at a spring of water in the wilderness, at the spring by the road of Shur. And he said to Hagar, the female slave of Sarai, “⌊From where⌋ have you come, and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of Sarai my mistress.” Then the angel of Yahweh said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit yourself under ⌊her authority⌋.” And the angel of Yahweh said to her, “⌊I will greatly multiply⌋ your offspring, so that they cannot be counted for their abundance.” And the angel of Yahweh said to her:
“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall have a son.
And you shall call his name Ishmael,
for Yahweh has listened to your suffering.
And he shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand will be against everyone,
and the hand of everyone will be against him,
and he will live ⌊in hostility with all his brothers⌋.”
So she called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her, “You are El-Roi,” for she said, “Here I have seen after he who sees me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-Lahai-Roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar had a child for Abram, a son. And Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore to him, Ishmael. And Abram was ⌊eighty-six years old⌋ when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
There are three truths about God I like us to learn from Hagar‘s life this morning.
God See see you in your pain
first of all, God sees you in your pain. God is not a God who is distant from this world and its people. He is not a God who wound up in this world like a clock and then walked away. He is intimately involved in all the details of your life, and God sees you in your pain.
A) When you feel you have no control over you life.
He sees you and your pain when you feel like you have no control over your life. Have you ever felt like that? Whether you feel stuck in a rut or things are spinning wildly out of control around you, it often feels like you have no control over your life. Hagar certainly felt that way. In Genesis 16 1-3
This is the first time we meet Hagar in scripture. She is an Egyptian mate servant which means she is far from home. She has been uprooted from her land, separated from her family and forced to do the bidding of another. Talk about having no control over your life.
But then it gets worse. When Sarai can’t have children of her own, she brings Hagar to Abraham with the intent of building a family for herself through Hagar. Now that seems shocking to us today, and it should but this was a common practice in the old testament times God never condone that, he never suggested or approved it, but he did regulated. God’s design for marriage has always been one man with one woman for life. There are spiritual reasons for this but practical reasons as well. Multiple wives led to multiple problems, and Sarai and Hager are no exception. God sees you in your pain when you feel like you have no control over your life.
2. When others mistreat you, God heres you in you distress
When Hagar becomes pregnant, she doesn’t handle that thing well and she despises Sarai, her mistress. Sarai doesn’t handle things well either, and she blames Abram. Abram doesn’t handle things well either, and gives Sarai permission to deal Hagar however she likes. So Sarai missed treats Hagar, and Hagar runs away while she is still an expectant mother. Hagar’s name actually means “flight or wander” and here she takes flight from Sarai.
Now a lot of this Hagar brought upon herself. If she hadn’t despised Sarai,maybe Sarai wouldn’t have missed treated her. But Sarai was still wrong in her actions, and Hagar still felt the pain of being mistreated by another. In some ways it’s good news for us that Hagar is partly to blame, because that means even when we have contributed to our own pain, God still sees us and cares for us.
3. God Hears your crying and intervenes
Genesis 21:15–19 (NLT)
And when the water was finished from the skin, she put the child under one of the bushes. And she went and she sat opposite him, at a distance, ⌊a bowshot away⌋, for she said, “Let me not see the child’s death.” So she sat away from him and lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the cry of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from the heavens and said to her, “⌊What is the matter⌋ Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the cry of the boy ⌊from where he is⌋. Get up, take up the boy and take him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.” And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave a drink to the boy.
God here’s both Hagar crying and the boy crying, and intervenes once again. He assures her, he reaffirms her promise to her, and provides water for them in the desert.
God fulfilled his promises to Hagar. He was with Ishmael as he grew up. Ishmael married and had children. God took the boy who was dying under a bush in the desert and made him into a great nation. All because he heard Hagar’s cry in the desert.