something happened
First of all welcome. Thank you for welcoming me and Charlie for the year and a half we have been worshipping at St. Luke’s. I have felt welcomed and encouraged by the Body of Christ here.
So tonight I would like to encourage you with a verse that has encouraged me. Encourage means, to give courage to fortify, to cheer or to uplift. That has been my experience here at St. Luke’s and that is my purpose here tonight-to encourage you all. So…
How will I talk tonight with you? By sharing one of my devotional moments with you.
When I do my devotions I have learned to ask questions. This is how Martin Luther meditated on scripture. Let us walk together tonight thru one of my moments, a moment I had a glimpse of God; of my seeing God and His seeing me. The text I would like to explore follows. It is the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 in the desert. My key verse is:
A. Genesis 16:13…” I have now seen the one who sees me.”
So let’s go to the scripture in its context.
B. Genesis 15:1-5
Genesis 15:1-5The Message (MSG)
15 After all these things, this word of GOD came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”
2-3 Abram said, “GOD, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?” Abram continued, “See, you’ve given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all.”
4 Then GOD’s Message came: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir.”
5 Then he took him outside and said, “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”
First slide-
Read and picture. Wikipedia Julius von Cardsfeld Bibel in Bildern
Abraham is discouraged because he has no heir and laments that Eliezer –a distant relative and a mere house servant- will be his heir
But God hears and answers vs.5 he took him outside and said” Look up at the sky and count the stars- if indeed you can count them, ” So shall your off spring be”
C. Now let’s read
Gen 16.
16 1-2 Sarai, Abram’s wife, hadn’t yet produced a child.
She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, “GOD has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her.” Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.
3-4 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place. He slept with Hagar and she got pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress.
5 Sarai told Abram, “It’s all your fault that I’m suffering this abuse. I put my maid in bed with you and the minute she knows she’s pregnant, she treats me like I’m nothing. May GOD decide which of us is right.”
6 “You decide,” said Abram. “Your maid is your business.”
Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away.
7-8 An angel of GOD found her beside a spring in the desert; it was the spring on the road to Shur. He said, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, what are you doing here?”
She said, “I’m running away from Sarai my mistress.”
9-12 The angel of GOD said, “Go back to your mistress. Put up with her abuse.” He continued, “I’m going to give you a big family, children past counting.
From this pregnancy, you’ll get a son: Name him Ishmael;
for GOD heard you, GOD answered you.
He’ll be a bucking bronco of a man,
a real fighter, fighting and being fought,
Always stirring up trouble,
always at odds with his family.”
13 She answered GOD by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, “You’re the God who sees me!
“Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!”
14 That’s how that desert spring got named “God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring.” That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15-16 Hagar gave Abram a son. Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave him his son, Ishmael.
Second slide-Abraham dismissing Hagar and Ishmael by Barnet Fabritus
and Hagar and Ishmael by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
http://www.artbible.info/art/large/826.html
So this was the scripture; now our walk, our questioning walk through it.
1. What does this scripture tell me about God? My answer? God sees things differently than I do
He sees Sarai as she has runs out of patience, and is determined to get what she needs. She is a sinner who he still sees and heard her.
He sees Abraham also out of patience who gives in to his wife’s badgering and is complicit in getting what his wife and he wants: an heir and He –our God-still hears him.
God doesn’t ‘run out’ of patience. He always hears. Always listens. He always sees.
Last, not at the least, He sees Hagar, a lowly servant who is used sexually, abused emotionally; who is exhausted spiritually. Everyone has run out on her; and she is put out. She ends up in a desert. She who is cast out with a child, the heir given by man’s hands and will, now despised, she is alone. But here, here in the desert of Moses and Jesus’ temptation, and God sees and hears her
Here she is lifted to a higher status. She is seen by god. That is enough; for than enough for the ‘God who sees-sees me.’ So what …
2. What does this scripture tell me about me? My answer?
I would not be so patient with Abram and Sari. I would think they don’t deserve God’s ear. I would not want to hear them
I would probably feel compassion for Sarah but there would still be lingering threads of judgement from me. I need to snip; cut off; remove these judgements from my eyes. I need to remove these splinters, these logs, so I can see as God sees; I want to seen the unseen.
3. What can I thank God for?
That he still sees hears me when I lose faith in his promises. That he still hears and sees me when I am mean and enraged like Sarah. That he still hears and sees me when I am a coward like Abraham and give in when I know I should stand strong in Gods Promises. And lastly that God sees and hears me when I feel abused or thrown out by either people in the past or present by people who have been significant to me.
Summary
4. What can I confess need the God who sees me? My answer?
I need to cry out to him in my deserts.
5. If I really believe this is true, what will change in me, in my daily life? My answer?
I will see the God who sees me every day in his word.
Do you see him?
Do you hear him? Be encouraged, remember,
Gen16:13 …”I have now seen the one who sees me”
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