Well, let's have our Bible open, please, at Genesis 16. And therein will be your consideration this evening. Let's just take a moment, first of all, to pray together and just seek the Lord for a real blessing tonight. You pray yourself that God would speak to you and give you a truth tonight that would just encourage you and lead you on with the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we, Lord, want to bow before you in a right frame of mind. And so we pray, Lord, that you would prepare us now. We come to the word of God. Lord, you've given this word to direct us home to heaven. Lord, it's a book that we can go to for genuine comfort and encouragement, and we pray tonight over each individual, because there's lots of different situations here tonight. There are different circumstances. There are mourners. There are those who are grieved, who have troublesome circumstances, health issues, financial issues, family issues, souls and their families that aren't saved, and many burdens, therefore, to carry. And so, Lord, tonight we just pray, Lord, we'll be encouraged as we listen to what you have to say to us from this passage. So give us liberty in the pulpit, give us liberty in the pew, and for all, Lord, who hear the word tonight, that you'll grant us a special blessing in Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen. Well, in Genesis 16, Abram and Sarai, they still haven't got their full names, Sarah and Abraham, But they have now been waiting for a while for their promised son. And they've grown weary waiting for the promise. And that's the problem, that's, we're introduced to the very beginning of this text because it says in verse one, Now Sarah Abram's wife bare him no children, and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. You read that first verse and you wonder, well, what's coming next? Sarai and Abram, our husband and wife, why does the word of God mention this third woman? Well, we're soon led into the secret of the situation. Verse two, and Sarai said unto Abram, behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. She's pointing her finger at God. She says, God has given us a promise in one hand, but in the other hand, he's restrained me from bearing. I cannot bring forth a child. There is no doubt, there's a degree whereby she's putting the blame upon God here. But don't worry, she's got the answer. The Lord is restraining her, the Lord is putting a barrier in the way for his will to be done, but Sarah can cure the problem, apparently. And she says in verse two, Behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And the next statement is equally surprising, because it says, And Abram, the friend of God, this good, godly, and wise man, it says, hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar. And it's emphasized here, the Egyptian. The Egyptian. What really is the scene here is this. God has given a promise to Abraham and Sarah. I will multiply your seed as the sand of the stars above. But the promise was not well being fulfilled. And the both of them grew weary. They were not patient. They were not waiting upon God. And they thought, well, let's try plan B. And so Sarai gives her handmaid to Abram. Thereby, she could have a child through her handmaid. But the problem was this, you find here in verse four. And he went in onto Hagar and she conceived. Oh, the plan worked. But here's the difficulty. When we decide to scheme and plan Things always go wrong. And instead of alleviating the problem, they've now got another problem. Because it says in verse four, halfway down, and when she saw, when Hagar saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. There's pride now. She bumped up. You see, this lowly slave, this maid, was able to do more than her lord, as it were, her owner said. And she becomes very proud. You know, there's a couple of verses in scripture that are very helpful here, because here is a woman who was in the position of a servant, and now she's exalted almost to be greater than her mistress. And there's pride steps in there. Remember what 1 Timothy 5 and 22 says in regards to that very issue. Lay hands on no man suddenly. I know that verse is often mentioned maybe 10 minutes before a meeting. You might lay your hands on someone asking to do something. And people say, oh, well, the Bible says don't lay hands on any man suddenly. Well, it's nothing to do with that situation whatsoever. Paul is teaching here Timothy how to deal with the men, his congregation. And if there's someone there who's not mature in the faith, young, he says, don't lay hands on, don't give them too much responsibility too quickly. And that's emphasized in chapter three in the verse 10 of 1 Timothy where he says the same thing, that every man prove himself. And then, the emphasis then is that he can have more And that's the case with this situation here. Here's this woman, Hagar. They have laid hands upon her and they have put her in a position that she is not able to cope with and bear. It's a mess. It's a mess. And it's a pity because this is the family of faith. This is the father of the faithful. This is the people of God. This is the elect sees. And they're living like the world. So what was the answer? Well, I must say these were dark days for Abram and Sarah, because look at verse five. And Sarah said unto Abram, my wrong be upon thee. That just sounds like Eve all over again. It's your fault. Oh, the mistake's mine, but really it's yours. You allowed me to do this. And Sarai said on to Abram, verse five, my wrong be upon thee. It's your responsibility. You're the head of the home. I have given my maid into thy bosom. And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judged between me and thee. That's real fighting talk now. Sarai's answer wasn't maybe such a good idea as she has now discovered. Verse six. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. She was cruel to her. So the problem was they decided to make Hagar Abram's wife. And when she bore the child, she became proud. They had a second approach to deal with the problem, and they chased her. Those are two wrongs. You know the saying, two wrongs don't make a right. And so Hagar ends up being abandoned. No one to turn to. And this happened twice to Hagar, by the way. You turn with me to chapter 21. So let's stay in Genesis, but chapter 21. I'll just read a bit of the chapter, give you the gist of it. Verse 13, Genesis 21, 13. and also of the son of the born woman will I make a nation because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and the bottle of water and gave it on to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder and the child and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba and the water was spent in the bottle and she cast the child under one of the shrubs and she went and sat her down over against him. A good way off, as it were, a bow shot. For she said, let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him and lift up her voice and wept. So again, Abraham has sent her away. This is the plan and it should be done this way. God sent her away on this occasion and away she goes. In verse 16 it says, her water was spent So everything her husband had given to her had run out now. His provision was no good for her. She's on her own. Verse 17. And God heard the voice of the lad. It says, see, she set the boy down. He's dying. He's dying. She can do nothing about it. And she can't bear to watch. So she sets him down beside a shrub and she walks away from him. Heartbroken, no doubt, but she could not bear to watch him die. So she lets him die. where she can't see him. Verse 17, and God heard the voice of the lad. Lovely verse. And the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, what ill of thee, Hagar? Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation. Go and get him, Hagar. And by the way, something just struck me there now. Often when we come to the throne of grace to pray, we want to get good words, don't we? We want to pray skillfully and well. Here's a wee boy, a wee lad. He's just screaming. He's just screaming. And God hears his prayer. No great oratory here, just a passionate cry from the heart. Verse 19, and God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the bowl with water and gave the lad drink, so on and so forth. Let's go back to our text, Genesis 16. So on two occasions, this woman was abandoned, but there was something happened on both occasions. The Lord stepped in. In the passage we just read there a second ago, I read the Lord stepped in, opened Hagar's eyes. She found this, wasn't that a well of water I said? A well of water I think. And she went to the well of water and she got what she needed. God provided for her and for her son. That was also the case in Genesis 16 where we read. Because look at verse 7. Genesis 16, 7. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way of sure. Here again, she's abandoned. It's the first time she's abandoned. And God finds her. God stepped in on both occasions. And here's what I want you to see tonight. It's really verse 13. It's a text I want you to leave with tonight. Genesis 16, 13, and she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, thou God seest me. Thou God seest me. And that's the phrase I want to focus on with you tonight. Thou God seest me. Let that sink in tonight. Understand what that means. Here she is in great distress, abandoned by all men, and yet here's her comfort. God sees her. And that should encourage you tonight. In whatever circumstances you find yourself in, it may be on sea of blood wounds, it may be physical sickness, it may be financial difficulties, it may be spiritual, personal drought, it may be health, whatever you care to mention, oh God, thou seest me. So then, this phrase, thou God seest me, is unquestionably true. The reality that God sees his people is demonstrated in this text because he saw what Hagar was going through and so he came and helped So it's clearly demonstrated God does see his people and God sees you and me and that's what you get from this text from the very outset. The experience that Hagar has is the same experience every child of God has ever had. God sees us. So if that's true, there's four facts that I want to leave with you tonight. Since God sees us, We should be encouraged. We should be rather comforted. That's fact number one. Fact one is comfort. You see, if God sees us, that gives us a reason to be comforted in the very worst of our circumstances. Unquestionably. There's no doubt Hagar here is in a bad situation. No doubt about that. Sarai has despised her. It's unfortunate in some way for Hagar because this situation wasn't really her making. She didn't ask to be Abraham's wife. They desired and required her to be his wife. That was the culture of the day. If someone was barren, they could take their servant. And the woman, because she owns that servant, essentially she's producing children through her servant. And that's why the scripture says here, or that's why Sarah says in verse two, that was the culture of the day. But it wasn't God's plan. And that's why the whole thing went pear-shaped. And so, Sarai cruelly chases her. Deals with her harshly and painfully so that Hagar has no option but to run away. Sarai is exceedingly twisted at this point. She hasn't even the courage to say to Hagar, I'm not happy with your behavior. I'm going to get you to leave. No, she doesn't say anything to her. Rather, she just treats her awfully so that the woman runs away. That's not the way to deal with anybody. Not the way to deal with any problem in any circumstance. So Haigara's driven away. Here's the point. She's driven away from her family. She was given to Abraham to be his wife. She's driven away from her husband. She's on her own. Away from the place of safety. She's no home. Away from the place of provision. She's no food, no water. She's literally abandoned. Great loneliness would have stepped in. She hadn't a friend in the world at this point. And it's also sad because, like I said earlier, this was the family faith. She's driven out from the presence of the people of God. That happens in churches, you know. Maybe you're here tonight. Maybe you feel like that. Maybe you feel like that. It's possible to feel like Hagar even when you're surrounded by people, still feel lonely, still feel excluded, still feel out on your own. Well, I want to encourage you because look what happens. God intervenes. The Lord draws alongside this woman who was driven out from the family of faith and he, as the good shepherd, cares for her and is interested in her. I think that's lovely. Do you remember the passage as well? Will not turn to me for time, but in Mark chapter six. Remember when the Lord sent his disciples out onto the Sea of Galilee there. And it says, he sent them into the Sea of Galilee, I'm paraphrasing, and he went up into the mountain. And they went under the sea and the storm began to rise up. And it says they were toiling and toiling and toiling. And they were burdened and troubled and fearful. They thought they were going to die and they're on their own. The Lord wasn't with them on the boat on that occasion. But the Bible tells us that he was on the mountain and the Lord was able to see them. He was watching them. Again demonstrating to the New Testament church this same truth that's demonstrated in Genesis 16. Thou God seest me. He wasn't in the boat with them on that occasion. There's two occasions when there's a storm, okay? One occasion he wasn't in the boat, he rose up and stilled the storm. The other occasion is the time I'm talking about where Christ then came down from the mountain and he came and they saw him walking on the water and they were afraid of him because they thought he was a spirit and you know the situation. The point I'm making is simply this, that while they were rowing and struggling and they may feel alone and abandoned, the reality was God saw them. God saw them. While they were toiling and rowing. You see, when you read passages like Genesis 16 and Mark 6 that deals with that situation of trials and troubles in life, you know, sometimes we're tempted to say to people, Someone might come alongside and try and comfort us. And we might say, well, you don't understand. We all get that. If you're married tonight, I'm sure you get it. You might go to your spouse and your spouse says, listen, you just don't understand what I'm going through. You don't understand my situation. You may have friends who are struggling and they might turn around and say that to you. You don't understand my situation. And the truth of the matter is, There's an element of correctness in that statement. We don't fully understand what anybody's going through. We can never say that about the Lord. Because God says, I see you. I see everything about you. I know more about you than you know about yourself. So we can never ever say to God, Lord, you don't understand. He does. He does. So this statement, thou God seest me, should bring us great comfort. Whether you're on your own, whether there's no one in this world to draw alongside and help you. You may be surrounded by people, but you feel there's no help. Maybe you may end up in a situation in your life when you are abandoned, you're lying in your own sick and gone. Well, you remember in the worst of circumstances, like Hagar here, God saves you. Let that encourage you, no matter what comes your way. way. So it brings us comfort. The second fact here is that if God sees us, we're left to understand that he cares for us. He cares for us. You see, isn't that true? If you're watching someone, it's because you care about them. If the children go somewhere to play, you generally try to keep an eye on your children. You can't, you know, we're not omniscient, we don't know everything, we can't see everything, but as far as we can, we try to keep an eye on those who are under our care because we care for them. I think about the, I'm sure you've heard about it in the news, that's a fair illustration here. You've heard about that nursing home in Dunmurray and the situation of many of the patients there, obviously, There were staff who didn't care for some of the people that were in that home. So they turned a blind eye to their suffering, turned a blind eye to their pain, to their discomfort, to their situation. That's a lack of interest, a lack of care. But the Bible tells us that God sees us. He's watching us. And He's watching us and keeping His eye upon us because He does care. He's interested in his people. God will not be turning a blind eye to anybody. I remember reading a book one time. I was really looking forward to reading the book. I thought it was gonna be excellent. The title of the book, and you've maybe heard of it before, Why Does Bad Things Happen to Good People? And I thought, well, that's a Bennett Rasmussen book. Why Does Bad Things Happen to Good People? And I get into the second chapter and here's what the book said. But, I'm paraphrasing here, this is just the whole book basically. This is the main thrust behind it. Bad things happen to good people because God blinks. And what that means is God for a moment closes his eyes and he's not always going to be there for you. At that point I put the book down and I threw it out. I wouldn't dare give it to anybody for that's utter Nonsense, that's heresy. That's not the God of this Bible. That's not the God of glory. He doesn't blink. He doesn't turn a blind eye. The Bible teaches the very opposite. Here's Hagar in the midst of suffering, in the midst of trouble, and actually what she discovers is God does see me. And she goes right into a valley to discover that, but I tell you, Hagar come out well of this situation for she learned a great theological truth and she's a great theologian. She's our teacher tonight because she's the one who says, God sees me. You remember that, men and women? Learn well the lesson this woman learned. She went into a deep valley to learn it. So the family of faith drive her away simply because they didn't like her. They didn't care for her anymore. Sarah didn't care for her. Abraham didn't care for her, but God did. Sometimes the people of God can let you down. Sometimes family can let you down. Sometimes a spouse can let you down. But God won't. 1 Peter 5, 7, it says there, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Thou God seest me. That means we should be comforted. We should also understand that God cares. Two other things here. The fact that God sees us should give us courage. Should make us courageous. If God sees us, it should give us courage to press on because he knows everything we need. God isn't blind to our situation, not blind to where we are in life and he knows more about us and our situation than we know ourselves and so that should give us courage to carry on. with our life. We're not wandering through this world without a guide. We're not like a little sheep who's out in the wilderness with nobody overseeing it and all the pressure of life depends upon the shoulders of the sheep. Not at all. We have the Good Shepherd who watches over us, who's planning everything for us and overseeing our every situation. He sees us. At home, When I was growing up, we always had like a kind of plaque on the wall when you opened the front door. It was kind of the first thing you seen when you walked in. And it was the little statement, Christ is head of this house. The unseen guest at every meal. The silent listener to every conversation. And the point's been made there. Christ is the good shepherd. He's the head of the home. He's the head of me. He's the unseen guest that every time we sit and eat, and the home is meant to be the place where you have your meals. There, when we're maybe behind closed doors, the Lord's there. He's the guest at every meal. He's the listener to every conversation. That should both check us, that we would hold and govern ourselves wisely at all times in life, behind doors out in public. But furthermore, it should check our conversation that at all times we speak wisely and well. But not only is there to check us, it's there to give us courage. He's with us. He's with us. No matter where we go. And he knows what we need. We have a sovereign God who sees us and therefore knows what we need. And let that encourage you to face every day. And lastly, the last fact that we're going to deal with is the word cause. You see, if God sees us, it gives us a cause to worship him. I'm thankful tonight that God sees me. I'm thankful that at times when there's things we can't share with anybody else that God sees me and God knows. It doesn't mean we shouldn't sit down and pray over our troubles, anxieties, and difficulties to God. We still should pray over those things for sure. Don't rob yourself of the blessing of taking everything to the Lord in prayer and leaving it there. But understand this, God knows your problem before you ever pray it. He knows it before you ever pray it. And that must give you just a desire in your heart to worship God and thank the Lord. This is the kind of God we have. He sees everything, knows everything, far better than I do. And that's why in verse 13 here, this woman, Hagar, she says, and she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, thou God seest. It's an act of worship. She's recognizing this God sees me. She's the lightning in that fire. It says throughout this text that the angel of the Lord found her. That's very important. And again, that should cause us to worship. Verse seven, you see here's Hagar. It doesn't even say that Hagar is searching for God. There's no reference to her praying for the Lord, but verse seven says, and the angel of the Lord found her. That should cause us to worship. that God is the one who initiated the rescue mission here without even seemingly a request for it. This is the kind of good shepherd we have. It's a privilege to be saved. It's a privilege to have this awesome God to be our friend and our savior and our helper. So take those words with you tonight, thou God, seest me. Let that comfort you. Let that confirm to you that you can't. Let that give you courage and let that cause you to stand up and give him glory tonight.