And open your Bibles please to Genesis chapter 16. Genesis 16, we're in a series on Abraham and Sarah walking by faith. We started in chapter 16 last week. And we looked at Abraham and Sarah primarily. Today we turn our focus to Hagar. I'm gonna go ahead and begin with the sixth Sixth verse today of Genesis 16. This is the Word of God. And remember, when we complete it, we'll say together, the grass withers, the flower fades. But Abram said to Sarai, behold, your servants and your power, do to her as you please. And Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to shore. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I'm fleeing from my mistress, Sarah. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for a multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone, ever his hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of seeing. For she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me. Therefore, the well was called Be'er L'chai Roi. It lies between Kadesh and Be'erid. Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Let's pray. Father, we're so glad this morning that you are our great God. Father, we just asked the question, does he see? Does He see? And so, Father, we pray now that Your Spirit would work to help us understand Your Word. Father, how it applies to us here and now, we would pray. Lord, shape us. Father, shape our thinking, our convictions. Father, our words, our actions, by Your Word and Your Spirit, we pray. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Moses paints a vivid picture in Genesis 16. Hagar's a young woman, probably about the age of 20, and she's alone on a desert road, a fugitive on the run, an escaped slave. She's pregnant with the child of her master. Her future's bleak and uncertain, and right now she's tired, hot, and thirsty. When she sees a spring up ahead, her pace quickens with anticipation of the cool water touching her parched lips. Claps on a rock, she scoops the water with her hand. She drinks some, and she splashes some on her face to wash away the desert sand and the tears of a frightened, hurting young woman. Does anybody care? Her mind runs back to her master and mistress, Abram and Sarai, two supposedly godly people. Yes, she thought to herself, and she cursed the image of Sarai that ran across her mind once more. The future that had looked so bright, well, it's not a great plight to be a slave, but bearing Abram's child, she just knew special status would be attached to her. that she was wrong. Soon, Sarai's excitement about her pregnancy turned to contempt for Hagar, and her contempt for Sarai grew in equal proportion. Hagar had hoped that the old man would intervene. After all, she was carrying his son, but Abram did not. Sarah Hagar thought that she would drop from the verbal abuse, from the extra work assigned to her. Yes, with Abram there were great advantages. He was rich beyond Hagar's imagination. But Sarah's new cruelty made Hagar think only of running away. Now here she is. She's all alone. She's hurting. Who will help her? Is there any hope for her? Who cares? Let's go to the text to see the God who sees. We'll start by looking at the heart of Hagar, verse six. Again, Abram said to Sarah, behold, your servants and your power due to her as you please. And Sarah dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. In our terms today, this is a crisis pregnancy. Hagar is one of the truly poor. We define the poor to be people who have nowhere else to turn for help. If you or I are in an accident and we're taken to the hospital and we don't have our ID with us and we don't have any money, all of us still have somebody we can call to help. The truly poor in that situation has nobody they can call to help. So Hagar represents for us all the people who hurt in the world today, all the individuals who are in pain. In any group this size or at home, there are those who hurt. Some have a hurt right now that seems no one can help, no one can heal. And though you may not want to run off like Hagar, and though this morning you're surrounded by people who want to help you, who love you, you feel very much alone in your pain. Perhaps it's crossed your mind that the people around you are maybe a little bit like Abram and Sarah. They seem to have it all. Let me remind you that while all our hurts are maybe different, everybody has pain in life at some point. It comes and it goes, and it's part of the human experience in a fallen world. So the question is, when we do hurt, where do we go with the pain? when it's deep inside us, how do we get away from it? Well, let's look at help for Hagar. Verse seven, the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to shore. So who finds her? Well, it's not Abraham. He's not even looking for her. Certainly not her family. It's an all likelihood that her parents sold her into slavery. That's how she got in this predicament. I mean, she's alone until she's found by the angel of the Lord. Now, if you're reading through Genesis, this is a brand new character in the story. In fact, there's not been any angel of any sort up to this point. So just who is this angel of the Lord? Friends, we know that when we find the angel of the Lord, the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, What we have is the appearance of Jesus prior to His coming in Bethlehem and taking permanently on a human body. Hagar, like all the others who encounter the angel Lord in the Old Testament, recognize that He's God. She says as much down in verse 13. We'll see that. And so we know that when God appears to His people, He always does so in the second person of the Trinity, Jesus the Son. And so this is Jesus. who finds Hagar by the well on the desert road. Later, Isaiah will describe the coming of Jesus in Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord's anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. So here, 2,000 years before Bethlehem, Jesus finds the poor, brokenhearted Hagar in the desert. even though she's not looking for him. So just when Hagar feels utterly helpless and hopeless, help arrives. And it's Jesus himself, verse eight, and he said, Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from? And where are you going? Now, it's not like he doesn't know, all right, he's God, he knows. But he knows it's important for her to tell her story. It's important for her to have an opportunity to talk about her pain. Do you remember Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well over in John 4? That woman was ostracized by her community. She had to come and get her water in the day when nobody else would come. Jesus gave her the opportunity to tell her story as well. See, friends, this is good news. God finds us. When we hurt, Jesus desires to help us. Jesus wants us to tell Him our story, to tell exactly how we see things. In fact, that's really, when you look at it, that's what you see page after page after page in the Psalms, people telling their story. And his question to Hagar is a really helpful one for her. He wants her to think about where she's been and where she's going. Alone now, she had known a community of support, a safe place. When she was with Abraham's entourage, there was probably a thousand people part of that group. Now to be sure, her safe place there was threatened by Sarah. But you'll notice that Jesus, in addressing Hagar, affirms her status as Hagar's servant. That's sort of hard for us to imagine that God would condone the enslaving of Hagar. We do need to remember in the ancient world that slavery was a matter of economics and of war, not a racial issue like it was in our country until 160 years ago. And yes, slavery is a mark of a fallen world. We can be glad we've moved beyond that today as a nation. But for Hagar, that is the fact of her existence. And friends, it still is for many people today around the world. She would probably not have known freedom even if she'd made it back to Egypt. She would have probably given the culture of the day, only known slavery, and perhaps even prostitution to survive. So Jesus wants her to remember the security of Abraham and the bleak future that awaits her wherever she goes. And notice her answer. I am fleeing away from my mistress, Sarah. She is. She's running away from Sarah. But notice She's not running towards anything or any place. When you were a kid, did you ever contemplate running away from home? You know, did you get a bag and put a shirt and a teddy bear and a little bit of food in it and take off? At least a house or two down. But all probability, you came back home. Now why? You didn't have any place to go. Nowhere to go. Hagar's running away from Sarah. But friends in that day, there is no place for a single pregnant woman to run to. And run away from our problems will not solve them. Trying to run away from the hurt in our lives will not help. So I'll survey the Rope Organization studied men dealing with depression. So 23% of them tried to figure out their problems. 35% deal with it by watching TV. Probably not much help there. At the risk of sounding simplistic, I will tell you what will help. And that is spending time with Jesus. Telling him your story and then getting his view, his perspective, his instruction in his word. What are his instructions here? Verse nine, return to your mistress and submit to her. You know, that's not pleasant advice for Hagar to hear. That's the last thing she wants to hear. And we don't have her verbal response here. I would have to imagine that at first she grimaces. But then she thinks about it for a moment or two. She nods her head. Because after all, she really has no place to go. At least with Abraham, she has a tent to sleep in. She has food to eat. Jesus sends her back home to deal with her problems. Sometimes people leave their jobs because they want to deal with problems. Homes break up because husbands and wives don't want to expend the energy necessary to deal with problems. We have an epidemic today of young people committing suicide. because they're unable to deal with their problems. They see no way out. And Jesus says the way out is to stay with the problem, with the pain, with the hurt, and work through it with his help. Doctor has to give a painful shot to a four-year-old girl. And her face shows her anxiety and her body tenses. And she looks up at that doctor as he picks up the needle that to her looks like enough to kill an elephant. And her eyes turn to look at her father. And so does he say, Oh no, doctor, you're not going to do that. No, he takes her by the hand and he fixes his eyes on hers and confidence and calmness comes on her face. She knows she's not alone and she finds comfort, not in her father's spoken answer, but it is presence with her in the time of her pain. You know, today we reject the idea sometimes of working through our pain. We prefer to see ourselves as victims, the victims of society or our parents or whatever. I mean, everybody's a victim of somebody else or something else which has made us the way we are and we can blame them for our hurt. We're overloaded with people whose task seems to be to help us place the blame on somebody else for our problems. And if we can do that, we can sue them or we can get the government to tax them. You know, we can blame our parents for almost anything for the way we were potty trained. Just think about it. But this concept of victimization does not square with the scriptures, with the Bible. Peter has some words that would be helpful to Hagar in his first letter. This is chapter 2, verse 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you've been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his footsteps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges What's Peter saying? He's saying that suffering is what Jesus did for us. And when we suffer, when we experience pain, we're being like Jesus, who experienced pain for us when he died for us on the cross. He took the penalty for our sin for us. And then what Jesus offers us is a pain free eternity. if we accept His suffering in our place and receive Him as Savior and Lord into our lives. But be aware, even for believers in Jesus, pain is a reality in a fallen world. And to deal with our pain and not simply run away from it indicates we have faith in God that He will see us through it. In giving Hagar the command to return, Jesus is saying, Hagar, trust me. I will see you through this. So let's now see the hope for Hagar. Verse 10, the angel of the Lord also said to her, I will surely multiply your offspring so they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he should dwell over against all his kinsmen. Hagar surely familiar with the promise given to Abraham of descendants. And now she's promised She too will have a multitude of descendants. God does care about her hurt. He gives her a name for her unborn son, Ishmael. God hears. And He gives that name because God's heard her and knows her misery. And friends, let me tell you, There's not a person here today whose hurt is not known by the Lord. Everybody's hurt is known. And everybody's hurt he cares about. And to everyone he seeks to give hope. And he goes on to tell Hagar, Wadishme will be like a wild donkey of a man who will not get along with anybody. That's interesting. That doesn't seem to faze her. We'll eventually talk about this some more, but not today. Someone suggested maybe she sees just a little bit of herself in that description. For Hagar, that's down the road. Her hope is now fixed on the promise that God hears, and hope allows her to look beyond her present pain and see a brighter tomorrow. Volkov Havel was the first president of the Czech Republic after the fall of the Soviet Union. And before the revolution, he was imprisoned. And he described hope this way when he was imprisoned. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. So how does Hagar respond? Verse 13. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God of seen. For she said, truly here I've seen him who looks after me. Therefore, the well was called Be'er L'chaim Roy. It lies between Kadesh and Beret. Friends, this is Hagar's profession of faith. She believes the promise of God, the word of God. She believes the angel of the Lord is God. And she knows that he's the one who sees the hurting. She knows that he's the one who points us to the future. Knowing God sees our pain, knowing that he cares, that is comfort for us. Does Jesus care? Oh, yes, he cares. Friends, go to a Syrian refugee camp today and God sees the hurt of each person. Go to a prison in North Korea. God sees the pain. Go to inner city Atlanta. God sees the hurt. And go to the nicest homes here in Chestnut Mountain. Where somebody's hurting. and hopeless and ready to give up. And nobody knows it. And nobody else even sees the pain. Yet God sees. He's El Roy, the God who sees. Nothing's hidden from his eye. Nothing's hidden from him. It's pretty remarkable. This is the only time in the Bible anybody gives a name to God. All the other times, God gives His name. He reveals His name. He reveals Himself by sharing His names. But here, in the longest conversation God has with any woman in the Old Testament, God receives a name from an Egyptian slave named Hagar. I mean, she did not even know as she was running away along the desert road that she needed God. But God knew. And God pursued her. So Hagar found hurt and this helped. She's given hope because she knows. That God sees her. Hillary Price points out that we all have a fundamental need to be seen. What does a child say? Watch me, mommy. Watch me, daddy. Watch me. She tells a story about working in a preschool. Little three-year-old Joshua was a very active little boy. One morning, he was very, very still, very, very focused. And he built a magnificent rocket out of toilet paper rolls and yogurt tubs. And he finished just in time to go home. And everybody left, except Joshua. Finally, his mother came flying in, obviously very late. Joshua stood there so excited to see her and he holds up his rocket and he says to her several times, Mommy, look at my rocket. Look at my rocket. She never gives his rocket a first glance, let alone a second glance. Hurry up, Joshua. I'm in a hurry. Stop dawdling, Joshua. I'm in a hurry. And as they leave, he's trailing behind with his rocket. But now his shoulders are slumping, the rocket's hanging limply and dragging on the ground. It's not very magnificent anymore. It's rather worthless. William Tammy said this, you do not really understand human nature unless you know why a child in America around will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back. Why do we need to be seen? Why do we long for God to see us? Because to be seen is to be significant. To be seen is to be safe. David writes in Psalm 139, Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In Your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. When Judah is in exile, miles and miles from the promised land, and they're wondering as a nation, does God still care? Jeremiah 24, 6, I will set my eyes on them for good. Later, Zechariah 2, 8, he who touches you, touches the apple of my eye. So between verse 14 and verse 15, Hagar goes home. Verse 15. And Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Home to Sarah. Home to Abraham. How was she received? We do not know. I suspect that Abraham and Sarah knew they'd done wrong. I suspect they were glad for a second opportunity. I suspect they listened with great interest to Hagar's story and they believed her. Why? Well, Abraham named his son, Hagar's son, Ishmael, which is what Jesus instructed Hagar to name him. The only way he could have known that was he heard it from Hagar and he believed her story. And so every time Hagar hears his name, she remembers the God who hears and the God who sees the hurting. So I remind you, however she was received then, this story ultimately will not end well. Thirteen years later, we'll see how it turns out. It's not one of those, and they live happily ever after stories. But see, the only happily ever after story is really when we leave this world and enter into eternity. So what about us? What do we make of all this? Take a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of each of the characters. Some of you today, it's probably pretty easy to put yourself in Hagar's shoes. Right now, your pain, whatever it is, is great. Let me just say, friend, if that's true for you this morning, please know that Jesus cares, that He's here to help, that He's here to give you hope, that He wants to point you past today's hurt to the promise of tomorrow. And trust Him for that. Trust Him to see you through today and into tomorrow. praying as God to help you trust Him. God will see you through the hurting. We also need to put ourselves in the shoes of Abraham and Sarah. Those are not very comfortable to put on. They were thoughtless of the pain of Hagar. They were careless about her needs. They were calloused in their hearts Is that ever true of us? Do we turn our back on the pain of others? Do we ignore their needs? Maybe it's inconvenient. Maybe it's just too costly. And friends, we need to repent. We need to change. We need to ask God to soften our hearts, to open our eyes and make us helpers. It leads us to the other character in the story, Jesus. After all, we're his representatives. his ambassadors in this hurting world. He's the perfect representative for us because he knows pain. So he can identify with our pain. Now the roles are reversed. See, now we represent him. And so he wants us, after our pain, to identify with the pain of others. He wants us to see the people we're hurting for whatever reason. We can remind believers of Jesus' presence. And if somebody is not a believer, we can share with them the hope of heaven that Jesus offers to all who will turn from their sin and follow Him. The pregnant teenager. The single mother struggling to make ends meet. Husbands and wives in turmoil. Those who speak little or no English. The alcoholic. The unemployed. The drug addict. The person whose loved one is dying. The teenager who despairs of living. The old person who feels useless or they're a burden. The Christian being actively persecuted for their faith. Jesus said, as the father sent me, so send I you. We can paraphrase that as the father sees the hurting. So we must open our eyes and see the hurting. And reach out to them where they hurt. and help them and give them hope. Why is this so necessary that we care? From 1986 to 1990, Frank Reed was held hostage in Lebanon. For months at a time, Reed was blindfolded. He was living in complete darkness, were chained to a wall and kept in absolute silence. On one occasion, he was moved into another room and although he was blindfolded, he could sense others in the room. Yet for three weeks, he dared not peek out from under his blindfold. When he did, he discovered he was chained next to Terry Anderson and Tom Sutherland. Now though he was beaten, he was made ill, he was tormented, what he felt most of all was the lack of caring. And here's what he said. Nothing I did mattered to anyone. I began to realize how withering it is to exist with not a single expression of caring around me. Or in one overriding fact, caring is a powerful force. If no one cares, you are truly alone. You know, when Israelites were suffering as slaves in Egypt, we read in Exodus 2.25, God saw the people of Israel And God knew. Zacchaeus was hiding in plain sight in a sycamore tree. And Jesus saw him. Does Jesus care? Oh yes, He cares. I know He cares. Hallelujah! What a Savior! Hallelujah! What a friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving. He's with me to the end. God sees us always, forever. Amen. Father, we're so grateful to you that you're the God who sees, you're the God who hears. Father, what an amazing God. And so, Lord, today we pray for anybody here that's fighting pain in their life, or anybody listening this morning, fighting pain, that you would help them to know that you care. Father, the depth of your care is seen in Christ coming to earth for us. Father, and give them your presence, Lord, and your promises as they go through whatever that pain is. And Father, forgive us when we have not cared. Forgive us when we have seen, but not seen. Father, help us to turn from our sin. Father, remember that we are those who carry out your ongoing ministry here on this earth. So Father, find us to be faithful, to be looking. Help us to see. To respond with love, Father, to believers. Father, respond by sharing hope with those who are not yet believers, we would pray. Father, is anybody here that's not yet a believer? Lord, show them the depth of your love that Christ showed when he came and suffered on the cross for us. Draw them to that love, we pray. And this we ask in Jesus' name, amen.