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Good morning.

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How y'all doing today?

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I'm doing very well. Thank you so much.

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Hey, if you have made it here

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to church on the high holy day of Super Bowl,

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Congratulations!

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No, but really we want to welcome everybody. If you're joining us here in our sanctuary for the very first time or if you're

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watching us online for the first time, welcome. We're so glad you guys are here to worship with us at Hosanna.

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I am Pastor Nathan and in today's study we are going to be reminded of the reality

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that God not only sees everything, but he sees us.

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He sees everything in our life. He sees every challenge, every difficulty, every success, every thought,

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every intention of our hearts. God sees all of it.

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And there's many people that have experienced this in their lives, but have you ever felt

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abandoned or alone or forgotten in a situation? Maybe you're in a very difficult scenario and you're like,

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is anybody aware of what's going on? Does anybody care? Or the greater temptation, does God even know?

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Does God even care? Maybe your circumstances have gone from good to bad and you're like, where is God in all of this?

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You know, maybe it's a situation where things are happening to you, but maybe you've been a part of contributing to it as well,

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and yet you're tempted to say it's everybody else's fault and therefore God doesn't like me or God is mad at me.

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You know, when we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, we're so often tempted to not even consider

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why God might have us in those difficult circumstances or we fail to consider how our own wrongdoing might be contributing

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to the scenario even in the face of legitimate wrongdoing to us by others.

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And really the idea is, the question is, do we trust God? Do we trust that He knows best in every situation?

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And do we go to Him first in our difficulties to get His counsel, to get His direction?

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Well, the story we look at today is about a woman who's in the middle of all of that.

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This woman is named Hagar, the Egyptian slave that we were introduced to in the beginning of Genesis 16,

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and we found her running from a difficult situation only to be told today, we're going to see, to return to that situation.

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You know, when we find ourselves in situations of great difficulty, whether it's brought on by ourselves or brought on by others,

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we have to fight against that temptation to let the feeling of being alone, of being forgotten, to be abandoned,

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govern how we respond to that situation because the reality is that God sees.

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God knows, and when He intervenes in those situations, we have to be ready to submit ourselves to Him

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and His direction, even when it's hard to do so because His direction, His leading, is always the right thing to do.

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But before we get into that this morning, we're going to pray, or, yeah, we're going to pray too, but we're going to worship

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because God is holy. God is omnipotent, He is almighty.

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The Bible tells us that He knows how many hairs are on your head, that we are the apple of His eye,

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meaning that He is so intently staring into our life because He loves us so much that we're literally reflected in His eye.

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It's just a beautiful thing to know that God is with us no matter what the circumstances are,

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but the lesson we always got to learn is, God, we got to follow You no matter what.

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Let's pray. God, we love You so much.

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We thank You, God, that even in our difficult circumstances, You are there.

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Lord, that as children of God, really for anybody that lives in this world, there is nothing that happens that escapes Your notice.

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And yet, God, in situations, both good situations and bad situations, Lord,

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we're tempted to revert to our own understanding on how to deal with things.

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Sometimes, God, when the situations are difficult, we just want to run.

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But, Lord, doing so might put us in a place where we're not learning what You're trying to teach us.

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And so, God, help us to be people who go to You first, who seek You first.

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Lord, help us to be people that when You step into our lives, especially in our difficult situations,

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that, God, we listen to You in Your direction, even when we don't understand it, even when it seems hard,

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because, God, Your way is the right way.

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And really, that's what we're trying to do.

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Because, God, Your way is the right way.

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And really, that's what it means, Lord, to walk in faith, to trust You in all things, God.

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And so, we want to worship You for being our God, for being almighty, omnipotent, for knowing all things, and yet You still love us.

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And, God, we thank You so much for that, because it is Your love that has changed our lives, has changed our eternity.

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And we want to change every moment of our lives until the time we are standing before Your face.

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We love You so much, and we thank You. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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We are going to be in Genesis, chapter 16 this morning, looking at verses 7 through 15.

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But I want to start with some background to bring us up to the story.

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And the first thing I want to start sharing is about the concept of slavery in the Old Testament.

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You know, there's times where we read through the Bible and we see that, especially in the Old Testament,

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slaves were still around in that sense of serving the people in Israel and other nations.

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And, of course, we have our modern understandings of what slavery is.

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And so, when we hear this word, it can hit our hearts really like, well, how come that's in the Bible?

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And why does that exist? And why does God allow that?

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And so, I want to give a brief background to that so we understand the context of this woman Hagar,

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who was a slave in Abram's household.

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Now, we do need to understand that slavery in ancient times was a very complex

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and a very different thing to how we understand slavery in our modern context.

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In our modern context, we understand slavery in the concept of chattel slavery.

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When we think of what happened in America in the early years of America

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and really what's happening today in a lot of places around the world,

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chattel slavery is the idea of when someone is tricked or forced or kidnapped into servanthood or slavery

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with no pay, no rights, no voice, nothing.

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And that's what we understand in our modern context of slavery.

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And so, it's easy for us when we read in the Bible that it says, you know, Abram and Sarai had slaves,

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we think that's wrong because chattel slavery is a very terrible thing

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and it's a big stain on the history of our country.

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However, in the Old Testament, slavery was a greatly different concept,

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especially within the nation of Israel and God's people.

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In fact, in Exodus chapter 21 verse 16, when the law was being instituted,

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God actually told the people that it is against the law to steal people.

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They actually said that people stealing or person stealing is in violation

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and so they said if you stole or kidnapped a person and then tried to sell them into slavery,

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it was the death penalty.

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That's how God felt about slavery in that context, chattel slavery.

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But like I said, in Old Testament times, especially in the nation of Israel,

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this idea of slavery was much different.

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We might look at it today and say it's very similar, not the same as, but similar to employment.

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And I know a lot of you are going, no, it's the same thing, my job is very terrible, right?

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But there was a similar concept to it.

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It's also, in the Old Testament, slavery was the concept of being a debtor, right?

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So that's why Proverbs 22, 7 says the borrower is slave to the lender

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because there's a lot of us today that are drowning in credit card debt, right?

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And we can't just go, no, I'm not going to pay it because then they will wreck our lives

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with reporting us to collections and whatnot.

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But in Old Testament times, people existed in what was called an agrarian society, right?

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There were no grocery stores, you couldn't go to Aldi, there was no Amazon.

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It was basically you had to grow your own food, and if you were a person who was so poor

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that you didn't have your own land, you didn't have people to work the land,

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you were literally facing a situation where you were probably going to starve to death.

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And so what would happen is people would often go to landowners

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or people who had land and said, hey, I would like to make myself your slave,

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and in return you will give me shelter, and in return you'll give me food.

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And in many cases they would even get paid for their service.

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And so that was the concept of slavery in the Old Testament, specifically in Israel.

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People would put themselves into slavery to pay off debts.

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I owe you a great amount of money, so I'm going to come and work for you to be your servant,

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and they would call that slavery.

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Now obviously in an ideal world, slavery would neither be an option or a necessity,

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but God did allow it due to the socioeconomic conditions that existed in Old Testament times.

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And really in Israel it was allowed for an overall basic reason, to help the poor survive.

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That was the concept behind it.

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And so yes, even in Old Testament times there was a lot of bad that took place in slavery,

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especially in pagan countries and stuff, and there was a lot of abuse and all that kind of stuff with it.

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But overall, specifically, especially within the laws of Israel,

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it wasn't like our modern concept of slavery.

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However, regardless of how a slave ended up becoming a slave,

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they were owned by the master, just like we are owned by the credit card companies today.

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And so they were considered property, but they still had rights.

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They still had a voice in many cases, but they were still owned.

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So they could be traded, they could be given away as gifts, they could be sold and bought, much like property.

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So that's the slavery background here as we get into the story of Hagar,

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who the Bible tells us is an Egyptian slave in the household of Abram.

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Specifically, she is a servant of Sarai, who is the first lady of the family there.

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And Hagar had entered into the slavery in Abram's household, likely in Genesis 12 when he had gone down to Egypt.

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And if you don't remember the story, there was a famine in Canaan.

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Everybody would go down to Egypt because it was so lush and so green there, the Nile Delta Valley.

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So they would go down there to live and eat while the famine was taking place up in the land of Canaan.

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Abram went there, said, wife, please lie to everybody and tell them you're my sister so they don't kill me and take you,

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because she was a woman of legendary beauty and he was worried.

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Well, Pharaoh, the leader of the land, took her anyways, right?

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And then it tells us in Genesis 12, 16, it says he treated Abram well because of her,

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and Abram acquired flocks and herds, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels.

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So Abram was given all of this stuff in return for what Pharaoh thought was his sister, almost like a dowry in a sense.

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And that is likely where Hagar came from and entered the family.

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And then, of course, we know in the story that God sent severe plagues on the household of Pharaoh.

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Pharaoh called Abram in, Nathan translation, what's up, dude, why'd you do this to me?

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And then he said, leave. And it tells us there in Genesis 12 that Abram left with his wife and all he had,

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which included the male and female slaves that he was given.

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And so Hagar, again, being likely one of these people, that's how she got to the family.

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So between Genesis 12 and where we're here at in Genesis 16, a number of years have passed, 10 plus years likely,

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and Hagar had been with Abram's family this whole time.

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We don't know how long she was specifically Sarai's servant, but it could have been much of that time.

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But the point is that Hagar was in this environment where she was likely treated well, taken care of, fed, clothed,

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and she had somewhat of a prestigious position being the mistress or the servant, the slave of the head, the first lady of the household.

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But really the point of all of that is that for 10 plus years she had been hearing about Abram's god.

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As he would build altars, as he was doing the stuff with Lot, and all these different stories we've been reading about,

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Hagar was likely around for all of that, and so she had heard a lot about this god that Abram served.

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And she would hear about that with the context of all the Egyptian gods that she knew from her homeland.

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Now again, as we studied through the first part of the chapter, in a human attempt to make God's promises happen,

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Sarai, who was barren, turned to a very common practice in those times where it said if the wife of the household,

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the first wife, was barren and she was unable to produce children for her husband,

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she could turn to her servant and give her servant to her husband, and he would sleep with her,

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she would bear a child, and that child would then be considered the child of the first wife.

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And so they did this. We don't know if Hagar had any say in the process.

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A lot of people go, well of course she didn't, she was a slave.

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But again, in those days, slaves did have somewhat of a voice, and so we don't know if there was any conversation.

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We don't know if Hagar is like, well of course, that's what servants do in this day and age.

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We don't know that, so we can't assume the most negative aspect of that.

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But in doing this, making her the wife of her husband, Sarai lifted Hagar from a very low status of a slave,

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of a servant, to what would be known as wife number two in the hierarchy of the family.

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This was done so that the baby she would give birth to could legally be the heir of the family, right?

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She had to be a wife if she was just a concubine, that child would not qualify to be heir.

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And so this created this situation that we studied about last week, where there was difficulties that came up out of this.

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We don't know anything about Sarai and Hagar's interaction, their relationship prior to this,

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but what we do know is that Sarai was still wife number one, Hagar was now wife number two,

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and then this problem came up when Hagar got pregnant.

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It tells us in the word there that when Hagar got pregnant, she got really prideful, really puffed up,

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really arrogant about the situation, and she would look at Sarai as contemptible.

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The word there meant she looked at Sarai as worthless, as useless, looked at her as trash, right?

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So Hagar, who was wife number two, is going, wife number one, you're trash.

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I should be wife number one, because look, I can get pregnant.

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I can bear children for the man, the head of the household.

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And then Sarai got super mad, chewed out her husband, not unusual, and then now that, and she goes,

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she goes, husband, I'm not mad that she's pregnant, per se, that was the plan,

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but she goes, when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her.

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So what Sarai was mad about was Hagar's attitude, that she was just so haughty,

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and really in that sense, putting Sarai down.

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Now, Abram then dodged responsibility for all of it, like Neo in The Matrix,

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and then it says that Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away.

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Now that is the hinge of what we're going to be looking at today,

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that Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away.

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Last week, I made a comment at the end of the study that there might have been some type of domestic violence going on here,

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and as I dug in and studied that word mistreated,

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there are definitely specific nuances to this word that give us context.

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The word in the Hebrew is nah, and it means to be bowed down,

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like prostrate before someone that you respect.

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It also means to be wretched, or to be emaciated, or afflicted, or oppressed.

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The idea here is when it says Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away,

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Sarai began to aggressively put Hagar in her place.

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She got very aggressively vocal with her as the idea.

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It's an emotional affliction where she would put her down,

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where she would humiliate her, where she would say things about her

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that forced the reality of the hierarchy into her life.

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And so Hagar was very proudful in treating Sarai contemptible,

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and then really what Sarai did when her husband said,

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it's your fault, your problem, you deal with it,

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she started treating Hagar the same or worse as Hagar was treating her.

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And so we might call that verbal abuse today.

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You know, when somebody is verbally abusive,

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that's how Sarai was treating Hagar in response to how Hagar treated her.

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So at the very end of verse 6, we read that Hagar then ran away from the situation,

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likely in the direction of her homeland Egypt because she fled south into the Negev desert,

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toward the desert of Shir, and God is going to step in and ask her,

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what are you doing? This isn't a good idea, Hagar.

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You're out here in the desert all alone, you're pregnant.

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One, you could lose your baby because this is a dangerous place to be by yourself.

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Two, Hagar could have been abducted, she could have been raped,

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she could have been brought back in and resold as a slave somewhere.

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And because she fled, the idea, the indication is that she fled secretly.

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And so it might have been under the cover of night,

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it might have been a situation where she didn't have all the supplies for the journey,

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she just kind of took off. And so now she was in a very difficult place for her own safety.

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Mercifully, she made it to a spring of water,

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and that's where we're going to pick up the story in verse 7.

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But I want us to be kind of putting ourselves into Hagar's mindset, right?

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As she fled, as she was running, could she have been thinking things like,

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does this God that Abram speaks about, does he know my situation?

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Does he know how Sarai was treating me? Does he know about it?

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Does he care about any of it? Is he looking? Why is this happening?

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If he's such a true and great God, right?

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She might have been thinking, the gods in Egypt never did this kind of stuff to me, right?

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She was a slave in Egypt too, probably.

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But she has this mindset of just emotional distress as she's running.

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So now in verse 7 of Genesis 16, we pick up the story.

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The angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness,

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the spring on the way to Shur.

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Now, for those who like the maps and stuff,

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Shur is the desert that exists between Egypt here and Israel up here.

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There's this whole desert region that's kind of in the north part of Sinai,

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the Sinai Peninsula, and this was what was called the Shur Desert.

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So as you went south from Israel, you got into the Negev Desert,

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and then you went all the way through into what was called the Desert of Shur.

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So the idea is that she was following the northern route all the way back to Egypt,

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and then she found this spring, this natural spring of water.

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But it says the angel of the Lord found her.

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What does it imply when we say that somebody found somebody else?

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It implies that one person was lost and somebody else was looking for them, right?

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The angel of the Lord found her.

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You see, we have to understand, especially in times of difficulty,

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when we're going, am I abandoned, am I forgotten,

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God is the one who comes after us,

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not necessarily us going after him, especially in times of difficulty.

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There's a lot of us who, when things get really tough,

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our natural reaction is to want to run, avoid conflict, not deal with it, right?

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We want to get out of the situation, and we don't often naturally

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just immediately turn to God and say, God, what do you want me to do?

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Give me counsel, why is this situation happening?

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Help me understand. We just run.

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But we have to understand that no matter where we try to run,

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no matter how far we try to run from anything,

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whether it's difficulties, legitimate difficulties, or illegitimate difficulties,

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God is still there.

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And when it comes to dealing with difficult situations,

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God is always going to be right there with us, finding us,

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so that he could then lead us to do the right thing in those situations that glorify him,

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and those things in the situations that are going to be best for us.

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So if you're trying to hide from God, you're going to lose,

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because he is the universal champion of hide and seek, okay?

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God will always find you.

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Now that word found is very interesting,

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because it means to succeed in reaching or arriving at a point in time or space.

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The idea here is when it says the angel of the Lord found her,

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it wasn't that the Lord was like, where'd she go, where'd she go?

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It's the idea that God showed up in Hagar's life,

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or you can put it this way, God was already there precisely at the moment

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that Hagar needed him to be there.

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God didn't show up in Abram's camp, in her life in that sense.

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God didn't show up during her mistreatment of Sarai.

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God didn't show up during Sarai's mistreatment of her.

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It was after she fled, after she was some distance into the desert,

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that God showed up, and the reason was because it was the exact point in time,

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and Hagar was exactly in the state, the frame of mind,

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for this lesson that she needed to learn to be learned.

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And again, we gotta understand too, when we go, God, why haven't you showed up yet?

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God, why aren't you here?

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Or when we're running and then God shows up and you're like,

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I didn't want you to show up.

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God makes no mistakes.

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There are no consequences with God.

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We might see things as consequences, but God is omnipotent, he is almighty,

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he knows all things, right?

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So there's no consequence.

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God wasn't out for a stroll in the desert, and he was like,

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whoa, Hagar, how'd you get here?

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He was exactly in the time and the moment that Hagar needed.

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And it's just, God knows everything.

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We can't forget that.

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God knows everything, God knows when and where and how to approach us,

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and he really, he tells Hagar as much.

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Look at verse 8.

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So the angel of the Lord finds her, and he says,

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

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

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Now, I want to address real quick who or what the angel of the Lord is,

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because I know some of you are in here is like,

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is he just going to pass that by and not say anything about that?

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And so here you go.

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If you want a really in-depth study on who this angel of the Lord is,

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or might be, go to BibleThinker.org.

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Pastor Mike Winger did a full-length study just dealing on answering this question.

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And it was in a series he did, Jesus and the Old Testament.

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I think it's the fourth video.

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So if you want a full Bible study on this,

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because it really can be a full Bible study, go look that up.

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But for our time here, to answer questions like this,

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the Bible is the best explainer of the Bible.

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Okay, so when you look at something in the Bible,

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and you go, what is that, what does that mean, who is that,

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the best place to go is throughout scripture to find out

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where this might be identified and clarified.

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And so what we find throughout scripture is right here in Genesis,

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right here in Genesis 16, it's going to tell us in verse 13

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at the end of the story that Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her.

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Well, here in verse 8, it tells us, he said,

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Hagar, Slaver, Sarai, so on and so forth.

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Well, who is he that is speaking to her?

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Well, you go back to verse 7, it tells us it was the angel of the Lord

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that found her at the spring.

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So just here in Genesis 16, we see the connection that the angel of the Lord

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is the Lord who is speaking to her.

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The Lord who is speaking to her is God.

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So this is what people call a theophany, right?

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It is a manifestation of God that is tangible to the human senses, right?

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There are times where people heard or saw something

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and they were aware it was God, not always in a human form.

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Sometimes it was a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.

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Sometimes it was that oven and that torch we talked about,

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and other times it's a burning bush.

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But it's a manifestation of God that the human senses can perceive.

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Some people look at this and they call it a Christophany,

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which is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ,

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who is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity.

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And there are a lot of reasons behind that possibility

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that we don't have time to get into.

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But for the sake of our study, the angel of the Lord,

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it's definitely God that is appearing to her, okay?

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So Hagar was found by and was speaking to the Lord God himself.

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So he says to her a couple things here,

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opening his address, that are telling Hagar,

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yes, I know about you and your situation.

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First thing he does is he uses her name, right?

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He just, this angel appears, and first thing he does is say,

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Hagar, I know who you are. I know your name.

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Second thing he says is slave of Sarai, pointing out who she served,

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pointing out who, what her place was in the idea of what she had been

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led to or called to or the situation she found herself in.

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So in case Hagar was traveling and going, does God even see me?

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Does God even know anything about me?

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He's like, yo, Hagar, slave of Sarai, I know all about you.

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I know everything about your situation.

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Now I believe he brought up the slave of Sarai part,

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because remember, she had been raised up to be wife number two of Abram, right?

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And that position is what caused Hagar to get all puffed up and everything,

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because hey, I could get pregnant, you can't do that,

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so I should be wife number one.

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But God reminds her that she is the slave of Sarai.

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I believe that was possibly in response to her own prideful mistreatment of Sarai,

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where she was the one that mistreated Sarai first.

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And God is subtly reminding her of this as he's about to address her in this whole situation.

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Hey, Sarai, I just want to start with reminding you

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that you're not completely innocent in this scenario, right?

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That you are still the servant of Sarai.

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Now he's not reminding her of this in the sense of like,

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Hagar, you're just a dirty slave, right?

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That's not what he's saying, but he's indicating what I see here

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is that you lifted yourself up way higher than Sarai did within the hierarchy of the household,

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and then you treated her badly first, you mistreated her first.

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This is not to justify Sarai's mistreatment of her,

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it's just to remind her that there's two sides to this situation here,

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and you're not completely innocent.

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Because remember, God says, where are you going and where are you coming from?

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And she's like, I'm running from my mistress.

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The idea is that she's bad and I'm fleeing that, and that's what's going on.

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It's one of those situations that come up a lot of times in counseling,

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where I might be dealing with a couple, talking to a couple.

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And of course, when couples are having a very difficult scenario of arguments or conflict in their marriage,

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it's all about they're the only one that's wrong.

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And the other side goes, they're the only one that's wrong.

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And that is the root of the problems, that nothing I've done is wrong,

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but you are responding improperly, you are responding incorrectly, right?

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And so often, the best way to lead to healing in those types of situations is to say,

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stop focusing on what the other person is or isn't doing, let's deal with you.

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Let's deal with your error.

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Let's deal with you owning, taking responsibility for what you did,

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before we try and go deal with what they are doing.

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And when both sides of an equation start doing that,

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there is a grace and a mercy that enters into the situation of like,

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okay, I'm wrong too, how do we fix everything that's going on?

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This is what I see happening here with Hagar as God is reminding her,

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you are a slave to Sarai, okay?

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Now, God then asks her these interesting questions,

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where have you come from and where are you going?

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Really, to summarize that, God is like, what are you doing?

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Has God ever showed up in your response to a situation,

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whether you are running or throwing a temper tantrum or something,

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and God shows up and goes, what are you doing?

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It's the most kind way to say, you are acting dumb right now.

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You are acting up, you are throwing a fit, you are acting out.

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Why are you out here? Why are you running is what he is saying.

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We have to understand when God asks a question, it's not because he doesn't know.

401
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He knows that you are out here, you are out there,

402
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:25,680
and when God asks a question, it's not because he doesn't know.

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00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:27,680
He knows everything.

404
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:34,680
When God asks a question, it's because he wants us to think through what he is asking us.

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So he says, Hagar, where have you come from?

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Think about that. Where are you going? Think about that.

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And I believe the intent was for Hagar to go, okay, where have I come from?

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Think about it, as you are out here in the desert,

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next to a spring just so you could get some water.

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00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:59,680
Okay, you came from a place where you lived, where you served, where you worked,

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where you are a slave, yes, but you have been taken care of for 10 plus years at this point.

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You get to be the servant to the first lady of the house.

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And again, we have to be able to go, oh, but she is a slave.

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We have to be able to understand the context, the difference of that in those times,

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to understand why God is asking her these questions and the conclusion he is trying to get her to come to.

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Now, when he said, where are you going and where have you come from,

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her answer was essentially, I don't know what I am doing.

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I am just running from a bad situation.

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And so as she is thinking about it, she is like, yes, I have got caught up in this plan of my mistress.

420
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It led to this horrible mistreatment of me.

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00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:51,680
But if I am honest, I kind of started the mistreatment first.

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Now, that doesn't justify Sarah's actions, but again, Hagar, focus on what you did.

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Take responsibility for your actions first.

424
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And then where am I going?

425
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,680
Well, I don't know. I didn't think about it. I didn't plan very well.

426
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I am out here in the desert by myself.

427
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:15,680
And really the implication of that for us is before you ran,

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before you decided how you are going to deal with the situation on your own counsel,

429
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,680
did you seek the Lord? Did you ask him what he wanted you to do?

430
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,680
Did you stop to think maybe I am in this situation,

431
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,680
maybe God has allowed me to be in this situation because he wants me to learn something.

432
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,680
He is trying to mold or hone my character.

433
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:45,680
But instead, we will be running somewhere, doing whatever, and God is like, where are you going?

434
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,680
Do you even know what your plan is?

435
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,680
Do you think that this plan is going to benefit you?

436
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,680
Because sometimes when we just flee without thinking about it or just trying to avoid a situation,

437
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:03,680
we can find ourselves avoiding one bad situation to put ourselves in a worse situation.

438
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,680
And we have to be very careful about doing that.

439
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,680
Because the real need we have in a bad situation is not to escape.

440
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:16,680
It is to seek the Lord and to be obedient to what he is telling us to do,

441
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,680
because his way is the only right way always.

442
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:22,680
So, verse 9.

443
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,680
He says, where are you going?

444
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:27,680
She goes, I don't know, I am just running.

445
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,680
And then the angel of the Lord said to her, go back to your mistress and submit to her authority.

446
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:38,680
The angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your offspring and there will be too many to count.

447
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:41,680
Now this is a difficult verse for some people.

448
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,680
It was a difficult verse for me to wrestle with because if she was in this situation

449
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:49,680
where she is being verbally abused and mistreated,

450
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,680
why on earth would God tell her to go back to that?

451
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,680
Right? That is a hard question.

452
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,680
And it doesn't say why.

453
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,680
So we have to speculate based upon things we know about the culture, the time,

454
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:05,680
God's character and all this type of stuff.

455
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,680
And one of the first places is when we read the stories that come after this,

456
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:17,680
there is no scriptural indication of any kind that Sarai continued to mistreat Hagar.

457
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:19,680
There is none.

458
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,680
So we can't assume that God was saying go back into the situation

459
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,680
where you are going to continue to be mistreated and verbally abused.

460
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,680
Now it also doesn't say that didn't happen, right?

461
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,680
But the assumption is we can't fill in blanks that it doesn't tell us.

462
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:39,680
And then on top of that, when he says go back,

463
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:42,680
I would think, because this is what I would do,

464
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:45,680
but God don't you know I was mistreated there?

465
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,680
But God, you know, this person, they wronged me, they did these terrible things to me.

466
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:51,680
They deserve to be punished.

467
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:53,680
Why don't you go deal with them first?

468
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,680
Why don't you take care of them and what they did to me?

469
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,680
And again, I think God, when he sees these situations,

470
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:04,680
knowing both what is happening, what has happened and what will happen,

471
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:10,680
his spirit is always the one that is saying look, there are two sides to this problem.

472
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:13,680
And we are dealing with you.

473
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:14,680
Not the other person.

474
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:18,680
We have to trust God to deal with the other person.

475
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,680
God is dealing with us when he is talking to us.

476
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,680
And we need to stay there and say okay, what did I do wrong?

477
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:29,680
How did I contribute?

478
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:31,680
What have I done in this situation?

479
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:34,680
Because what Sarah did was indeed wrong.

480
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,680
But Hagar was no innocent player in this scenario.

481
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:41,680
The way she treated Sarah is contemptible

482
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,680
as inferior, that was mistreatment as well.

483
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:48,680
The attitude implies verbal abuse on her part to Sarah,

484
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:50,680
who is the first lady of the house.

485
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:55,680
Now, God always prefers us in our relationships one another to seek peace.

486
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,680
Not to run, to seek peace, to seek reconciliation.

487
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:00,680
That is always the goal.

488
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:02,680
It is not always possible, I understand that.

489
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,680
But that is what our Lord wants us to do, to seek peace.

490
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:09,680
Because what did he do when we were his enemy?

491
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,680
He sought peace with us.

492
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,680
He went and laid down his life that we would be reconciled to him.

493
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:19,680
That example of love is what God wants us to emulate as his people.

494
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,680
Now, are there times and situations where it is time to go?

495
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,680
Where separation might be necessary for a time or those types of things?

496
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:31,680
Yes, I do believe that happens.

497
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:35,680
But when God says so, does that make sense?

498
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,680
If God says, hey, I need you to step out for a while,

499
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,680
then God is telling you to do that and do that.

500
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:42,680
But that is not what is happening in Hagar's situation.

501
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:45,680
She just decided on her own to run away.

502
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,680
So he tells her to go back to her mistress and submit to her authority.

503
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:55,680
That word submit there is very interesting because here you got Sarah mistreated Hagar.

504
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:58,680
And then God says, go back to her and submit.

505
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,680
The root word for both of those is exactly the same.

506
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:05,680
The root word for both of those is exactly the same.

507
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:08,680
Very interesting, right?

508
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,680
But in Sarah's situation, it was Sarah mistreating her,

509
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,680
forcing her into a low situation, humiliating her.

510
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:22,680
Here, as God is telling Hagar to go back and submit to her authority,

511
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,680
it means to place yourself into a low state.

512
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:33,680
What he is telling Hagar is she humiliated you, and that was wrong,

513
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,680
but you humiliated her first, so you are both wrong in this situation.

514
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:44,680
And this is what I am telling you to do to really to fix it.

515
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,680
Go back and now humble yourself under her authority.

516
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,680
You are both being prideful and stupid, right?

517
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,680
But you are her slave, she is the first lady of the house.

518
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:03,680
That is the reality of the situation, so I want you to go back and humble yourself before her.

519
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:09,680
And really what is unsaid here, but I believe God is implying this, is I am going to deal with her.

520
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:15,680
You do what I am telling you to do, you let me handle the other person.

521
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:21,680
And if we did more of that in our troubles, our friendships, our relationships, our marriages,

522
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,680
more of that, I think we would just see more peace.

523
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:32,680
We would see more healing, we would see more just God restoring and reconciling things the way he desires to.

524
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:40,680
But we could be so just holding on to, I have been wronged and I need justice.

525
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,680
And I often remind myself when I am feeling that way about a situation,

526
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:51,680
that if God said that to me, I would be dead.

527
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:56,680
If God was like, I need justice, you broke my law, boom, you are done.

528
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:06,680
But that is not what God did. God said grace, mercy, patience, long suffering, kindness, gentleness, right?

529
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:10,680
This is what God gave to me and so I want to be able to give that to others.

530
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:19,680
Now sometimes what that means is that God will say, hey, I want you to go back to a situation you otherwise want to run from.

531
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:27,680
I want you to go back into a situation where you are quite honestly just as wrong as they are.

532
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:35,680
But when it comes to submitting to authority, I have placed that authority there to mold and shape you.

533
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:41,680
And so I want you to go back and humble yourself in that so that I could then continue to do the work in your life I am doing

534
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:47,680
and I want you to trust me with the work I am doing in their life.

535
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:53,680
And that is really what it comes down to. Trust me, God says, not your own wisdom.

536
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,680
Trust me and my plans and my leading.

537
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:05,680
And that is really what we need in these difficult situations to seek the Lord first and then to submit to his authority.

538
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:13,680
And we don't learn those things. We don't learn how to do that when our first reaction is to run from a situation.

539
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,680
When he hasn't said, I need you to step out and separate for a while.

540
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,680
And then we go, but God, you don't understand.

541
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:26,680
And that is another one I think God goes, say that again and think about it.

542
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,680
God, you don't understand.

543
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:32,680
You thinking about it?

544
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:41,680
God, omnipotent, all-knowing, creator of everything, the knower of how many hairs are on your head,

545
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,680
the knower of your thoughts and the intentions of your heart, I don't understand.

546
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,680
That is an impossibility.

547
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:53,680
And so we go, okay God, you understand. I don't understand.

548
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:55,680
Help me to understand.

549
00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:05,680
Now there are some people who never really grow in the Lord because they just have this habit of running from difficult situations when God hasn't said to.

550
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,680
And again, we have to go, God, is there something that you have me in this situation for?

551
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:16,680
Now again, of course, I'm not talking about a situation where like your life is in danger.

552
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,680
Pray, but seek safety.

553
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:34,680
But these difficult situations where the person isn't treating you nice or talking to you nice or yelling at you or being this type of mistreatment that Sarah is doing and Hagar did to her, God, what do you want me to do?

554
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,680
Some people, they had problems with their parents as a teen and so they just learned how to rebel.

555
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:41,680
And that's how they respond to everything in their life.

556
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:47,680
Sometimes people have conflict in their marriage and they develop the habit of, I'm just going to bail.

557
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:51,680
I'm just going to run. Guys, we can be especially good with this, right?

558
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,680
We process things differently, right? So things get heated.

559
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,680
Sometimes we shut down because we have to think everything through before we say anything, right?

560
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,680
But we'll say things like, I'm done with this conversation and leave.

561
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,680
And what does that do? It just makes her mad.

562
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:17,680
You know, it's like, we've got to learn how these things work together so that we pursue these things in a kind way as God would have us do.

563
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:25,680
Some people join a church and then they don't get along with some people or the church doesn't do things the way they want them to do and so they quit.

564
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:28,680
They leave. I'm done with this.

565
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:35,680
Sometimes people go and seek counseling for a situation, but the counselor is not on my side.

566
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:37,680
I don't like what they said, so they stop going to counseling.

567
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:40,680
It's just bail, bail, bail.

568
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:50,680
And that's not what God wants and you're definitely not going to learn the great lessons God has for you by immediately removing yourself from every difficult situation.

569
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:53,680
There are lessons that God wants to teach us.

570
00:42:54,680 --> 00:43:02,680
There are lessons that God is bringing into our lives through being in submission to the authority structures that he has placed around us in our lives.

571
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:07,680
And oftentimes those positions are to smooth out our own rough edges.

572
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:12,680
We always think that we're the perfect ones who never do anything wrong.

573
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:17,680
And God's going, nah, you're messed up too.

574
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:23,680
And so some of you today may be in trying situations.

575
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:26,680
You may have a situation in your life.

576
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:32,680
Right now as I'm talking you're going, oh yeah, this is the one I'm in and gosh, I just I have bailed or I want to bail.

577
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:35,680
I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

578
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:44,680
And I would suggest you to consider that maybe you haven't submitted yourself to God's direction yet and that's why things haven't been improving.

579
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:51,680
Maybe you've heard God's direction, but you're not doing it and that is not submitting to God's direction.

580
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,680
The way of obedience is hard.

581
00:43:55,680 --> 00:44:00,680
It's difficult to to lay our life down, to submit ourselves, to humble ourselves.

582
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:02,680
It's hard to do.

583
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:07,680
But I can tell you this with with absolute assurance, the way of disobedience is harder.

584
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,680
The way of disobedience is even more difficult and leads to more discord.

585
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,680
So verse 11.

586
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,680
We saw how he said, this is what I want you to do to go back.

587
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:22,680
He then tells her like, I'm going to bless you.

588
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:24,680
Right. This is verse 10.

589
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:25,680
Actually, I'm going to bless you.

590
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:33,680
It's really interesting because the blessing he gives her is very similar to part of the blessing he gave Abram.

591
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,680
Right. Abram, your offspring are going to be too many to count.

592
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:39,680
And he tells her the same thing.

593
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:47,680
The idea here is God saying, look, follow me, follow my direction, do what I'm telling you to do, because I have blessing for you when you follow my leading.

594
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,680
Here she is risking the life of her baby out in the desert.

595
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:54,680
And God's like, this is not the plan.

596
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,680
This is this isn't going to be good for you.

597
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:59,680
This is going to lead to even worse situations.

598
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,680
I want you to go back and submit yourself to my authority by submitting to the authority of Sarai.

599
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:05,680
And I'm going to bless your kids.

600
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:08,680
Nobody else in scripture got this promise.

601
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:13,680
No other woman has ever gotten this promise as far as scripture is concerned, except Hagar.

602
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,680
So verse 11, the angel, the Lord said to her, you have conceived and you will have a son.

603
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,680
You will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.

604
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:25,680
You know what it didn't say there.

605
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:28,680
It doesn't say God heard her.

606
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:30,680
It doesn't say God heard her.

607
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:34,680
You know what it didn't say there. It doesn't say God heard her prayer.

608
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:40,680
It said God heard her cry of affliction.

609
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,680
Hang on to that people.

610
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,680
Sometimes we don't cry out to the Lord because we're just so confused and so hurt and so overwhelmed.

611
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,680
But God sees you.

612
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:56,680
God hears your cry of affliction.

613
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:00,680
He hears the cry of your heart.

614
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:02,680
We don't know if Hagar cried out to the Lord.

615
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:04,680
Lord, right? It doesn't tell us.

616
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:14,680
But we can be sure that even if we don't say the words, Lord, please hear me, and we're just groaning in our heart,

617
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:18,680
we can be sure that God sees us and he hears us.

618
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:21,680
He knows.

619
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,680
Take rest in that.

620
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:28,680
And not only does he see and hear our affliction and the trials and the sufferings that we're in,

621
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:32,680
he sees the future after the affliction is over.

622
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,680
He sees what's going to happen past it.

623
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:38,680
All of it.

624
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:41,680
We obey him.

625
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:42,680
We follow his leading.

626
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,680
He's like, this is what's going to happen.

627
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:45,680
Just trust me.

628
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:46,680
Trust my way.

629
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:51,680
Now Hagar, incidentally, her name means flea.

630
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:54,680
How would you like to be named Flea?

631
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:56,680
Flight.

632
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:57,680
Run away.

633
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,680
My name is run away, right?

634
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,680
But he tells her, you're going to have a son named Ishmael.

635
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,680
Ishmael means God hears.

636
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:08,680
Right?

637
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,680
Because she's sitting there going, God's heard me.

638
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,680
I'm experiencing it.

639
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,680
God's heard me. I'm experiencing it right now.

640
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,680
He's going, so you're going to name your son God hears.

641
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,680
I think that was on purpose because she's going to go back to the situation.

642
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:28,680
She doesn't know right now if it's going to be the same or different than how it was when she left.

643
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:36,680
But he's going, look, I want you to go back and then I want you to, you're going to have this child and I want you to name him God hears.

644
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:43,680
So that every time as this child is growing up, she's calling out his name.

645
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:45,680
Ishmael, don't touch that.

646
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:46,680
Ishmael, come here.

647
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:48,680
Ishmael, listen to your mom.

648
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:49,680
Ishmael, listen to your dad.

649
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:51,680
What she's saying is God hears.

650
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:52,680
God hears.

651
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:53,680
God hears.

652
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:54,680
God hears.

653
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,680
Do you think she's ever going to forget this experience?

654
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:00,680
Not at all.

655
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:02,680
As she's calling this out over and over.

656
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:08,680
And now this is subjective or speculative, but I believe that it also reminded Sarai.

657
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:26,680
Every time she would hear Hagar call out for this child, Abram call out for the child, maybe she was calling out to the child that she would be reminded that God heard this woman, Sarai, that you mistreated so much she ran away.

658
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:28,680
God heard her.

659
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,680
God sees her.

660
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,680
And God told her to come back and submit to you.

661
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,680
So, Sarai, stop being a jerk.

662
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,680
That's speculative, but I believe that's very likely what happened in here.

663
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:48,680
And so verse 12, God goes to give her, go on to give her a prophecy of who this man would be.

664
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:50,680
This man will be like a wild donkey.

665
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:54,680
His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him.

666
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,680
He will settle near all his relatives.

667
00:48:57,680 --> 00:48:58,680
Excuse me.

668
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,680
So wild donkey, right?

669
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:01,680
What does that mean?

670
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:09,680
If you know anything about a wild donkey, donkeys in general, but specifically an untamed wild donkey, they're very strong.

671
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,680
They're very independent.

672
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:13,680
They're very stubborn.

673
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:14,680
Right?

674
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:22,680
Have you guys seen the picture in a movie somewhere where somebody's trying to pull a donkey by the bridle and it's like resisting, right?

675
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:24,680
That's what donkeys are known for, stubborn.

676
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,680
But a wild donkey is stubborn and untamed, right?

677
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:33,680
Nobody tells this man what to do is the idea.

678
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:38,680
And then he says his hand will be against everyone, meaning he's going to be in conflict with everyone around him.

679
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:43,680
Probably that's going to come from his independence and his stubbornness, right?

680
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:50,680
Where he's just not going to get along with people because it's just going to be constantly his way or the highway.

681
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:53,680
And then it says he will settle near all his relatives.

682
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:56,680
It's like, okay, why is that an important detail?

683
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:58,680
It's like, look, he's never going to move out of the house.

684
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,680
No, that's not what it's saying.

685
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:06,680
That phrase settle near, there's some disagreement on how that should be translated.

686
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,680
But there's really two ways that it could be translated in the Hebrew.

687
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:20,680
It means that he will settle to the east of his relatives or it can mean he will settle in opposition to his relatives, right?

688
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:28,680
Now, if you think of who the descendants of Ishmael are, it's the Arab people that have descended from Ishmael.

689
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:34,680
And God did indeed bless the line as he told Hagar he would.

690
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,680
That the Arab peoples have flourished and grown as cultures and all that.

691
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:47,680
But they did indeed settle east of Israel, right, over here in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and those places.

692
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:56,680
But they also settled in opposition to, meaning in conflict with, because the Jews and the Arabs, they've had conflict ever since, right?

693
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:58,680
Constantly fighting against each other.

694
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:03,680
This sibling rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael.

695
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:05,680
It'll end one day because God will end it.

696
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:09,680
But man, it's caused so much distress over the centuries.

697
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,680
So God saw Hagar in her distress.

698
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:14,680
He saw her in her affliction.

699
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:21,680
He saw her in it and was there at exactly the right time that she would hear him and listen to him.

700
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:27,680
And we can't forget this about trials.

701
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:35,680
Hagar might not have ever seen the Lord if it wasn't for that trial.

702
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,680
It was the trial that caused her to flee.

703
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,680
Now, we could say, well, no, God could have appeared to her in any other way.

704
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:43,680
Sure, that's possible.

705
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:57,680
But what we have here with this word God found her is that it was precisely here in this moment, at this time, in her state of mind that God revealed himself to her.

706
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:00,680
And she's going to respond positively.

707
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:10,680
But we can't forget that the difficult situations that happen in our lives, sometimes God is using those to open us up to a fresh vision of who he is.

708
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:11,680
Right?

709
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:16,680
It's oftentimes in the greatest struggles of our life we learn things about God we didn't know before.

710
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:22,680
We come to a greater understanding of him and his faith and his patience and his love and his kindness.

711
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:23,680
Right?

712
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:36,680
It's often in the midst of these things, especially I don't know about you, but in my life where I'm in a difficult situation because somebody wronged me and I'm, and then God goes, what did you do?

713
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:44,680
Okay, maybe I'm not as perfect as I thought.

714
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:46,680
Verse 13.

715
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:50,680
So she named the Lord who spoke to her, you are Elroy.

716
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:55,680
For she said, in this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?

717
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:58,680
And that is why the well is called Beir Lehi Roy.

718
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:03,680
It is between Kadesh and Bered.

719
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:09,680
So Hagar is really blown away by this experience, right?

720
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:11,680
She named it the Lord.

721
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:16,680
So something about this, she understood that it was God she was talking to.

722
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,680
She understood that it was the God of Abram.

723
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:24,680
The one she had been hearing about for 10 years watching Abram and his family do what they did.

724
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:28,680
And she's like, look, it says she asked a question.

725
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:33,680
Have I actually seen the one who sees me?

726
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:35,680
And the answer to that is yes.

727
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:38,680
And that's why she responds with you are Elroy.

728
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:44,680
Now Elroy means the God who sees me.

729
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,680
Not God sees.

730
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,680
You notice it's personal.

731
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,680
You are the God who sees me.

732
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:54,680
You are the God who knows me.

733
00:53:54,680 --> 00:54:02,680
Now it's another blessing for Hagar, she is the only person in all of scripture who has the privilege of naming God.

734
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:04,680
Nobody else has this privilege.

735
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:06,680
She got to give God a name.

736
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:08,680
And he didn't go, no, you can't do that.

737
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:11,680
He accepted it.

738
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:13,680
What a high privilege she has.

739
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:18,680
Now she's like, in this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?

740
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:20,680
We're like, oh, yeah, seen and sees is the same word.

741
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,680
No, it's not in the Hebrew.

742
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:26,680
When she says have I seen him, that simply means to see with your eyeballs.

743
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:31,680
Have I physically seen God?

744
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:33,680
The one who sees me.

745
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:42,680
That means to be present with and to pay attention to.

746
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:47,680
You know the phrase we say today when someone goes, I see you.

747
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:48,680
I see you.

748
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:50,680
They're not going, I see you with my eyeball.

749
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:52,680
They're like, I'm aware.

750
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:53,680
I'm aware of what you're doing.

751
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:55,680
I'm aware of what you're going through.

752
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:56,680
I'm aware of your circumstance.

753
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,680
I see you.

754
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:04,680
She's going, have I seen with my eyeballs the one who sees my whole life?

755
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:06,680
Who knows everything about me?

756
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:08,680
Who knows my circumstance and my situation?

757
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:14,680
And the answer again, yes, you are El Roy.

758
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:18,680
Then of course it says this is why this place is called Beir Laha Roy.

759
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:21,680
That means well of the living one who sees me.

760
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,680
And I think it was named that.

761
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:30,680
I think she was a part of this whole story here because again, she was running back to Egypt.

762
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:34,680
And this well is called the well of the living one.

763
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:35,680
Why?

764
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:40,680
Because she had an experience with a deity right now that she never experienced in Egypt.

765
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:41,680
Why?

766
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:42,680
Because those gods are false.

767
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:44,680
They're not real.

768
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:52,680
All the sacrifice and everything they would do to all these false gods, nothing ever happened.

769
00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:57,680
And then now she had an experience with one who was called and claimed to be a deity.

770
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:59,680
And he actually talked to me.

771
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:01,680
And he actually sees me.

772
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,680
It actually is confirmed.

773
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,680
He knows everything about me.

774
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:11,680
And so they named this well this name so it would never be forgotten.

775
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:20,680
So when God meets us in our trials as he did with Hagar and we open his word or somebody says something,

776
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:22,680
we just have a sense that God is like, hey, what's up?

777
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:24,680
What are you doing?

778
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:29,680
Do we realize that he sees us?

779
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:31,680
That he sees everything about us?

780
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:32,680
He sees our need.

781
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,680
He sees our actual need.

782
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:37,680
Right?

783
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:41,680
Hagar needed some things in this moment.

784
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,680
She thought she needed to get away.

785
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:51,680
But God knew that one, she needed to know she wasn't alone, that she wasn't forgotten,

786
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:52,680
that she wasn't abandoned.

787
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:55,680
And that's why when he showed up, he said, Hagar.

788
00:56:55,680 --> 00:57:02,680
She needed to know that I see in this that she needed to know she wasn't completely innocent in this situation,

789
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:05,680
that she needed to take ownership for her own participation.

790
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:10,680
And that's why he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai.

791
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:16,680
But more importantly, I think she needed to know for herself that God was real,

792
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:23,680
that this God Abram's been talking about for 10 years, yeah, he is indeed the one true living God,

793
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:28,680
that he's in charge of and control of all things, including her situation, including her life,

794
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:35,680
including every circumstance and was then therefore the one she should submit her life to and be obedient to.

795
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:41,680
Now, yeah, Abram and Sarai, they may have come up with this human plan to see God's promises fulfilled.

796
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:43,680
And we talked about the error of that.

797
00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:48,680
God never told them to do this thing with Hagar.

798
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:54,680
But it's great encouragement, encouragement for me to see that even when we mess things up,

799
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:59,680
even when we get ahead of God, even when we try to bring God's plans of fruition through our own efforts,

800
00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:06,680
God will still in response step in and still accomplish his purposes.

801
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:10,680
That doesn't mean go mess everything up so God can step in, right?

802
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:12,680
We want to be obedient.

803
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:18,680
But what I see here is Hagar was thinking she was more than she was,

804
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:23,680
and Sarai was acting totally inappropriate for who she was.

805
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:28,680
And so as Hagar was putting Sarai down and holding her as contemptible,

806
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:38,680
and then Sarai was putting Hagar down and humiliating her, God steps in and puts everybody in their place.

807
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:43,680
She's wife one, regardless of how you feel about it.

808
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:47,680
The child in your belly, Hagar, doesn't change that.

809
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:52,680
You need to respect her because she is the one that's in authority over you.

810
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:57,680
And then I really do believe that God spoke to Sarai at some point and was like, hey, stop being a jerk,

811
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:01,680
because like it or not, she carries your husband's child.

812
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:03,680
So don't treat her this way. It's wrong.

813
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:11,680
Now verse 15, so Hagar gave birth to Abram's son, and Abram named his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael.

814
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:15,680
Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

815
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:20,680
You notice there, it says Abram named him.

816
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:24,680
What that tells us is that when Hagar got back to camp,

817
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:30,680
at some point she told Abram all about this experience.

818
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:39,680
I imagine the possible joy and excitement of that experience overshadowed the, oh my gosh, is Sarai still going to be a jerk to me?

819
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:43,680
Because her expression, you're Elroy. I met God.

820
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:49,680
I picture in my head again, this is speculative, but when she got back to camp, Abram, I met him.

821
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:54,680
He appeared to me. We talked.

822
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:59,680
Abram's like, whoa, really? Because I saw him a couple times already too. Yeah.

823
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:08,680
You know, and just the experience of that moment, but then it's Abram who in obedience to God,

824
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:12,680
in acknowledgement of the God who sees him, and now he knows sees Hagar,

825
01:00:12,680 --> 01:00:16,680
and just affirms that he sees everything, says I'm going to be obedient to him,

826
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:20,680
and names that child Ishmael.

827
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,680
And I believe that was a reminder to Abram too,

828
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:28,680
that every time that child's name was called out, he would remember God sees affliction.

829
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:35,680
God sees wrongdoing. God sees when we try and get ahead of him and make plans to force his promises.

830
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:39,680
God sees the thoughts of our heart.

831
01:00:39,680 --> 01:00:46,680
But even when we mess up, God will intervene, always calling us back to obedience,

832
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:50,680
always calling us back in every situation.

833
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:57,680
I read a story about a little girl who had a hamster. Anybody ever had a hamster? Yeah.

834
01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:01,680
And it was trying to gnaw its way out of a cage.

835
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:07,680
And the thought is the hamster was going, if I could just get out of this cage, it's confinement.

836
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:13,680
If I could just get out of these things that are restricting me, I'll have life, I'll have freedom.

837
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:18,680
I'll be able to just have my hamster family and pursue my hamster career,

838
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:23,680
and do everything every hamster ever wanted to do.

839
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:29,680
But what that hamster didn't know is just a few feet away under the table was the family dog,

840
01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:34,680
waiting expectantly for that hamster to jump.

841
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:39,680
You know, we have to be careful about trying to break free from the confinements, the trials,

842
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:43,680
the things that God places us under, the things he's allowed us to be in,

843
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:47,680
because we think if we just run from this, we will be free.

844
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:54,680
If we just run from this, we will really live. If we just run from this, everything will be better.

845
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,680
And God is the one who knows the truth of that.

846
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:04,680
God sees our real need, and it's not our escape, it's not our freedom, our real need is Jesus.

847
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:11,680
God knows that. God says you need me in your life, and so that you know who I am,

848
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:15,680
I sent my son to this earth to live a life, to go, that's how we're supposed to be,

849
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:19,680
that's how we're supposed to treat each other, that's who God's created us to be.

850
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:24,680
That is the example I'm supposed to follow in my marriage, in my friendships,

851
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:29,680
as an employee at work, everywhere. I'm supposed to be like him.

852
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:35,680
He is who I need to turn to him, to share with him, to go to him for counsel,

853
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:44,680
to listen to him, to submit to him, and then do what he says to do, the way he says to do it.

854
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:52,680
God sees us. He especially sees the affliction we find ourselves in.

855
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:56,680
And sometimes we say if affliction and distress and bad situations,

856
01:02:56,680 --> 01:03:00,680
if they could just cease to exist, life would be better.

857
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:05,680
But a French writer said this, Christ did not come to do away with suffering.

858
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:11,680
He did not come to explain it. He came to fill it with his presence.

859
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:16,680
And those are the lessons God tries to teach us and allows us to go through these situations for,

860
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:23,680
that we could learn to believe and to realize and to react with the truth

861
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:27,680
that God is there even in that moment, that God has not forgotten us,

862
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:32,680
that God has not abandoned us, that his Spirit is with us.

863
01:03:32,680 --> 01:03:36,680
And our call is to turn to him and say, okay, help me to understand God,

864
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:44,680
teach me what you want me to learn, help me to respond and react the way you want me to,

865
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:50,680
that I would be more like you, that I would have a peace that surpasses all understanding,

866
01:03:50,680 --> 01:03:56,680
that I have a joy that nobody, even myself, can comprehend because it's from you,

867
01:03:56,680 --> 01:03:58,680
even in my difficult situations.

868
01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:06,680
And so if you're suffering today, my prayer for you this morning is that you see the God who sees you,

869
01:04:06,680 --> 01:04:09,680
because he's here right now in this very moment.

870
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:15,680
Trust him, receive him. Let's pray.

871
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:23,680
Father, we are so grateful for your word.

872
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:28,680
We're grateful for the continual reminder of who you are.

873
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:32,680
God, even in the face of our mistakes, you're faithful.

874
01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:39,680
God, your word says that when we are faithless, you are faithful.

875
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:46,680
In God, the story of Hagar, who found herself in a very difficult situation, Lord,

876
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who thought running away would be the solution.

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God, I believe you saw that running away was actually going to create greater problems for her.

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And that, Lord, the greatest thing for her in her character and her growth

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and everything you wanted to do in and through her life, it was to humble herself,

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to accept responsibility for her wrong in the situation,

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and trusting you to deal with the other party and their wrong in the situation.

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That, God, we know that when we are the ones to first take the step to do the right thing, Lord,

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sometimes it's hard, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it's scary.

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But, Lord, when we're following you, we are blessed.

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When we seek you and obey you, we are blessed.

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Help us to know that and to trust that, Lord, that we wouldn't run as our knee-jerk reaction to any difficulty.

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But we would understand that you use these things to mature us, to change our heart,

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that we would be more like you, that we would then be people in this world to shine the glory of who you are,

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that others would become people who know you.

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God, help us in our conflicts and our relationships, Lord,

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that we get out of our flesh and do things the way you're calling us to do,

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that, Lord, there would be peace and reconciliation and joy.

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God, help us to hear you, to see you, because we know you see us, Lord, and we know you hear us.

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May we take great comfort in that, God, trusting in you for all things in every situation.

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We love you and we thank you so much. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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Let's worship, church.