Genesis 16 October 12, 2008
The Names of God, Part 4
“He Can See You Now”
Rev. Meagan Boozer
We are in the middle of a sermon series based on the different names of God that are revealed to us in the Bible. It’s sort of like if your name is Frank, some people call you Frank. Some might call you son, some might call you buddy, some might call you dad, some might call you grandpa, some might call you ‘the best worker we’ve ever had here.’ All those people are talking about the same guy – about Frank – but they have different names to call him. God has different names that he is called, too. The more we learn Frank’s names, the more personal stuff we learn about him – and the same is true for God. It is my prayer that as we learn more about the different names for God, we will learn to know him more, love him more, and want to serve him, and glorify him with all that we have.
Let us pray: O God, you are here with us. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your attention to us. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, who teaches us, convicts us, and draws us closer to you. Speak, Lord – for we want to hear from you. This we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, Amen.
Listen with me to the story that will reveal our name for the day. I’m going to read Genesis 16 from the New Living Translation. It’s quite a story.
But Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. So Sarai took her servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. “The LORD has kept me from having any children,” Sarai said to Abram. “Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” [We’re not talking about a surrogate here, where a fertilized egg is placed in another woman’s womb to carry the baby to term. We’re talking about Abram and Hagar having a baby together, and then Sarai claiming the baby as her own.] And Abram agreed. [How noble!]
So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram first arrived in the land of Canaan.) [How would you like to have been Hagar? Did she even have a choice here? It doesn’t seem so.]
So Abram slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt. [Another translation says she began to look down on Sarai as if to say, ‘see what I can do, that you couldn’t do?’ Ouch.] Then Sarai said to Abram, “It’s all your fault! Now this servant of mine is pregnant, and she despises me, though I myself gave her the privilege of sleeping with you. The LORD will make you pay for doing this to me!” [It seems Sarai has forgotten whose idea this was to start with!]
Abram replied, “Since she is your servant, you may deal with her as you see fit.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and Hagar ran away.
The angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a desert spring along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress,” she replied. Then the angel of the LORD said, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” The angel added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard about your misery. This son of yours will be a wild one—free and untamed as a wild donkey! He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers.”
Thereafter, Hagar referred to the LORD, who had spoken to her, as “the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have seen the One who sees me!” Later that well was named Beer-lahairoi, and it can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.
So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old at that time.
Who needs to watch soap operas with stories like this at our fingertips? This is a mess. And it all happened because Sarai and Abram doubted that GOD was going to do what GOD said he was going to do. Back in chapter 15, Abram was calling out to God about his childlessness. God said to Abram, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendents be.” At that moment, Abram believed God. But, after a time when Sarai didn’t become pregnant and she pressured him to take control of the situation, Abram doubted. Now, it’s not clear whether Abram doubted himself, thinking perhaps he had misunderstood what God meant, or whether Abram doubted God’s promise. End result, Abram acted on the doubt within, which caused great pain to the people around him.
Hagar really seemed to get trampled here. She obeyed her mistress to sleep with Abram, and what did she get? Rejection. Abuse. Where is God? she must have wondered. Where is Elohim, who designed me for his will and his purposes? Where is El Elyon, the God most high, who promises that all things work together for good? Does he really know what’s happening to me? Does he even see me? Can you see me now? And then, at a moment of complete despair and abandon, Hagar discovers that God does see her.
Have you ever been in that place of doubt like Abram & Sarai, or that place of despair like Hagar? Have you ever wondered if God sees what you’re up against?
I remember quite well a story I heard many years ago about a fellow minister who, all of a sudden, found himself with a whole night off! God had given him a wonderful wife and 3 children, and he was excited to have a night at home with his family, eating dinner together around the table. But on the way home from work, he passed a young black man who was hitch-hiking. As he glanced at him as he rode by, the thought entered his mind that he should stop and offer the young man a ride and dinner. He shook the thought out of his head – or he tried to shake it out. It wouldn’t go. And so, he ended up turning around, pulling up and asking the young man if he would like a ride and dinner. He took the young man home, and his wife (though she was a kind and compassionate woman) told him that he wasn’t bringing a stranger from the interstate into their home for dinner. So, this minister took the man to a diner to get him something to eat, and then dropped him off a bit further up the road. As the young man got out of the car, he told the driver that the reason he had come to that part of the country was to be alone with God in prayer. He was feeling called to the ministry and needed time away to see if indeed the call was from God. Just before the minister came back to pick him up, the young man had said to God, “Lord, if in these southern hills, a white man comes to pick me, a black man, up – and takes me to dinner, I will serve you however and wherever you choose.”
Several months later, the minister tuned his radio to a Christian radio station, and lo and behold, he heard the familiar voice of the same fellow he had picked up – preaching on the radio! He was telling how God had sent his messenger, a white man to feed him and give him a ride in answer to his prayer, and thus confirmed his call to ministry.
The ‘God who sees’ has a name. The name in Hebrew is El Roi. Not Elroy like the little guy in the Jetsens! El Roi – the God who sees. “Where have you come from and where are you going?” God asks – expressing a concern for our past, and a concern for our future. Oftentimes we try to bury the hurt of our past, the mistakes we’ve made, the things we wish we would have done or said differently. But what happens when we try to bury it instead of dealing with it, is that it remains a festering, decaying presence in our lives that affects our ability to receive the hope-filled, joyful future that God wants for us. And so what were God’s instructions to Hagar? “Go back to Sarai, and deal with it. I will be with you. I see you. I care about you. I will lead you in the way you should go.” I’m going to get personal here.
I have a big regret. On the day that my mom called me to tell me that she was bleeding when she went to the bathroom, I went immediately to go get her to take her to the Emergency Room. We had just spent several weeks getting her all settled in a lovely apartment in assisted living at the Shook Home. The personal items that meant the most to her had been placed around her, and she was satisfied and grateful. That morning, when I got to her apartment, and I saw what was coming out of her, I started to cry. I had been strong throughout the whole move, but all of a sudden, I was scared. I pulled myself together, and asked, “What do you want to wear?” because she was still in her bathrobe. “I’m just going like this,” she said. “I’ll just have to put on one of those gowns when I get there, so I might as well just go like this.” “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went down the elevator, and as we were walking down the hallway to the outside doors mom said to me, “Well, I guess we moved all that stuff in here for nothing.” My immediate response was something like, “Oh mom, come on, we’ll figure out what’s going on, and you’ll be back here in no time.”
What happened was that within 4 days, we couldn’t even have conversations with her anymore, and within 4 more days, she died.
My regret, because we never got to have those important goodbye conversations, is that when she said, “Well, I guess we moved all that stuff in here for nothing,” that I didn’t take the moment to stop and tell her how much I loved her and how much I appreciated all she had done for me. I dismissed her admission to me that she knew she was dying.
Any time I think about that moment, what I wasted, it usually brings me to tears – and probably will for a long time. It’s a big regret. We all have them. But I share that with you certainly not hoping you’ll feel sorry for me, but I share it hoping you will hear what I say next: In spite of the pain I still carry over this missed opportunity, I have great comfort in knowing God’s name – El Roi. I have comfort in knowing that God – El Roi – the God who sees – saw what was happening in that very moment. And I believe that El Roi showed up, big time, for my mom in that moment and throughout her last days. Though we couldn’t see, El Roi saw it all. He prepared her. He prepared us. He can do no less – for he is Elohim, the Creator, who knows everything about us; he is El Elyon, the God Most High, who will not allow anything to come into our lives that he cannot turn around and use for good; he is El Roi, the God who sees our deepest needs and who comes to us in ways that we rarely anticipate, in ways that we often miss, and in ways that can heal the pain of our past while giving us hope for the future. Knowing this about God, through Hagar’s story, makes me love God more.
We sang, “God is so good. He’s so good to me.” God is good. Goodness is his nature. He sees you. He sees the circumstances in which you find yourself today. He knows you’re in church today. And though the devil may accuse you about how many Sundays you’ve NOT been in church, God says, “Hey, I see you. I’m glad you’re here today.”
My daughter has taught my little 2-year-old grandson the following popular gesture. (Point to your eyes, and then point to a person – meaning “I’m watching you.”) It’s hilarious to see this scrawny little towhead, do this gesture that’s meant to be menacing, “I’m watching YOU.”
I think we can redeem this gesture. To redeem means to make something acceptable or pleasant in spite of its negative qualities or aspects. Can’t we take this gesture and make it a beautiful reminder that GOD sees us; that God knows our helpless state; that God is with us, and will lead us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake! All we have to do to erase the doubt within us, is to remember what Jesus did for us. How much more proof do we need that God sees the mess we’re in, and has provided the way out? Talk about redeeming – Jesus is the Redeemer – and he can, and does, redeem every moment of our lives (even those moments that you believe God turned away from you, those moments of regret, those moments of incredible, blatant sin, those moments of deep, dark pain). Jesus, the Redeemer can take those moments and turn them into something that can be used for the greater good, if we would choose to let go of those moments, and choose to give them away to God, and then (instead of grabbing them back), choose to use our hands to cling to God with all the strength he gives us.
Psalm 9:10 proclaims: “Those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.”
Let us pray:
O Lord, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for your promises. Thank you for the many times you have proven your faithfulness, morning by morning. Thank you that your character of goodness is inalterable. You are forever the same, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We know, gracious God, that we have not given you the honor you deserve. We have slandered your name. We have slapped your promises away as if they were mosquitoes – as if that would help us feel justified in our pain. We have clung to lies about you, lies about your church, lies about others – instead of clinging to you. Forgive us. Help us receive your goodness, help us live gratefully, aware of the blessing of your amazing grace.
[If you are here and you need to get right with the Lord, bringing your life to him so that he can redeem it, make something beautiful out of it, I invite you to pray this prayer after me in the silence of your heart:]
"Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me live a life that pleases you. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I believe you see me, you love me, and you have called me to come to you right here, right now. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
The Names of God, Part 4
“He Can See You Now”
Rev. Meagan Boozer
We are in the middle of a sermon series based on the different names of God that are revealed to us in the Bible. It’s sort of like if your name is Frank, some people call you Frank. Some might call you son, some might call you buddy, some might call you dad, some might call you grandpa, some might call you ‘the best worker we’ve ever had here.’ All those people are talking about the same guy – about Frank – but they have different names to call him. God has different names that he is called, too. The more we learn Frank’s names, the more personal stuff we learn about him – and the same is true for God. It is my prayer that as we learn more about the different names for God, we will learn to know him more, love him more, and want to serve him, and glorify him with all that we have.
Let us pray: O God, you are here with us. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your attention to us. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, who teaches us, convicts us, and draws us closer to you. Speak, Lord – for we want to hear from you. This we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, Amen.
Listen with me to the story that will reveal our name for the day. I’m going to read Genesis 16 from the New Living Translation. It’s quite a story.
But Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. So Sarai took her servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. “The LORD has kept me from having any children,” Sarai said to Abram. “Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” [We’re not talking about a surrogate here, where a fertilized egg is placed in another woman’s womb to carry the baby to term. We’re talking about Abram and Hagar having a baby together, and then Sarai claiming the baby as her own.] And Abram agreed. [How noble!]
So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram first arrived in the land of Canaan.) [How would you like to have been Hagar? Did she even have a choice here? It doesn’t seem so.]
So Abram slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt. [Another translation says she began to look down on Sarai as if to say, ‘see what I can do, that you couldn’t do?’ Ouch.] Then Sarai said to Abram, “It’s all your fault! Now this servant of mine is pregnant, and she despises me, though I myself gave her the privilege of sleeping with you. The LORD will make you pay for doing this to me!” [It seems Sarai has forgotten whose idea this was to start with!]
Abram replied, “Since she is your servant, you may deal with her as you see fit.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and Hagar ran away.
The angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a desert spring along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress,” she replied. Then the angel of the LORD said, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” The angel added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard about your misery. This son of yours will be a wild one—free and untamed as a wild donkey! He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers.”
Thereafter, Hagar referred to the LORD, who had spoken to her, as “the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have seen the One who sees me!” Later that well was named Beer-lahairoi, and it can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.
So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old at that time.
Who needs to watch soap operas with stories like this at our fingertips? This is a mess. And it all happened because Sarai and Abram doubted that GOD was going to do what GOD said he was going to do. Back in chapter 15, Abram was calling out to God about his childlessness. God said to Abram, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendents be.” At that moment, Abram believed God. But, after a time when Sarai didn’t become pregnant and she pressured him to take control of the situation, Abram doubted. Now, it’s not clear whether Abram doubted himself, thinking perhaps he had misunderstood what God meant, or whether Abram doubted God’s promise. End result, Abram acted on the doubt within, which caused great pain to the people around him.
Hagar really seemed to get trampled here. She obeyed her mistress to sleep with Abram, and what did she get? Rejection. Abuse. Where is God? she must have wondered. Where is Elohim, who designed me for his will and his purposes? Where is El Elyon, the God most high, who promises that all things work together for good? Does he really know what’s happening to me? Does he even see me? Can you see me now? And then, at a moment of complete despair and abandon, Hagar discovers that God does see her.
Have you ever been in that place of doubt like Abram & Sarai, or that place of despair like Hagar? Have you ever wondered if God sees what you’re up against?
I remember quite well a story I heard many years ago about a fellow minister who, all of a sudden, found himself with a whole night off! God had given him a wonderful wife and 3 children, and he was excited to have a night at home with his family, eating dinner together around the table. But on the way home from work, he passed a young black man who was hitch-hiking. As he glanced at him as he rode by, the thought entered his mind that he should stop and offer the young man a ride and dinner. He shook the thought out of his head – or he tried to shake it out. It wouldn’t go. And so, he ended up turning around, pulling up and asking the young man if he would like a ride and dinner. He took the young man home, and his wife (though she was a kind and compassionate woman) told him that he wasn’t bringing a stranger from the interstate into their home for dinner. So, this minister took the man to a diner to get him something to eat, and then dropped him off a bit further up the road. As the young man got out of the car, he told the driver that the reason he had come to that part of the country was to be alone with God in prayer. He was feeling called to the ministry and needed time away to see if indeed the call was from God. Just before the minister came back to pick him up, the young man had said to God, “Lord, if in these southern hills, a white man comes to pick me, a black man, up – and takes me to dinner, I will serve you however and wherever you choose.”
Several months later, the minister tuned his radio to a Christian radio station, and lo and behold, he heard the familiar voice of the same fellow he had picked up – preaching on the radio! He was telling how God had sent his messenger, a white man to feed him and give him a ride in answer to his prayer, and thus confirmed his call to ministry.
The ‘God who sees’ has a name. The name in Hebrew is El Roi. Not Elroy like the little guy in the Jetsens! El Roi – the God who sees. “Where have you come from and where are you going?” God asks – expressing a concern for our past, and a concern for our future. Oftentimes we try to bury the hurt of our past, the mistakes we’ve made, the things we wish we would have done or said differently. But what happens when we try to bury it instead of dealing with it, is that it remains a festering, decaying presence in our lives that affects our ability to receive the hope-filled, joyful future that God wants for us. And so what were God’s instructions to Hagar? “Go back to Sarai, and deal with it. I will be with you. I see you. I care about you. I will lead you in the way you should go.” I’m going to get personal here.
I have a big regret. On the day that my mom called me to tell me that she was bleeding when she went to the bathroom, I went immediately to go get her to take her to the Emergency Room. We had just spent several weeks getting her all settled in a lovely apartment in assisted living at the Shook Home. The personal items that meant the most to her had been placed around her, and she was satisfied and grateful. That morning, when I got to her apartment, and I saw what was coming out of her, I started to cry. I had been strong throughout the whole move, but all of a sudden, I was scared. I pulled myself together, and asked, “What do you want to wear?” because she was still in her bathrobe. “I’m just going like this,” she said. “I’ll just have to put on one of those gowns when I get there, so I might as well just go like this.” “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went down the elevator, and as we were walking down the hallway to the outside doors mom said to me, “Well, I guess we moved all that stuff in here for nothing.” My immediate response was something like, “Oh mom, come on, we’ll figure out what’s going on, and you’ll be back here in no time.”
What happened was that within 4 days, we couldn’t even have conversations with her anymore, and within 4 more days, she died.
My regret, because we never got to have those important goodbye conversations, is that when she said, “Well, I guess we moved all that stuff in here for nothing,” that I didn’t take the moment to stop and tell her how much I loved her and how much I appreciated all she had done for me. I dismissed her admission to me that she knew she was dying.
Any time I think about that moment, what I wasted, it usually brings me to tears – and probably will for a long time. It’s a big regret. We all have them. But I share that with you certainly not hoping you’ll feel sorry for me, but I share it hoping you will hear what I say next: In spite of the pain I still carry over this missed opportunity, I have great comfort in knowing God’s name – El Roi. I have comfort in knowing that God – El Roi – the God who sees – saw what was happening in that very moment. And I believe that El Roi showed up, big time, for my mom in that moment and throughout her last days. Though we couldn’t see, El Roi saw it all. He prepared her. He prepared us. He can do no less – for he is Elohim, the Creator, who knows everything about us; he is El Elyon, the God Most High, who will not allow anything to come into our lives that he cannot turn around and use for good; he is El Roi, the God who sees our deepest needs and who comes to us in ways that we rarely anticipate, in ways that we often miss, and in ways that can heal the pain of our past while giving us hope for the future. Knowing this about God, through Hagar’s story, makes me love God more.
We sang, “God is so good. He’s so good to me.” God is good. Goodness is his nature. He sees you. He sees the circumstances in which you find yourself today. He knows you’re in church today. And though the devil may accuse you about how many Sundays you’ve NOT been in church, God says, “Hey, I see you. I’m glad you’re here today.”
My daughter has taught my little 2-year-old grandson the following popular gesture. (Point to your eyes, and then point to a person – meaning “I’m watching you.”) It’s hilarious to see this scrawny little towhead, do this gesture that’s meant to be menacing, “I’m watching YOU.”
I think we can redeem this gesture. To redeem means to make something acceptable or pleasant in spite of its negative qualities or aspects. Can’t we take this gesture and make it a beautiful reminder that GOD sees us; that God knows our helpless state; that God is with us, and will lead us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake! All we have to do to erase the doubt within us, is to remember what Jesus did for us. How much more proof do we need that God sees the mess we’re in, and has provided the way out? Talk about redeeming – Jesus is the Redeemer – and he can, and does, redeem every moment of our lives (even those moments that you believe God turned away from you, those moments of regret, those moments of incredible, blatant sin, those moments of deep, dark pain). Jesus, the Redeemer can take those moments and turn them into something that can be used for the greater good, if we would choose to let go of those moments, and choose to give them away to God, and then (instead of grabbing them back), choose to use our hands to cling to God with all the strength he gives us.
Psalm 9:10 proclaims: “Those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.”
Let us pray:
O Lord, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for your promises. Thank you for the many times you have proven your faithfulness, morning by morning. Thank you that your character of goodness is inalterable. You are forever the same, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We know, gracious God, that we have not given you the honor you deserve. We have slandered your name. We have slapped your promises away as if they were mosquitoes – as if that would help us feel justified in our pain. We have clung to lies about you, lies about your church, lies about others – instead of clinging to you. Forgive us. Help us receive your goodness, help us live gratefully, aware of the blessing of your amazing grace.
[If you are here and you need to get right with the Lord, bringing your life to him so that he can redeem it, make something beautiful out of it, I invite you to pray this prayer after me in the silence of your heart:]
"Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me live a life that pleases you. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I believe you see me, you love me, and you have called me to come to you right here, right now. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
