God Sees You: Where Have You Come From, and Where Are You Going?

Genesis 16:1-16 NKJV  Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.  (2)  So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.  (3)  Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.  (4)  So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.  (5)  Then Sarai said to Abram, “My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The LORD judge between you and me.”  (6)  So Abram said to Sarai, “Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.” And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence.  (7)  Now the Angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.  (8)  And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”  (9)  The Angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.”  (10)  Then the Angel of the LORD said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.”  (11)  And the Angel of the LORD said to her: “Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has heard your affliction.  (12)  He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”  (13)  Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are- the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”  (14)  Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; observe, it is between Kadesh and Bered.  (15)  So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.  (16)  Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

• Welcome back to the book of Genesis church!
  • At Christian Life Church, we love the Word of God, Amen?
  • So we preach through the Word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter… in fact this is our 40^th sermon in the book of Genesis.
    • Let’s get back up to speed here. God has called this man, Abram, to be the father of God’s people.
    • Abram is a worshiper of God, and very powerful, wealthy, and influential.
    • In the last chapter, chapter 15, God made a covenant with Abram promising an Heir an estate…
      • In other words, God promised Abram a son, a son from Abram’s own loins, and God promised a land, the land of Canaan, for Abram’s children and all future generations belonging to Abram to inherit.
        • But if you remember, before the covenant is made with Abram, but after the calling and the promises of God are given to Abram… there was this little trip Abram made down to Egypt…
        • And a bunch of stuff happened on that trip to Egypt, but one thing interesting that happened was that Abram acquired a slave girl named Haggar.
      • Haggar went with Abram and Sarai out of Egypt, and has been living with Abram ever since.
        • This slave girl, Haggar, had seen the wars of Chedorlaomer, had seen God defeat that evil king by the hands of her master Abram…
        • She surely heard the story of Melchizedek coming to Abram after the battle and blessing him.
        • Haggar undoubtedly knew of the Covenant that God had made with Abram.
        • In fact, we just read in verse three that Haggar had been with Abram for 10 years at this point…
          • 10 years of family devotions, led by Abram and Sarai…
          • 10 years of family worship, led by her masters…
          • 10 years of prayers, and sacrifices and miracles… all between God and Abram and Sarai…
        • But no mention of Haggar’s faith… no, Haggar was an Egyptian… she grew up with Egyptian idols and Egyptian God’s… Egyptian traditions, and Egyptian worship. All she knew of this God named YHWY was that He was the God whom her masters served.
      • But Haggar’s relationship with God would soon change… YHWH would go from being just another false god, just another Idol, just another tradition… to being as she says in verse 13 “YOU ARE THE GOD WHO SEES ME”.

• God Sees You… a revelation we all need to have at some point in life.
  • Where did you come from: A question about your pasts, your hurts, your baggage… an honest question that needs answering… Where are you going… to righteousness, to sin, to blessings, or to destructions… where are you going, and are you willing to change directions and go towards Christ?
    • This is the message today, let’s pray then get into it.

• Alright, let’s start with point one this morning: “God Sees You”

Point One – God Sees You

Genesis 16:13 NKJV  Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are- the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”

• Haggar was caught in this awkward dispute between Sarai, Abram, and God.
  • If you didn’t catch it when we read chapter 16, here is what has happened…
    • God has promised Abram a son… but that was 10 years ago… Abram and Sarai have been trying to have kids for 10 years now!
    • But Sarai is Baren… so she takes matters into her own hands…
      • She says… Hey Abram, we have this slave girl Haggar that we picked up in Egypt… take her as a wife, sleep with her, and then have a son with her… that way God’s promise can be fulfilled.

Genesis 16:1-3 NKJV  Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.  (2)  So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.  (3)  Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.

• Notice that Hagar did not have a choice in the matter… she was taken out of Egypt, and now she was being “given” to Abram. It says right there “Sarai TOOK Hagar and GAVE her to Abram”.
  • What a life poor Hagar has lived… she was sold into slavery, bought by a foreigner, and is now being taken and given as a wife… She has had no chance to fall in love, to court a fiancé, to start a family of her own choosing… it was all forced on her…
• Now Abram sleeps with his new wife/concubine and immediately she gets pregnant…
  • And then she starts to catch feelings for Abram… and OF COURSE SHE DOES… she is carrying his son… they have been sexually intimate… they are married, in some sense or another… So she catches feelings for Abram…
    • And then pride begins to build up in her…
• Genesis 16:4 NKJV  So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.
  • “HA!” she must have thought “I am having his child, NOT YOU SARAI! I am HIS BABY’S MOMMA! YOU ARE NOTHING! THE SLAVE GIRL HAS BECOME THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!”
  • Now Sarai is having none of this… and they begin to bicker, and Sarai starts making Hagar’s life miserable… verse six said that Sarai delt so harshly with Hagar that Hagar ran away…
    • A pregnant slave girl, ran away into an unforgiven desert…
      • WHAT HER THOUGHTS MUST HAVE BEEN!
      • The only people she had ever known to serve YHWY had turned there back on her… they had treated her poorly…
      • These worshipers of this supposedly living God… they treated her like dirt… worse than dirt…
        • Sure she had some blame in it, she had despised Sarai… but who could blame her, she must have thought to her self.
      • And now this… she was taken and given to a married man to be his second wife… finally something good happens in her life with this child… and now this… at the hands of God’s chosen people none-the-less.
        • If anyone had a reason to be church hurt, surely it was Hagar…
        • But of course it was not God who hurt Hagar… nor God’s bride, the church… it was a combination of sin… Hagars sin, Sarai’s sin… passivity… Abram’s complete and utterly passive leadership of his family… and faithlessness… Sarai’s inability, so it would seem, to wait for God’s promise of a son with her husband…
        • It was these faults, some of her own but certainly not all, that lead to Hagar being alone and pregnant in the wilderness… but how easy it would have been to blame God… THEN IN THAT MOMENT… CHRIST APPEARS…
          • Come on, I am preaching to somebody this morning!

Genesis 16:7-10 NKJV  Now the Angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.  (8)  And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”  (9)  The Angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.”  (10)  Then the Angel of the LORD said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.”

• The Angel of the LORD, the Angel of YHWY, the Angel of the Great I AM… this language almost exclusively refers to Jesus… JESUS APEARED TO HER AND BLESSES HER IN HER WILDERNESS MOMENT!
  • Now the God of Sarai… who was so awful to her… Now the God of Abram… who had allowed her to be treated so badly… NOW THIS GOD WAS NO LONGER AN IDOL WORSHIPED LIKE SO MANY IN EGYPT… NOW THIS GOD WAS REAL! SHE WAS LOOKING AT HIM!

Genesis 16:13 NKJV  Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are- the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”

• In her darkest moment, after a lifetime of darkness… GOD SEES’S HER… and SHE SEES HIM.
  • If you are listening to me, I want you to know right now GOD SEES YOU.
  • No matter where you are in life… maybe you have given up… maybe you are running away… maybe you have never seen God… but today, this morning, God is telling you “I SEE YOU.
    • Listen church, I could have preached 30 different messages from this text… messages about faithlessness, messages about bitterness, messages about marriage and sex…
    • BUT GOD WANTED ME TO PREACH THIS MESSAGE TO YOU THIS MORNING.
    • GOD SEES YOU!
      • He doesn’t just see you, He loves you. He cares about You, He has plans and promises for you…
      • Blessings for you, callings for you… if you would listen to His voice and obey… GOD HAS GOOD FOR YOU.
      • GOD SEES YOU!

Psalms 139:1b-3 NKJV …O LORD, You have searched me and known me.  (2)  You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.  (3)  You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways.

• God sees you, God knows you, God cares for you…
  • And God has a question for you… Where Have You Come From?
    • That is my second point this morning… Where have You Come From?

Point Two – Where Have You Come From, and Where Are You Going?

Genesis 16:8 NKJV  And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.

• Hagar is sitting by a spring, by a well of fresh water… likely she is there refreshing her very pregnant self with a cool drink as she contemplates these very questions…
  • Where should I go now? I had everything I could have wanted before… I had a husband, and a son… if it wasn’t for that awful woman Sarai… maybe I should not have been so mean to her as well… have I thrown it all away… I can’t believe I left it all behind…
  • Now where should I go? I must go back to Egypt… there I can drink my problems away with the choicest of wines and meads… Maybe I can prostitute myself to pay for my child… Maybe I can sell myself into slavery…
  • At least in Egypt I can worship the gods that I know, the gods that I am familiar with… not the God these foreigner’s worship… some good He did for me.
• As she sits at the well and ponders these things, Jesus appears and talks to her… Jesus asks the same questions she was asking herself “Where did you come from, and where are you going?”
  • You know this is not the only time in scripture Jesus asks this questions to a woman sitting at a well…
  • In John chapter 4, Jesus approaches a woman at a well and begins talking to her, preaching to her…
    • But the woman does not recognize who He is… to her this Man is just some Jewish guy who is trying to get a drink…
    • But then Jesus tells her this, and this changes her perspective of Him…

John 4:16-18 NKJV  Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  (17)  The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’  (18)  for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

• In other words, Jesus says to the woman at the well the same thing that Jesus asks Hagar at the spring… Jesus says to the woman at the well “I know where you have been, you have been with five other husbands… and I know where you are going, you are going home to sleep with a man you are not even married to…”
  • And with that revelation, this woman perceives that Christ is a prophet, and soon after that He is the Messiah.
    • Where have you come from and where are you going?
• Let me ask you this question… in fact, let Christ ask this question to you through me, this morning church…
  • Where have you come from?
    • Have you come from a weekend of sin?
      • Drinking, gossiping, sex, pornography?
      • Horrible filthy movies and TV shows.
      • Fantasies or godless relationships.
      • Greed, or hatred, or theft.
        • Maybe it was as simple as spending too much time on Social media, getting caught up in arguments about politics… calling names, getting angry for little to no reason.
        • Maybe it is a complex as the pursuit of an extra marital affair.
      • As you sit in the presence of God this morning ask yourself, allow Christ to ask you “Where did you come from?”.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NKJV  Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  (10)  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

• But maybe that is not you… maybe you are more like Hagar…
  • You came from the house of God…
    • You know the things of God… maybe you even know God…
    • But things have not worked out the way that you thought they should.
    • Blessings seemed to have dried up…
    • Those you loved seemed to have turned their back on you.
    • People in the church have hurt you, and if you are honest, have been hurt by you.
    • You are here this morning, but if you are honest you are only here as a last ditch effort…
    • You came from the house of God, but you are not there any more…
  • Where did you come from… And where are you going?
• WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
  • Hagar was going back to heathenism… back to a dark world of idol worship, of bowing down to evil… back to what she knew offered her at least a little comfort…
    • The Lord asks you this morning… WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
      • Maybe you have tried the whole God thing and it is not working out… so you are going back to your addiction.
      • You tried doing marriage God’s way, but it just seems to not be working… so you are heading back to divorce or adultery.
      • You tried prayer, but the bottle seems to bring you more comfort.
      • You tried worship, but the songs of your past… those filthy demonic songs… they just tend to bring you a little more joy.
      • It is all well and good that you are in church this morning… BUT WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
        • Are you going back to sleep with your girlfriend or boyfriend tonight?
        • Are you going back to drink yourself silly?
        • Are you going back to an addiction that you had once successfully overcome?
        • Are you going back to a friendship that God has once called you out of?
      • MAN I PRAISE GOD THAT YOU ARE IN CHURCH THIS MORNING BUT I MUST Ask: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
        • Are you going back to a man who is not your husband? Are you going back to a land that worships false gods?
        • OR WILL YOU, DEAR ONES, WILL YOU HUMBLE YOURSELF AND GO BACK TO GOD?

Genesis 16:8-9 NKJV  And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”  (9)  The Angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.”

• I want to conclude this morning with a testimony from my own life… if someone wants to come up and play…

Conclusion

• When I was 23 I was a licensed Southern Baptist pastor.
  • I was an associate pastor of my fiancé’s father’s church in Hendersonville North Carolina.
  • It was during this time that I made a very poor decision… I gave a beer to a church member who I knew had a previous drinking problem… I WAS SO STUPID.
    • Southern Baptists DO NOT MESS AROUND with alcohol.. I shouldn’t of had it, and I shouldn’t have given it to someone I knew had a problem.
    • I was a stumbling block and I was in sin.
    • After this happened, I felt horrible… I was full of the conviction of the Holy Spirit… so I confessed to the pastors of the church.
    • After my confession I was sat down by my pastor, who just so happened to be my fiancé’s father… I remember it like it was yesterday…I was sat down by my pastor and his wife in their living room… and they cussed me out for about an hour and a half…
      • They ended that conversation with “And you will never marry our mother bleeping daughter… get out of our bleeping house”.
      • Throughout the whole conversation, I did not try to defend myself much… I just listened, wept, and at points I got angry…
      • I left, my fiancé followed me, we later had a conversation that she had to choose, her parents or me… she chose her parents, and I was devastated.
    • I WAS SO ANGRY AT GOD… Even though, in part, it was my own sin and my own stupidity that brought me there… I blamed God… And I decided to run.
      • Like Hagar… I decided to run.
        • I remember this prayer, it was such a pivotal moment in my life… I prayed “God, I know you are real… I can’t deny all that you have done and all that you have told me… but I am done… not forever, but for a time… I am not denying you, I just need a break… I am going to move back to Seattle and live in sin… I am going to do all the sin I have ever wanted… when I am done I might return to you… but that is all I want right now…”
    • Where had I been? Pastoring in a southern Baptist church with people who hurt me so bad it is hard to describe… where was I going? Straight into the pits of Sodom to do all that I knew was evil.
      • And as I prayed that prayer, God met me there… and God spoke “Ok, Christian, but one last thing I ask of you, then I will leave you to your sin… just go to church one last time”.
      • So I went to a random church where I knew one guy in it… I didn’t even see that guy there that morning.
      • I sat in the front row, because that is where I always sit, and I sang the songs, I listened respectfully to the sermon… then when it was done, I was so excited to leave that place and enter into my sin…
      • But the pastor beat me to the door… and as I left I went to shake his hand, and he grabbed me and said “Son, come talk to me in my office… God has told me about you”.
        • I never got to go live in my sin, God rescued me and told me “Go back to serving me” that morning. Two weeks latter I was the full time associate pastor of that church, a charismatic church in Hendersonville North Carolina where I was ordained as a pastor and started my journey that ended up with me marrying Amanda, having four amazing kids, and pastoring one of the top 10 coolest churches in Cedar Rapids!
          • Because God saw me… He knew where I had been and He knew where I wanted to go… but He saw me, He stopped me in my tracks, turned my life around once again, just like when I got saved… God saw me, and intervened… and I listened and obeyed.
        • But the way, that pastor who treated me so poorly, I made up with him just before my mother died… I apologized for my many sins against him, his church, his daughter… And I asked for forgiveness… He forgave me and I now praise God for his ministry and the work he does for the Kingdom!
        • GOD CHANGES THINGS. GOD CHANGED MY DESTINATION AND HE CAN CHANGE YOURS TOO! GOD SEES YOU AND IS ASKING “WHERE HAVE YOU COME FROM AND WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
• Now this sermon that I preached this morning was based heavily on a sermon by Charles Spurgeon called “God’s Overtaking Mercy”… as I was preparing, God had me scrap all my sermon notes and start over… he kept telling me “Read Spurgeon”… I finally listened, and this was the only sermon He had on the subject…
  • God wanted someone in here to hear this message… God wanted someone in here to know that God see you, loves you, and wants to CHANGE where you are going… GOD IS SAYING “COME TO ME! Change your destination! Don’t go to the sin! No matter where you came from… GO TO GOD!”
    • Spurgeon rights this in his sermon that inspired this message:
• “To the man who is so poor that he would hardly dare come even into this church because his clothes are so shabby, and who is ready say, “I am ready to give up on this battle of life. I will never try again”–oh, if that poor man were able to say, “I know that God has spoken with me this morning, I know that God has brought me to the Savior’s feet and blotted out my sin”–oh! dear brother, if you would pray this prayer… if you would be saved, or rededicate your life back to Christ… then you will pick up the weapons of spiritual warfare again, and go to the battle of life once more, and your poverty will seem to have lost its edge! The bitterness will have departed! The pain will not enter into your soul! Dear brother or sister, get a word from God and know that you are His child, and then you can say, “Now blow, you winds, rage, you waves, and all you elements let forth your fury–the God that rules you all is now my Friend! No hurt can you do to me!”
  -Charles Spurgeon, God’s Overtaking Mercy [Modernized and slightly contextualized]

• As Charles Spurgeon ended his message, so too shall I…

Luke 15:4 NKJV  “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

• This morning, we have gone after the one who has gone astray, and Jesus as gone ahead of us. Amen?! AMEN!

Join us this Sunday at either 8:30AM or 10:30AM for worship followed by this message from the Word of God. Christian Life Church of Cedar Rapids. 2808 Schaeffer DR SW, Cedar Rapids, IA 52404. www.CedarRapidsChurch.com