God's Presence with the Hurting

Intro:

Tonight we start our 4-5 week Advent series. But before begin what does Advent mean to you? Is it just a word? Is it something you’ve never heard before? Advent is a liturgical part of the calendar. It is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas day. It is the season where we anticipate the Coming of the Christ. And what better time to do that than preparing our hearts to worship as we begin to celebrate Christmas. So tonight is session 1 of our series of Advent called Immanuel, God with Us. To start off session one we are going to start off in a strange place that you think might not have anything to do with Christmas. But if you think about what Immanuel means I think you see it will fit perfectly. Tonight we are going to be in Genesis. We are going to look at Hagar. What do we know about Hagar?

She is Sarahs slave.

She sleeps with Abraham because they didn't trust Gods timing.

She’s cast out because of the jealousy of Sarah.

But what we also see is that God sees her. And even when she feels unseen or unheard God hears her.

So lets take a look at the bible.

Like Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16:1–6), we are often tempted to “help God out” instead of waiting on him. The results are always disastrous.

God not only saw and heard Hagar (Genesis 16:13, 21:17); he also provided, tangibly, for her in her distress (Genesis 21:19). He does the same for us, providing for us so we know he sees and hears us:

He does this through Jesus Christ, offering us salvation.

He does this through his body, the church, providing our day to day needs.