The Gospel in Genesis: The God Who Sees

Introduction

Read Genesis 16

Genesis 16 (ESV)

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Behold, you are pregnant

and shall bear a son.

You shall call his name Ishmael,

because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

He shall be a wild donkey of a man,

his hand against everyone

and everyone’s hand against him,

and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

So we had this great account last week where we saw that God gave Abram His unfailing promise to give him a son and the land, and Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

But now we see doubt once again creeping in to Abram and Sarai.

Maybe they thought that God just needed a bit of help and that maybe their faith just needed to proceed in action.

Again, keep in mind that we have been in Canaan for over 10 years now and still no child. Sarai is now 76 years old.

Maybe God will give Abram a child through another woman.

So Sarai concocts this plan to give her maidservant Hagar to Abram as a wife to have a child by her.

What we are seeing is another garden account.

Sarai sees an option that might solve their problem, an option that should not have been available to them.

We need to remember that while Scripture recounts the events of the past, it does not give full approval of the events of the past. It is describing what happened, not prescribing that this is what should be done.

So instead of keeping marriage as between one man and one woman, they decide to bring in another woman into Abram’s marital relationship.

And yes, we are going to see this happen throughout Scripture, but it always causes problems when we step out of God’s will and plan for the marriage relationship.

So Sarai tells Abram that he should marry her servant. And Abram listened to the voice of his wife.

Like Eve, who took and gave something forbidden to her husband, Sarai took and gave her maidservant Hagar to Abram as her surrogate.2 And like Adam, Abram listened to the voice of his wife (Gen. 3:17; 16:2). - The Seed of Woman

This does not mean that husbands should not listen to their wives.

It does mean that we must first listen to the voice of the Lord and follow His leading.

And our wives can help us with that. But both husbands and wives can miss God’s will when they speak without listening to God first.

its amazing with this event that sarah is mentioned in hebrews hall of faith. And yet we must remember

Her faith in Scripture appears small at times, but we are saved by the object of our faith and not by the size of it. - The Seed of Woman - Nana Dolce

So Abram does what Sarai said and behold, Hagar does get pregnant.

Of course Hagar looks at her mistress with contempt.

Maybe it was because of the situation that she was forced to enter by her mistress.

Maybe it was because she saw herself of more value and worth because of this child.

A woman’s value during this time was based largely upon their ability to bear forth children.

Imagine Sarai’s pain. She might have thought before this that maybe the issue was more on Abram’s part and not hers. But when Hagar comes up pregnant, she is now faced with the reality that it really is her fault that they have not been able to conceive.

So Sarai treats Hagar harshly.

This word carries with it the idea of being physically afflicted and abused.

While Hagar is certainly not innocent, there is no excuse for what Sarai is doing at this time. She is physically harming a woman who is with child.

And she is pregnant because of Sarai’s plan and Abram’s unwillingness to first listen to the Lord and lead spiritually.

So Hagar naturally flees from this place.

She goes to the wilderness and finds a spring.

It is here that the angel of the Lord comes to her.

The angel of the Lord asks her questions about where she has come from and where she is going. Of course He already knows, but He is drawing her out and inviting her to open herself up to Him.

The angel of the Lord then calls her to return to Sarai and Abram.

And then He makes a promise to her.

She shall bear a son and call him Ishmael, which means “God hears,” because God has heard her cries and afflictions.

He does tell her that he shall be against everyone else.

We still see the fulfillment of this promise as Ishmael is the father of most of the Arab nations today and they have consistently been at odds with both Israel, but also with so much of the rest of the world’s population.

Sin can have consequences and effects that last for generations to come.

God Sees Our Pain

Ishmael - “God Hears”

God heard the cries of Hagar

But what we see here is that God heard the cries of Hagar.

He was aware of the pain and heartache she was experiencing.

She went to the wilderness believing that she was alone and abandoned.

She came back learning that the God who has been speaking to Abram and Sarai has been looking over her as well.

This same God loves her and cares for her as He has been doing for her Masters.

Because of this revelation, she calls Him the God of seeing.

God hears our cries and sees our pain

When we experience pain and hardship, we can tend to run away believing that no one cares about us.

We can even believe that God is silent and does not care.

But God is showing Hagar that He is there with her and is inviting her to come to Him and cast her cares upon Him.

1 Peter 5:7 (ESV)

casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Through Hagar’s story, He is also showing Abram and Sarai that if they would have just called out to Him, He would have answered them in their pain as well.

You and I do not have to solve our problems on our own.

In fact, we cannot solve our problems on our own.

But when we do, we often make the problem worse than it was before.

This does not mean that God will answer our prayers according to our timetable.

We often get impatient with God and give up on Him. But just because we give up on Him does not mean that He has given up on watching over us.

Keep praying. Keep crying out to God. Keep casting your cares upon Him because He really does care for you.

Untitled Hymn - Chris Rice

Weak and wounded sinner Lost and left to die Oh, raise your head for Love is passing by

Come to Jesus Come to Jesus Come to Jesus and live

Sometimes the way is lonely And steep and filled with pain So if your sky is dark and pours the rain

Then cry to Jesus Cry to Jesus Cry to Jesus and live

We are being invited to cry to the God who hears our afflictions and sees our pain!

God Sees Our Sin

But not only did God see their pain, He also saw their sin

The Sin of Hagar

He saw the sin of Hagar and in how she treated her mistress with contempt and ran away.

He saw in such a way that He called out to her to return to her mistress.

Imagine the cost of following God in this point.

To trust and follow God means to give up what we might think is good for ourselves and trust that He knows what is good.

Yes, returning to Sarai seemed dangerous because of how Sarai had been treating her.

Yet, God also knows that her being alone in the wilderness is immensely dangerous for herself and her unborn child.

So God is calling Hagar to return and to submit to Sarai rather than to continue in contempt to the one who had done her wrong.

A Note on Abuse: God is not saying that women who are abused should return back to their abusers. In this case life with Abram and Sarai, as painful as it was, was far safer than the alternative than remaining alone in a world very hostile to women. And God was also going to deal with Abram and Sarai on their relationship with Hagar.

Following God means sacrificing what we think we want in order to do what God knows is best for us, even if we do not understand.

And notice, God even gives her assurance that He will care for her as she returns which means He has also seen the injustice with which she had been treated.

The Sin of Sarai and Abram

This means He also saw and recognized the sin of Sarai and Abram.

We see them as the good guys in this story because they are the ones who trusted in God.

We see Hagar as the bad one in the story because of her Egyptian background.

And yet, in this instance, we see God working to protect the Egyptian from the wrongdoing of His own children.

He sees and knows the sin of all people and does not turn a blind eye towards our sin simply because we might be a part of His people.

God does not condone or approve of what Abram and Sarai have done and He will work to protect Hagar from their sin.

In the same way, He is not blind to the sins of the world around us. But guess what, He is also not blind to our own sins and when we choose to walk in our own way and even when we try to hide what we do from others.

We might fool those around us. We might even fool ourselves.

But we can never fool God because God is the God who Sees.

Luke 8:17 (ESV)

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

Hagar understood that God was watching over her. This included seeing her pain, but it also included seeing her own sin towards Sarai.

In the same way, God saw the sin of Abram and Sarai and Hagar was able to take comfort in the fact that her mistreatment had not gone unnoticed.

There is both hope and warning in this idea. Let us be people who live in the knowledge that God sees and knows all we do.

God knows the secret thoughts of the heart.

God sees what we do in private.

God is completely aware of the websites we visit or the time we steal from our employers when we take longer and more frequent breaks than we deserve. God sees all and knows all.

God Can Meet Our Greatest Need

God Is Working to Meet the Immediate Needs of both Hagar and Sarai

Because God hears and sees both our pain and our sin, God understands the need we have for healing.

God understood the need for healing for Sarai, the pain she carried from not being able to bear a child and carry on the promise of the seed.

Even though she did not cry out to God in prayer, God still saw her pain and heard her inward cries.

God also understood the need for healing for Hagar who had been unfairly manipulated to enter into this relationship with Abram.

God is actively working to bring protection to Hagar as well as working to bring about His plan to give Abram and Sarai a child of their own.

This does not mean that God will always give us what we think we want in the moment.

But we can be confident that God is working all things for the good of those who love Him.

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

God is able to take all things, even the painful things in life and work them to bring about the good of those who love and trust Him.

We might not understand in the moment why God is doing or allowing things to take place, but we can trust that God hears and sees us where we are and He is faithful to fulfill His promise, even if its not quite the way we think.

God Understood the Greatest Need for Abram, Sarai, and Hagar

But we have to understand that the greatest need that all three of these characters have is not the immediate needs that God is working towards meeting.

Their greatest need is to have their sin and rebellion addressed and dealt with.

We have to remember that while God is committed to His promises towards Abram, Sarai, and now Hagar, this does not mean that this is what they deserve.

They have each sinned against each other, and ultimately they have sinned against God Himself.

Sarai failed to trust in God’s plan and promise for her.

Abram failed to listen to God’s voice and remain faithful to His covenant promise to his wife Sarai and to God.

Hagar failed to love and submit to Sarai as her mistress and ultimately to God who placed her there.

All three of them actually deserved God’s justice for how they failed to love and honor God in all their relationships.

And we are all in this same position.

Regardless of how good we are, we have all failed to love and honor God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. None of us has perfectly obeyed the righteous demands of God’s law.

So really what they deserve is God’s justice and punishment for what they have done.

And God is a righteous God who does not let the wicked go unpunished.

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And yet God does not give them what they deserve.

Exodus 34:6–7 (ESV)

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

How is God able to be a merciful God and yet not let the guilty go unpunished?

How is God able to count Abram righteous because of his faith and yet seek the justice that Abram’s sin deserves?

God Meets Both Our Need for Justice and Forgiveness in the Cross

The answer to this question is found in the cross.

The Lord is able to count Abram righteous, not because Abram acted righteous, but because he trusted in the perfect righteousness of God.

That’s what God is doing here in this chapter for all three of these characters.

God sees and knows that their greatest need is to be delivered from the justice they deserve and to receive the forgiveness they so desperately need.

And here, as we see God’s grace towards all involved, we see a foreshadowing of the cross.

God is a just God who will punish all sin, including the sin of Abram and Sarai towards Hagar, and in the sin of contempt Hagar displayed towards Sarai.

God dealt with that sin and delivered His justice by placing their sins upon the sinless Son of God, Jesus Himself as He died upon the cross.

The cross is not merely some example of what it means to love others.

The cross is the display of God’s Holy Justice while also displaying His merciful compassion towards undeserving sinners.

Those who place their faith in Christ have their sin placed upon Him and they receive His righteousness.

Therefore God is able to punish the guilty and yet also be a compassionate and merciful God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Hagar was vindicated, because the sin committed against her was dealt with on the cross.

And Sarai was vindicated because Hagar’s sin was dealt with on the cross if Hagar trusted in God as she appears to do in this account.

In the same way, our greatest need is to have the ultimate penalty of our sin dealt with by Christ on the cross. And that comes only as we place our faith and trust in Him alone as Savior and Lord.

But there is also hope for those of us who have been hurt by someone else.

God is seeking to bring justice to all those who have been hurt and sinned against.

We do not have to seek our own vengeance by getting back at those who have hurt us.

We are called to leave room for the wrath of God because we know God sees and hears our pain and hurt caused by someone else.

We know that God will punish all sin. Either each person will bear the punishment for their sin, or they will trust in the finished work of Christ upon the cross and have their sins punished through His death. Either way, God will vindicate those who trust in Him.

So in the meantime, we are free to let go of our own hurts because we know that God sees and hears us, and we are free to love and forgive those who hurt us and even pray that they would experience the forgiveness of God received by faith in Christ.

Because of the cross, we are freed to obey God as we trust Him to forgive our sins, and to bring justice towards those who have hurt us.