El Roi

Intro

The doubts lingered. I was unloading the dishwasher in my kitchen, the kids playing loudly but peaceably in the basement. Thoughts bombarded me. Each one hit with a twinge of guilt and a knot in my stomach.

What if I’m wrong? What if God’s not real? Have I believed since I was three only because I didn’t know anything else?

I nearly couldn’t breathe. How in the world could I be having such thoughts? After all God had done for me, all the ways He had intimately shown up in my past. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. I was weeks away from launching my blog—a blog that called myself and other women to seek after God’s fullness in everyday life.

What am I doing? I thought, standing on my tippy toes to put another kid cup into the cabinets. God, I know in my mind that you have been faithful. I know I have intimately known your presence. But God…right now, my emotions are filled with uncertainty. Please help them to catch up with what I know to be true.

I continued unloading the dishwasher, putting away forks and spoons one by one into the nearby drawer.

Moments later, I heard the familiar ding of my cellphone. A text from my friend Ashleigh. After throwing the remaining spoons into the drawer, I picked up my phone to see what she wanted.

Doubts are normal part of the Christian life, some of the greatest people in the history of the faith have doubts!

The great reformer John Calvin said

“Surely, while we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.”

Tim Keller said it this way,

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts. … It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them”

So what do we do with doubts when life is hard, when suffering come, or as the hymn “It is Well” says, “When sorrows like sea billows roll”

As we have been considering the names of God, I hope that you have been seeing more and more that the action of our God is less about explaining the ‘why’ and more about exhibiting the ‘who’

So today we turn back into Genesis, and find an incredible name of God: El Roi, the God who Sees

IF EL ROI SEES OUR SIN & SUFFERING, THEN, SEEING EL ROI RESCUES US FROM SIN & SORROW

Hagar

This story is incredibly interesting, as it revolves around a woman that most people would not even take a second glance at, Hagar

Hagar is a slave from Egypt, most likely gain during the stay in Egypt during Genesis 12, where Genesis 12:16 “16 He treated Abram well because of her, and Abram acquired flocks and herds, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels.”

In a word: Hagar is a nobody

She is not one of the main characters of Abraham or Sarah, she’s not even related to them like Lot

She is not a great spiritual force like Melchizedek nor a great evil like Sodom or Gommorah

Hagar is an Egyptian slave girl that was given to Abraham and Sarah at some point in the past

So she is someone who is a pagan, gentile, woman, and that makes her pretty much a voice that should be seen but not heard

It seems that she is basically Sarah’s personal handmaid, and that is why she is called ‘Sarai’s Egyptian slave’ in this story

Something that is also interesting is that whenever the patriarch Abram and his wife Sarai speak about Hagar, or refer to her, it is never by ‘Hagar’ but simply ‘slave’, she is nameless

At this point, Abram knew he was going to have a kid, but that didn’t mean from Sarai, God was waiting to act, but Sarai and Abram became impatient!

So they did was was common and made Hagar a wife/concubine to Abram and she would be the one to bear the heir

Hagar became pregnant, and it all went downhill from there

We need to notice, that Hagar was not totally innocent, she had a hand in her own issues

In Genesis 16:4 “4 He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her.”

I think the NLT helps us understand what is really being said, because I confess that I always read this as Sara started to bully Hagar, but it seems quite the otherway around

Here is what the NLT says, “But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt.”

So while Hagar did not chose to be a slave, nor have much of a choice to become the wife of Abram, she did have a choice on how she responded to the blessing given to her of having a child

In her perspective, she has to take this chance doesn’t she?

She is a pagan slave girl, and now she is not just a concubine, but a wife to Abram, who has a powerful God backing him!

Then she becomes pregnant with the only option for the heir of the household!

She of course wants to revel in her newly found upwards social mobility, since it would be her only chance, an

So like many other competing wives in scripture, they fight and it ends up that Hagar is on the losing end and Abram choses Sarai over Hagar, and so the injustice continues

Isn’t it intersting that when someone who is marginalized gains power, they quickly use that same power to oppress those who oppressed them?!

We actually have a term for this in modern times, it is called ‘power reversal oppression’

Perhaps the most clear place we see this playing out today is in South Africa, where white’s are only about 8% of the population,

but in reactionary politics to the aparthiad era of racism, you have things like 80% of jobs must go to black applicants, 30% of farms are trying to be given to black communities, many which have no experience in farming

Then there are many issues with bad policies, weather related droughts, outdated infastructure, south africa has a major water crisis on its hand

Recently in May of this year a headline from CNN, “Taps running dry have become part of daily life in South Africa’s biggest city” (That would be Johannesburg btw)

The article says, “It’s ironic, because Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city, has plenty of water at the moment — authorities and water companies just can’t seem to get it to where it’s needed.”

“Johannesburg is one of many of the world’s big cities that are dealing with a perfect storm of crumbling critical infrastructure, lack of maintenance, corruption and insufficient planning for population growth.”

It all becomes a perfect storm for an already struggling country, to struggle more, and when you are struggling, to not seek to just use any means neccesary to try and survive, and right the ship

Yet that is what is so amazing with Biblical Justice that we are supposed to be people that strive to make right relationships between people. It’s about treating others as the image of God. With the God-given dignity they deserve.

Clearly both Abram, Sarai, and Hagar were not doing this to each other, and so their was injustice, and sin entered and broke their relationships

Even the very person that God had called to start his own special people, but we see that will continue on as the problem of our hearts,

Injustice and this broken has a significant part of the importance of us wrestling with God’s name of El Roi, but let continue our story

So things went from being frustrated that there was no son, and putting matters into their own hands, and then taking the household relational dynamic to a whole nother level of crazy!

So Sarai uses her authority to make Abram a polygamist, then Hagar is elevated wife and gets pregnant which results in her gloating over Sarai, using her newfound power to oppress Sarai

Then Sarai says, I am the first wife of this house, and Abram backs down, and Sarai gets back at Hagar by oppressing her

In fact there is some irony here in that this word ‘mistreated’ is the same word used in Exodus of how the Israelites were treated by the Egyptians, yet now we have an Israelite mistreating an Egyptian slave!

God hates injustice, no matter who it is against, I think we can safely say!

Hagar could only put up so much, and after she was humbled from what she thought would be her new position of prestige, she runs away, and tries to return back to Egypt

This is where things get really incredible in this story

So a pregnant slave girl is on the run to try to get back to Egypt, alone in a desert, with very little water around, and God appears to her!

There are quite a few firsts and only’s in this chapter

These first words are the first revealing of “The Angel of the Lord”, which is always a preincarnate Christ, that is Jesus showing up before he was born as Jesus!

So you can consider this as a conversation between a marginalized, oppressed slaved girl, and the God of the universe!

We don’t know if Hagar knows anything about God, and I don’t think her recent spat with Sarai did any of her views of God any favors!

The second thing is suddenly a shift, she is no longer ‘slave’ or ‘slave girl’ or ‘her’, never named by Sarai or Abram!

God comes and names her ‘Hagar, slave of Sarai’, which might seem like a downgrade but is infact a pretty big upgrade,

She is called ‘slave of Sarai’ simply because she doesn’t have a last name, so it shows how deeply that God knows who she is

The third thing, is God then asks her what is going on, where is she coming from and where is she going to?

God clearly knows it already, otherwise how would He know that she is the slave of Sarai?

Yet, what God wants to do is to give Hagar the ability to voice it herself! So she knows that she is seen, and not simply a nameless, invisible slave

It’s pretty amazing what listening can do isn’t it?

When people are in times of need and sorrow, listening does a lot

That is something that I’ve learned a lot these last few years with Tabitha, and other friends as they walk through the difficulties of life

I’ve learned that even if I think I know (since, you know I’m not God lol), I should listen, and let the emotions and story be told

To let Tabitha be heard by me, and when she is heard, she feels seen, and that helps makes things improve a whole lot than me trying to simply trying to logically pyscho-analyze whatever my wife is going through!

So if we as humans need to do that, what does it tell us when God himself does that!

God tells Hagar to return to her terrible situation!

I think the reason being, it’s the best she can do

With Abram, she will have a house, food, shelter, etc

Even if she made it back to Egypt, she very well might be shunned, particularly as a pregnant woman!

Here is yet another first, the first birth pronouncement and naming!

Yet God tells her that her son will also have the blessing from Abram applied to him

Hagar’s son will be named Ishmael- that is God will hear

God has heard the cry of affliction

Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man, hostile and will live away from his brothers, or can be had as in conflict with his brothers

Many translations spin this as a bad thing, and some of it is, but part of it is a blessing by God

Wild Donkey of a man is often portrayed as a curse by modern readers, but the NET Bible suggests that this was not a negative meaning. “The wild donkey lived a solitary existence in the desert away from society. Ishmael would be free-roaming, strong, and like a Bedouin; he would enjoy the freedom his mother sought.”

Then we move to the final, yet most incredible first and only

A human giving a name to God

Not Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Isaiah, or any other great of the faith, but

A pagan, gentile, pregnant Egyptian slave woman, on the run from her mistress, is the only one in Scripture to give God a name

That is simply staggering isn’t it, and I think should make us reaccess how we treat people who might not fit nice and neatly in our ‘good person’ or ‘good Christian’ box

Remember, it was God who showed up to her, not vice versa, and frankly, I doubt Hagar had any desire after being abused by Sarai to do so

The name she gives is El-Roi!

She has seen, quite literally a pre-incarnate Jesus, who sees her!

Seeing is not just something about seeing from afar, like God sitting up on his throne gazing down at earth uninterested, unmoved and apathetic to the going ons in the world

It means that God sees, understands, emphasizes with us, knows our experiences

It means that God gets us

He gets why we can’t seem to shake our negative thoughts and fear of failures

He gets why we can’t seem to overcome a habitual sin

He gets why our faith feels like its on the rocks as you work through the death of a child, spouse, parent or friend

He gets why we find joy in our stage of life as newly weds, or planning a wedding, or welcoming a child

This is the only place this name is used of God, but we see it all throughout Scripture

It shows a God who is our source of comfort, our peace in times of distress

Other OT Places

There are many places we see this idea of God seeing in the OT

We could talk of the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, and how she cried out to the Lord to see her in her barrenness, and God answered by sending her Samuel, who would annoint King David

We could talk about the story of the Exodus, where the roles are reversed from Hagar, and the Israelites are the slaves and the Egyptians the oppressive masters

Exodus 3:7–10 “7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, 10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.””

We could speak of King Hezekiah and how he responded to the threat of the Assyrians arranging a seige around Jerusalem

He cries out to YHWH to open his eyes and see their dilema, and let God vindicate his name, and God does by sending the Angel of the Lord and killing 120k of the Assyrians

Or we could speak of how Hezekiah responds when he hears from Isiah the prophet that he will shortly die, and to get his house in order

Hezekiah immediately cries out to God and asks him to remember his faithfulness to YHWH, and YHWH heals him

In Isaiah’s answer, God says “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears!”

We could speak of the incredible things David writes in Psalm 139, things like

God examines and knows our rising and sitting,

Our motives, the very words we are about to form

The fact that we can never escape from God’s presence

The fact that God knows us and created our very being, that God saw us before anyone else did!

Not to mention the cry to search the heart, so that we might not be blind to our sin, and perhaps the most famous and poetical lines from this Psalm?

Psalm 139:7–12 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day,for darkness is as light to you.

The Psalm that I want to spend a little time looking at today is Psalm 73,

Psalm 73 CSB

A psalm of Asaph. 1 God is indeed good to Israel, to the pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet almost slipped; my steps nearly went astray. 3 For I envied the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have an easy time until they die, and their bodies are well fed. 5 They are not in trouble like others; they are not afflicted like most people. 6 Therefore, pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment. 7 Their eyes bulge out from fatness; the imaginations of their hearts run wild. 8 They mock, and they speak maliciously; they arrogantly threaten oppression. 9 They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues strut across the earth. 10 Therefore his people turn to them and drink in their overflowing words. 11 The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High know everything?” 12 Look at them—the wicked! They are always at ease, and they increase their wealth. 13 Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing? 14 For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning. 15 If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless 17 until I entered God’s sanctuary. Then I understood their destiny. 18 Indeed, you put them in slippery places; you make them fall into ruin. 19 How suddenly they become a desolation! They come to an end, swept away by terrors. 20 Like one waking from a dream, Lord, when arising, you will despise their image. 21 When I became embittered and my innermost being was wounded, 22 I was stupid and didn’t understand; I was an unthinking animal toward you. 23 Yet I am always with you; you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory. 25 Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. 27 Those far from you will certainly perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, God’s presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all you do.

The reason I want to look at this is that it deals with the truth of El Roi so well, the God who sees

El Roi is not just about seeing our suffering, it is also about seeing us and our sin, and our baseless thoughts actions!

El Roi sees our suffering, but as we said at the beginning that also means he sees our sinful nature too!

So what does Asaph (who is a man of enough ability to be appointed the leader of the levites under the reign of King David, the man after God’s own heart!) tell us?

He wants us to know that God is great, but he struggles!

This psalm is so honest and raw, Asaph envied the wicked and arrogant!

The men and women of the Bible are not that different from you and I, we all have similar heart trouble!

I know I’ve envied the wicked and prosperity they have!

They have easy lives, never worry about a meal

They more wickedness they do, it’s like the more they get away with

They even openly mock God, and say “How can God know!”

in verse 11, “Does the Most High know everything?”

This is a direct assault against El Roi! Does God see what I’m really doing?

The implication is, well if he did, since he doesn’t act he must be powerless!

Yet, Asaph struggles for another reason too, he knows that he has done his best to honor God, and He’s wondering if God sees, or does God care?!?

In verse 13 there is a turn from the wicked out there, basically, I’m missing out on the good life now, for what I’m doing now, and we see what Asaph says

He seeks to purify his heart and hands before God

He feels like he’s punished and afflicted for following God!

Yet, he feels he can’t even say these doubts outloud lest he torpedo’s someone elses weaker faith

As he thought about these things, there was no answer to them, until he entered God’s temple

Then he sees that life is not nearly as secure as they might think it to be!

Their lives will quickly end, and they will find themselves gasping at straws

Asaph realized that he didn’t really know anything, particularly compared to the God who sees all!

Ultimately he relies on God, and we have the beautiful verses in 25 and 26

English Standard Version Psalm 73

25  Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

26  My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

It is on the basis of God knowing the grand plan, working with more information that Asaph could imagine,

Jesus

Ultimately, El Roi is found in Jesus, as are all the names of God, and we could spend weeks working and seeing El Roi in the incarnation of Jesus,

El Roi might be one of the clearest indicators of the eventual promise of a Messiah

He is not a God far away, but Jesus becomes the suffering servant that takes up our pain, sin, and suffering, and God turned his face away from God for him to fully see us

On one hand we see Jesus tell us to live in light of God’s seeing, even when others do not see

So that for us if we look for the seeing God, then it changes how we live

Matthew 6:5–8 CSB

5 “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. 8 Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.

We pray not to be seen or congratulated by people, but to the God who sees and hears us not because of eloquence, but because of our trust in God, and our childlike faith

like when you hear a young child pray to God, it is not oft long, nor eloquent, yet far more beautiful than anything a seminary student can bring together

Peter reminds us that we need to be careful about our lives, since while on one hand God has his eyes on the righteous and their prayers, his face is against those who do evil!

Yet Jesus models what El Roi showed to Hagar in so many of his interactions

He sees Nathanial under the fig tree in John 1.

He sees Zaccheaus, and tells him to come down to dine with, in Luke 19.

He knows exactly where Peter is after his 3rd denial in Luke 22, looking directly at him.

He sees the man with leprosy, by touching him to heal him in Mt. 8, which would of ended perhaps years of isolation from touch!

He sees the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, and doesn’t judge her by her marriages, or lack thereof, but sees that she will be the first in John’s gospel to recognize Jesus as the Messiah!

Jesus even sees Saul and his persecution of the church, and it is Jesus that appears and calls Saul to the faith, ironically by taking his sight

Then we see Paul, could see nothing, but yet we know that he met Jesus, so he could now see everything, and would never be the same!

Jesus is El Roi incarnate, the God who sees each and every fiber of our being, for the good and the bad, and even the very ugly we wish we could hide!

Application

El Roi- the God who numbers the haris on our heads, counts every tear we cry, sees every sin we commit, and knows every detail of our circumstances

Take comfort in El Roi

Even the most attentive parent must sleep, but our heavenly Father never closes his eyes to us, he never misses a detail of what is happening, he sees everything

It means that God loves us and values us for who we are, not what we do!

Open your eyes to El Roi

We won’t see El Roi if we are focused on hiding our sin, or concentrated on our circumstances

Hagar sees God and that is game changing for her, even though her circumstances remain the same, and El Roi would appear to her and bless her again when she is kicked out for good in Genesis 21.

Sometimes we are disillusioned, and we need to see that we are not abandoned, but God is with us through the difficulties!

God doesn’t have a seeing problem, we do!

God sees us, so live like he does!

God already sees us at our best and worst, and it doesn’t change his care for us!

God didn’t stop seeing Hagar because she got pregnant and was abandoned!

Since God wants a relationship for us, do you and I keep it shallow?

Is our prayer life a one way street?

Do you treat prayer like a genie and not wait for God to respond?

When our lives are amazing, El Roi is with us

When our lives are unbearable, don’t know next steps, El Roi already sees each step we need to take!

Let’s return to that mom who was doing a difficult load of dishes that we read about at the beginning to close

Moments later, I heard the familiar ding of my cellphone. A text from my friend Ashleigh. After throwing the remaining spoons into the drawer, I picked up my phone to see what she wanted.

Here’s what I read: I had to lean against the counter, one hand over my mouth as I just stared at her words: God sees you. Tears poured down my face. We live in an age that angel visitations sound crazy and creepy and uncommon. And I know Ashleigh isn’t necessarily celestial—unless her husband and her three kids know differently. But in that moment, I felt like I had experienced a heavenly visitation.

God doesn’t typically communicate with me through neon signs, but wow did I feel like I was standing smack dab in the middle of Vegas. God sees you. I read the words over and over. All doubts disappeared and I began to laugh-cry, “Okay, God. I hear you.”

Benediction

Isaiah 43:1–4 CSB

1 Now this is what the Lord says— the one who created you, Jacob, and the one who formed you, Israel— “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and the rivers will not overwhelm you, When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched and the flame will not burn you. 3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, and your Savior. I have given Egypt as a ransom for you, Cush and Seba in your place. 4 Because you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you, I will give people in exchange for you and nations instead of your life.