A Place to be Known
Notes
Transcript
Recap of Core Values -
Recap of Core Values -
Transformation
Becoming
Why are they important?
Last week Rod shared with us about how when life comes up, thoughts, feelings, emotions, or experiences can distract us from our values. Our job is to get back on track and living toward our values.
Forge Friends Church has a set of values that we will be living by.
Tonight we will be talking about being Known. Forge Friends will be a place where people can be Known.
A Place to be Known
A Place to be Known
Lets do some whiteboard work.
What does it mean to be known? What do you experience in your body and mind when you are known by someone?
What is needed in order to be known?
What is required of us to make someone understand or feel known?
What are you willing to risk in order to be known here at Forge Friends?
What are you willing to risk in order to know others here at Forge Friends?
There are a few really big picture promises and Covenants made in Scripture
There are a few really big picture promises and Covenants made in Scripture
We will examine one of those tonight, which happens to be one of the biggest most prominent promises and covenants made between God and man.
It has to do with Abraham and Sarah, beginning in the very first book of the Bible—Genesis.
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
I will make you into a great nation...
All the peoples will be blessed through you...
Time goes by, still no children to make into a great nation.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
To your offspring…
God begins to hint that they will conceive a child, through which this promise will come into being. Up to this point, they are without child and Sarah is barren, and cannot conceive.
More time goes by, and no offspring.
Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
God says I will give you all the land to the north, south, east and west to you and your offspring, forever...
I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, that it will be impossible to count...
More time goes by, still no offspring.
We now come to
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Notice, even in spite of all the promises God says he will fulfill with this land and offspring, He’s yet to give Abraham a son. Family was a really big deal in this time.
In this passage, we see Abrahams frustration getting to him a bit.
GOD!, you still havent given me what you said you were going to give me! Look, cant you see, I have no children and I am going to have to give all my wealth to a servant in my household. What is up with that, God!
Continuing on…God responds...
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
A little further down in this chapter God says, again!...
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
Seriously, God, again with the promise? Where is this offspring you have been promising me!?
Now enter the human failing part of the story:
Genesis 16:1–4 (NIV)
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
Hagar is a servant to the family. She is the help. She is an Egyptian slave woman to Abraham and Sarah. Specifically, Sarahs servant.
This is not comparable to the slave trade of the Africans being enslaved by Europeans during the founding of the Americas.
Biblical slavery in the 1st century was more of the idea of working off debt accrued for different reasons. Slave and owner would agree upon a length of time where the one in debt would offer their life to the owner to work off their debt. It was not violent. They became a part of the family so to speak, and even sometimes sticking around until death, just because they became family.
Now, what is going on to this point:
Now, what is going on to this point:
God has promised to make Abraham a great nation and his offspring will be like all the dust in the world. Up to this point it has been roughly 15 years since that first promise from God. Abraham was 80 years old. Sarah was 70. As time goes by, they are getting older, way older, way outside of child bearing age. They begin to doubt God’s promise, or are looking for the way that God is going to fulfill His promise to them.
Enter Hagar.
Oh, I see, says Abraham, obviously Sarah is barren and in old age, you must have meant that you were going to give us children by another means. Oh, I know, lets sleep with Hagar and have a child so we can answer this promise from God in our own way.
Abraham and Sarah took matters in their own hands. What was the result? Hagar now entering the story to attempt to fulfill the promise.
We pick up the story to see how it begins to unfold:
Genesis 16:4–6 (ESV)
And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress, despising her. 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, despising her and she fled from her.
Wait, what happened, Sarah. You pushed for this. You disobeyed the Lord in not trusting Him. You thought this was a good idea and wanted to conceive a child through Hagar. Now you are mad. Now you despise her?
Despise is a very harsh word -
Here in the Hebrew it means to literally curse her.
Sarah, who advocated to have her husband Abraham sleep with the servant, is now cursing Hagar for it. Sarah begins to hate her. She cant stand her. She is obviously troubled and not dealing well with the situation.
So what now?
Hagar now is caught in the crossfire of Abraham and Sarah taking their destiny into their own hands and now she flees and is on the run.
It goes on:
And now we arrive at Tonight’s point for the evening...
The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.
God’s angel has found her in the desert. At her most vulnerable place. Feeling used. Feeling abused. Feeling forgotten. Feeling ashamed. Feeling betrayed. Feeling lost. Feeling like a mistake. Feeling inhumane. Feeling scared, unsure, insecure. No doubt she is crying. She is no doubt Feeling unknown.
Right at this very moment, God shows up on the scene in the form of one of His angels.
It goes on:
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
After Hagar’s most vulnerable place, pregnant, questioning everything, she has an encounter with God.
She walks away saying, You are the God who sees me.
She walks away saying, You are the God who sees me.
That word sees - means to see, spy, examine, reveal, and understand.
This is who God is! He sees us. Implied in that is we are Known by Him.
He understands us far more than we understand ourselves. He is with us. He is always right there at our places of greatest pain and weakness, and places of joy and fulfilment.
Maybe you are here and think that God does not see you. That you have gone too far. Have not done enough. Cant stop doing what you know you ought not to do and you have a story about needing to get cleaned up, sober, free from bondage, free from addiction, free from greed, sex, possessions, wealth, and THEN I can be seen by God and okay with it.
No no no. God is with you right now. He is with you when you are hanging out in the darkness, eager to commune with you in the light.
You are KNOWN by HIM at ALL times and in ALL circumstances
You are KNOWN by HIM at ALL times and in ALL circumstances
This is a core value of our church that we would be a place where people are known by God, and each other, no matter where they are at in life.
Let’s do some whiteboard work here in the interest of being known:
What are you willing to risk to be known here at Forge Friends Church? What needs to go in order for you to open up in being known?
What are you willing to risk to make sure that other person is known here at Forge Friends Church?
Let’s pray with one another as we close
Let’s pray with one another as we close
Share with your friend what one of your greatest sources of joy is in this season, and then share one place of great discouragement in your life and after you each share, you can rejoice in the joy experienced and then pray together for that discouraging place.