Let's praise the God who sees us and love us
Let us lift up our voices and sing: Hosanna , Hosanna In The highest
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Scripture Reading: Genesis 16:13-14
13 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[a] the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi[b]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
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Let us enter into a time of prayer. To help us let us sing. The Power Of Your Love
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Let us listen to the Staff Songster's sing: In The Secret Of Thy Presence
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The God Who Sees Me
Genesis 16:13-14
With life so cluttered with stuff these days – it’s easy to get the impression that not only are we too busy, but that God’s too busy to notice what’s going on in our lives. That somehow, He doesn’t see, He doesn’t care.
Have you ever heard of rock fishing? Fishing enthusiasts climb down a cliff to a rock ledge with the sea waves crashing all around them and throw their line in hoping to catch a fish.
Me, I just go down to the local supermarket for my fish and the thing is, I always catch one.
Anyway, these rock fishing enthusiasts, stand hour after hour, the tide comes in inch by inch – and then suddenly, a massive wave comes from nowhere and sweeps the fisherman off the ledge into an angry ocean. Many have been drowned each year. Here is a picture of some doing Rock fishing
Now, think of yourself on that rock. Imagine that you’re swept off into the ocean. It’s vast. Night’s falling and the current drags you out further and further and further away from land until the shore is just a distant speck. There you are, bobbing around in those dark waters. Helicopters with search lights are flying around, often at a distance but they’re looking in the wrong place. They just can’t see you. Eventually the lights of the aircraft, well they’ve given up for the night. There you are all alone, bobbing up and down in the rough seas. Let me ask you something, how do you feel? What’s going on in your mind?
Pretty scary isn’t it. So near and yet so far. The search planes were out there, they were shining their lights, but they just couldn’t see you, and what a tragedy. Many people drowned in the oceans of this world, not because the rescuer didn’t come looking for them but because the rescuers just couldn’t see them.
There are many different names for God throughout the Bible. Why? Because those different names tell us a about who God is. Who God is today, here and now in my life, in your life.
If we can discover who God really is, what He tells us about Himself through these different names, then all of a sudden that’s going to lift our faith to believe not in the God that we’ve constructed in our own imagination; not in who we kind of think God might be, but to trust our lives to the God who actually is.
One of the most encouraging names that I’ve come across in the Bible, that God uses for Himself, El-Roi – and that name means literally “The God who sees me”. But sometimes, in our lives we’re like that fisherman bobbing around in the ocean. We can have this sense that we’re out there all on our own, at the mercy of the wind and the storm and the waves.
God doesn’t feel like He’s anywhere near us, almost like those search planes who gave up looking for us in the middle of the night because they couldn’t see us. Ever felt like that? This is why we need to know God. I don’t mean about Him, I mean know Him – in our hearts, in our minds, in our experience. And this is where El-Roi – the God who sees me – is the God you and I need to know.
Hagar was the slave of Abraham and Sarah. Now if you recall God had promised Abraham a son even though he and his wife were very old when it came to child bearing. And when this child didn’t come, they tried all sorts of things to help God. And one of the schemes they came up with is that Abraham sleeps with Hagar – and so that happens and Hagar has a son. But the moment he’s born, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, becomes jealous and treats Hagar terribly. Have a listen. Genesis chapter 16 beginning at verse 6:
6 “You decide,” said Abram. “Your maid is your business.” Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away. 7-8 An angel of GOD found her beside a spring in the desert; it was the spring on the road to Shur. He said, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, what are you doing here?” She said, “I’m running away from Sarai my mistress.” 9-12 The angel of GOD said, “Go back to your mistress. Put up with her abuse.” He continued, “I’m going to give you a big family, children past counting.
From this pregnancy, you’ll get a son: Name him Ishmael;
for GOD heard you, GOD answered you.
He’ll be a bucking bronco of a man,
a real fighter, fighting and being fought,
Always stirring up trouble,
always at odds with his family.”
13 She answered GOD by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, “You’re the God who sees me! El-Roi “Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!” 14 That’s how that desert spring got named “God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring.” That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. 15-16 Hagar gave Abram a son. Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave him his son, Ishmael.
Now, whatever we may think about the morality of what Abraham and Sarah did with Hagar, we have to remember, as horrible as it may sound to us today, she was a slave girl, and she had to do what she was told. When she falls pregnant, she’s abused. This girl is in an incredibly tough spot, isn’t she? The pain of the rejection, out there in the wilderness where she’s run away.
But it was out there in the wilderness, in her deep pain and misery, that she has an encounter with God. She wasn’t even one of God’s chosen people. If she had been, she wouldn’t have been a slave. And yet, God comes to her in the desert to comfort her and to guide her and to be with her in the midst of her afflictions. And so she names Him El-Roi – You are the God who saw me, You are the God who heard my cry and felt my pain and saw me in the wilderness.
When we’re in that place that Hagar found herself, the last thing, the very last thing we expect is that God should show up there out in our wilderness. And to be sure, sometimes He delays in showing up, and that doesn’t always make sense to us. But here’s the thing. He always sees. There are no circumstances in our lives that escape His fatherly awareness and care. God knows us, God knows our troubles.
When we’re in that wilderness, when we’re bobbing around in the dark ocean, we need to believe in El-Roi – the God who sees us – the God who knows even the number of hairs on our head. This mighty powerful God who on the one hand is above all; on the other hand, he hears our cries and sees our afflictions. And He is there, right there, right here with us.
Not some distant God; not some theoretical God; not some religion; not some disinterested God; not some God who’s too busy with other things, bigger things; not some God who doesn’t care … but El-Roi – the God who sees us. This is the God who wants to be with us in the deepest darkest moments of our lives. Even in the middle of that wilderness experience he wants to be with us. In fact, let me say this, especially in the middle of that wilderness experience, He is with us and he sees us. El-Roi
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Jesus sees us and loves us. He gave his life, so we can have, Life In All Its fulness.
Let us lift up our voices to sing: In Christ Alone
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The Lord bless thee and keep thee
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee
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