The God Who Sees Me | Donna Crouch | Hillsong Church Online

and i've called this message the god who sees me the god who sees me whether you're in a prison or an apartment or on a bus on your way because you're an essential worker family at home a solo parent you've got kids running everywhere right now locked down permanent school teachers and parents and providers that in it all we are in relationship with the god who sees you who sees me these are challenging times with incredible um extended and compounded pressures not just do we have the normal challenges of life but we've got all the knock-on effects of you know covert around the world and also in our nation in various states and i want to read to you some verses out of the bible about a woman called hagar she too was in an extraordinary situation in genesis 16. and just to give you a little bit of background on what was going on in hagar's life the first thing is abram and sarai who are her owners who became abraham and sarah later they were promised in air in genesis 15 verse 4 and sarah thinks sarah sorry she thought i'm going to take matters into my own hands i know what i'll do to make god's promise happen i'm going to give my husband abram my slave hagar well abram was 85 and hagar was probably a teenager just think about that for a moment looks incredibly culturally inappropriate right now but this is what was traditional in those times and sarah i'm finding that her slave girl is pregnant to her husband she starts to mistreat her and be harsh and cruel in a way that the culture of the time said wasn't okay her behavior sarai's behavior to her slave girl maybe because of her own abuse in genesis 12 14 when her husband gave it to pharaoh and said it she was his sister rather than his wife maybe her own hurt caused her to just continue in this cycle of hurt but we're going to pick it up and read some verses from verse 17 to 14 and then we're just going to unpack it for a few moments so let me share these verses with you so you've got the backdrop you've got what's going on this is what happened sarah treated hagar so harshly that she finally ran away the angel of the lord found hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to sure and the angel said to her hagar sarah servant where have you come from and where are you going well i'm running away from my mistress sarah she replied and the angel of the lord said to her return to your mistress and submit to her authority and then he added i will give you more descendants than you can count can we just stop there for a minute she's in a wilderness if you've been to jordan or israel you know how barren these places are and in the middle of this wilderness desolate desperate place the angel of god says i'm gonna give you more descendants than you can count and the angel also said you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son you are to name him ishmael which means god hears for the lord has heard your cry of distress this son of yours will be a wild man as untamed as a wild donkey and he will raise his fist against everyone and everyone will be against him yes he will live in open hostility against all his relatives we'll unpack that in a moment because it's not a bad rap it's a good thing therefore hagar used another name to refer to the lord who had spoken to her this is what i want you to hear this morning she said you are the god who sees me and she also said have i truly seen the one who sees me and it goes on and says she gave abram a son named him ishmael and abram was 86 years old when ishmael was born here is a woman at the lowest point in her life in a wilderness place feeling invisible and unseen and unimportant to others and the angel of god meets her there names her names a slave girl by her name and gives her promises to go and live her life with no wonder today if you can see yourself in hagar's story you know in many ways many of us are in all kinds of figurative wildernesses right now but i want to say this morning that you are seen by name that you understood and that god loves you and he is able to intervene and fight for you and and i i get that right now as i'm preaching and this amazing tiny team here working so hard to bring be able to facilitate bringing up the word this morning across so many places the isolation and the disconnection the health challenges the loss the business incomes that have been lost due to the impact of this pandemic our beautiful college students who are a long way from home missing family young people stuck at home or stuck in apartments on their own who should be out living their best life right now no social life whatsoever it's tough it's no doubtedly really tough wondering will i ever get back to a life the unpredictability of of life right now and different changes and rules we're mindful of soul parents and parents having to educate their kids at home right now and work and run a home and shop with restrictions widows and widowers who are on your own my mom 85 up the coast living on her own no one to touch her no one to hug her it's rough times rough wilderness places weddings that aren't happening people with family overseas that you desperately love to go meet um children with additional needs that require even more of you right now we're mindful of our defence force personnel who have served in the middle east and might now right now might be wondering what was that all about and our poor world in pain whether it's haiti or this crisis happening in afghanistan i want to say again that these places we find ourselves in let's for a moment let the truth of god's word come into your world however this pandemic has found you and whatever right now might be pressing in and seem like it's never going to turn around that the promise of god that god is the god el roy the god who sees me so here we go first thing i want to share and unpack about our heavenly father is that our heavenly father through jesus christ and his holy spirit is always working despite chaos like i said hagar's in a wilderness mistreated used as a concubine and an incubator for another couple's dreams she seems to be collateral damage and she's in this shocking moment of distress and it wasn't the first time in genesis 21 it happened again and it's her worst day but on a worse day the best happens god sees her despair and calls her by name and has a conversation with her she's not an israelite she's an egyptian slave she's it shows us something of god that he doesn't have favorites but he loves all humanity who he's made in his image you know our heavenly father specializes in chaos in fact the very first two sentences of the bible in genesis 1 it says this in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the deep waters just think about that for a minute the earth didn't have land masses and continents and oceans it was just formless and empty and covered by waters this is a beautiful part and the spirit of god was hovering over the surface of the waters can you see that picture where the spirit of god hovers the start of this whole world that you and i live in started with god hovering over chaos and then god said let there be light and there was light and it goes on in chapter one of genesis 5 times god says let there be and then it happened and then in verse 21 god says then it was good you know our heavenly father is not contained or limited by chaos just because there's chaos and not great things happening doesn't mean that god is absent it's just the way our world is he's never locked down or locked out he's not kept within a five or ten k radius with restrictions the spirit of god is always moving psalm 61 verse 1 and 2 hear my cry o lord and attend unto my prayer from the ends of the earth will i call out to thee beautiful psalm that talks about how we can engage god in our aloneness deuteronomy 31 verse 8 says this the lord is the one who goes ahead of you he will be with you he will not fail you or forsake you do not fear and do not be dismayed in acts 5 19 and acts 16 verse 26 talks about how prison doors are opened your situation today your business that you lost your loneliness that you're feeling again the word of god says and promises to you and i that god is the one who's going ahead he will be with us he will be with you and he will not fail you he will not forsake you do not fear and do not be dismayed you know wildernesses can be real places figuratively or literally 300 times in the bible they're mentioned moses the israelites hagar elijah john the baptist jesus the apostle paul all talked about this place of wilderness but i've learned something in my life there's one job of the wilderness and it's not to get caught up or distracted or discouraged with what seems to be not happening but it really is like creating a place where jesus himself can come and be center stage and take charge and that i meet him there and i want to encourage you first up church this morning that whatever place it might feel like right now don't allow the distractions and the discouragement to push on in but god is a master at working not of chaos but bringing calm and order to the chaos and let him today come to that thing in your heart that is hurting that is worrying that trying to push away let him come and bring his order to our chaos it's a real place the second thing i'd love to share about our heavenly father is that he sees and he hears and he responds to our pain could you imagine hagar a slave girl like she's she's been a piece of equipment at all and the angel of god himself calls her by name a name is so powerful when you have a child you agonize over the right name when our first baby was born we had a name picked out and literally when he when he was born we we called him by the name and then we went you're not that name who are you and we waited for a whole week to figure out who this little human being was and then we named him accordingly all of us all of us crave to be loved and liked i love you in the lord no we all crave to be loved and liked we all crave to be seen and don't we do all kinds of things to be seen for who we truly are but sometimes all the things we can get caught up in doing can block who we truly are in the early days weeks actually of going out with my now husband stephen i remember we'd been going out for about six weeks it was my first like full-on full-on boyfriend i was 29 and i said to him about six weeks in i said oh look you'll probably get really bored of me because um underneath what i do i'm pretty quiet pretty shy person and i'm just a heads up you know if if you get bored of me that's okay now i know i was crippled with social anxiety around relationships but i didn't know that then i thought i was being really pragmatic and incredibly smart and i'll never forget what stephen said to me never he said donna you don't have to do anything that you do at church and other stuff i like the girl underneath everything that you do and i felt seen and discovered i was loved for who i really am do you know that's for all of us all of us crave to be loved and seen and you today are not a sum total of all that you feel even though those feelings might be incredibly strong or even sad you know our humanness brings joy but it also brings challenging emotions like fear sadness loneliness unbelief feeling abandoned and yet hagar is seen she's truly seen by the god who sees her and she's the first person in the whole bible so far to give god a name a woman on the margins not cool and not in but a woman right on their margins so so challenged by class and ethnicity and her status in life she's given the privilege of giving god a name very rare god doesn't see you and i with labels doesn't see a disabled kid he sees a child that may have additional needs he doesn't see someone who's crazy and mental do you see somebody who might be struggling right now with with mental health not being so great just like somebody who has asthma all on the same level he doesn't see a home homeless person we call someone homeless person he doesn't see that he's a person who doesn't have a place to live right now he doesn't see somebody as a refugee he sees somebody as a person who is no longer safe in their own country and has to flee and that god our father is active with our tears psalm 56 verse 8 and 9 says this you keep track of all my sorrows you've collected all my tears in your bottle and you've recorded each one in your book doesn't mean he's a saddest it means he notices sometimes tears are liquid and sometimes they're just silent and dry there's an ache in our heart but our god our heavenly father is so tender with us isaiah 25 8 says that he will wipe away our tears jesus our savior was also given to tears he cried over the death of lazarus in john 11 35 and he cried over the state of a city and a nation in luke 19 41 the apostle paul wept over the church in acts 20 verse 31 there's a whole book of lamentations but god promises us in psalm 126 6 let me share it with you so beautiful those who plant in tears with harvest will harvest with shouts of joy they will weep as they go to plant their seed but they sing as they return with harvest basically saying to you and i don't stop don't give up let the tears come but in them keep coming to god and keep sowing and believing and trusting that he will turn it around in this season we're in of loneliness and isolation and looking like our dreams have been put on hold and can't live the life in your 20s you were hoping for can't get married can't go see family yeah it's rough but in it keep going and keep sowing and don't buy into the lie that somehow christianity is about a toxic positivity where i've got to look look happy no that's called being fake we are walking and serving and loving a god who once authentic you and me not pretense don't create a dissonance between what's on the outside and the inside when it comes to your walk with jesus let it be real and let it be honest third thing i'd love to share which is so beautiful is that our heavenly father gives us his presence and his promises hagar encounters god twice in genesis 16 and then in genesis 21 verses 14 to 20. she actually has what's called two theophanies which is where god himself manifests himself in a in a way that a human can relate to and when god promises her first up that he knows her he sees her and then he promises her this son of yours will be a wild man as untamed as a wild donkey in the ancient world what he was talking about was the most beautiful horse that ran wild on the plains that was prized and he said hey guy your son is going to be like this beautiful wild i'm not a donkey like we know it at the animal farm at what you know featherdale you know not that kind of eeyore donkey but this beautiful wild prized animal that's going to be your son could you imagine being a teenage slave girl pregnant to a way older man trying to live out their dream for them and being told in that moment in the desert that you are going to have a son and descendants and they're going to be free and they're not going to be oppressed by anybody that's amazing and i know wherever and whoever you are listening to this message today whether tokyo bali down in melbourne city hills campus hobart online around the world i know that god's promises are for you and i want to encourage you to take them particularly in the wilderness and to take them particularly if you're feeling down in some parts of your life right now and and take them deep into your heart because god gives us his promises to hang on to somehow 21st century christianity maybe can get caught up with all the things i'm doing for god but that's not the truth christianity at its core is this that you and i are sinners and that we're in need of a savior and that's jesus christ that's the common denominator for all of us all of us are human and have human failings and weaknesses just in our core nature from the first century to the 21st century this is what our faith is all about that we're dependent on a savior and that in that dependence in that place of weakness is the greatest opportunity for exchange where he says i'll be with you in john 15 26 and john 16 verses 5 to 15 there's a promise jesus says i'm going to give you my spirit and he will be a friend and a counselor and an advocate and a helper and a teacher and in acts 2 we see the outpouring of the holy spirit two corinthians um let me find it for you 12 apostle paul writes talks about his thorn in the flesh each time he begged god to take it away god said my grace is all you need my power works best in your weakness what does that mean it actually means that at our point of weakness you're not a sum total of what you feel right now there is calling there is purpose there is an identity that you have there is destiny ahead no matter what chaos is going on and jesus promises us that his grace his mercy his favor is at its greatest when we're at our weakest that's that's the crux of our faith that is our distinctive i just want to encourage you however you draw aside however you find that place with the lord it's not just like osmosis you know that die in the beaker in the science lab with the celery years ago that kind of experiment take time however and wherever you can to be strengthened by his beautiful presence isaiah 41 verse 10 he promises to strengthen us don't be afraid the word says i'm with you don't be discouraged for i am your god i will strengthen you and help you and i will hold you up with my victorious right hand for me as a mum and working and married to stephen in our business for many many many years probably two decades for me as a girl as woman that place of exchange has been my laundry often late at night my family's in bed and there's this place of exchange i remember dropping my kids off at daycare that place of exchange it's a real place steady yourself and go there pour it all out and let him know how you really are and he says my grace and my strength and my spirit is going to be with you and the last thing i want to share as i bring this part of the of our time together to to a close our heavenly father requires that i see others as he does coming back to hagar it's a story of great love it's a story of a divine intervention in her life i want to encourage you in your life regardless of what's going on to be expectant of god's divine kindness and intervention proudly and boldly and confidently because you're right as his child we're not doing this thing for god we are doing our life with god and he delights delights when we we allow him more room to come in and say god come give me more promises because my 20s aren't looking how i felt god come give me greater days with my family because i haven't even seen my grandchild yet it's not me but i have friends who that is your story and hagar shows us that even if we feel on the margins that god is there you know the greatest hallmark of our faith is in our size or our music all the growth the greatest hallmark of the faith of christians is love i want to encourage you as well to not buy in to the western ideal of christianity that concerns me i feel like the dials move too much it's become all about me and god me and god and very individualistic only and yes salvation is personal and individual but over 100 times in in the bible it talks about the body of christ in the church and as believers we are connected to one another we're not it's not just about what god is doing for me i got to be connected to you my brothers and sisters in your faith and your progress in the lord that's his church and that as his church we'd be committed to one another in love in the good times and the rough times and i believe these are days to be gentle with one another gentle and preparing for this message i felt like the holy spirit saying it's time to be gentle with each other our culture has become so polarized social media has become so mean the left is more left and the right's more right opinions are so binary and it's getting nasty and in it all as believers who are called to be salt and light can i encourage us all my starting with myself to be gentle to be loving to be inclusive in the household of faith and beyond the household of faith no difference you know i was part of an amazing evening not this week but last week on a friday night a group of 50 ministers from the hills ministers fraternal got together with tim costello and the refugee council of australia and we talked about what could we do as the church to see australia open its heart more to these terrible things happening in afghanistan and it was an amazing meeting i met nuns and priests and all kinds of people 50 of us happened in less than 24 hours and what's been amazing is that group talking about advocating to our federal member alex hawk within days has become a national movement it's in the papers today it's in eternity news it's called christians united for afghanistan and it's a national movement of the church in australia saying because we love jesus and because we love people and because we understand that god has already given dignity to everybody we must open our hearts and our hands more to this crisis as believers as followers of christ you'll see in the papers today that's what it's all about and we we're just a small part of a much bigger movement of christians who are getting on with a job of loving others and so to finish this message this morning because time has truly gone wherever you are can you see yourself in hagar's story i want to encourage you to be expectant that god is a god who sees you where you are and you can encounter him in a deeper way and experience his promises more than ever that he is not defined by chaos keep going let him fight the battles for you health business family let him fight the battles let his strength come and be your strength and to finish isaiah 43 verses 18 and 19. this is what it says but forget all that it is nothing compared to what i'm going to do in your lounge room in your car wherever you are today let this be the word of the lord for i am about to do something new see i have already begun do you not see it i will make a pathway through the wilderness young people elderly people families in pain strain on couples and soul parents doing it all right now i will create a pathway through the wilderness and i will create rivers in dry land wastelands so my chosen people can be refreshed that's the word of the lord to us today that he is capable and able to bring beautiful interventions in jesus name amen let me pray for you father this morning wherever and however this message today around the world online overseas in japan lord in bali father wherever we are may the promise and may the truth of your presence and your inheritance that you are giving us be very true for all of us today in jesus name i pray comfort us and bring hope again amen before nathanael comes may i pray for you for those today that may be in your heart you're doubting maybe you're just drifting away maybe you've never had the chance to get to know jesus i'm gonna pray a prayer and it's a prayer of receiving christ he doesn't want anything from you he's done all the work for you to come into relationship with him if that's you on the chat today you can talk to our team but right now where you are will you pray this prayer pray it with me dear jesus today i'm getting honest and real with you i need you in my life i've made mistakes but i'm asking you to forgive me of everything i believe that you love me that you see me right now and that you take me as your child i accept you as lord and savior amen and amen if you prayed that prayer and i know many will well done giving you a big shout out on the chat god bless you thank you nathaniel take the promise run with it because it's all ours amen

Channel: Hillsong Church

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Length: 29min 54sec (1794 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 28 2021