Abraham No.6 Do you matter to God?

Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. My God, how wonderful thou art, Thy courtesy how bright! How beautiful thy mercy's heat, As red as the burning light! O treasure thine eternal years, O everlasting God, Thy prostrate spirits day and night, Incessantly adored.

I fear Thee, living God, With deep and tender fears, But worship Thee with tenderly calm, And I may love Thee to my heart. O mighty as Thou art, Thou who hast proved to us so near, Lord of all, Thou who'st made us near, Loved we the Lord, we praised Him sweet at birth, So loved He the One that He gave us His Son, Who yielded His life and atoned for our sins, And opened the life-gate that all may go in. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice! O come to the Father, to Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, great things He hath done.

O come, O come, all ye faithful, The virgins of God, To every living earth, The prophets of God, The fliers of heaven, Who to Thee believe, That o'er earth from Jesus the pardon receive. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice! O come to the Father, to Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, great things He hath done. Great things He hath taught us, Great things He hath done, Then praise Him, rejoicing, Through Jesus the Son.

The pure and mild, And graceful will be, Our wonder, our rapture, When Jesus we see. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice! O come to the Father, to Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, great things He hath done. A reading tonight is Genesis chapter 16, starting at verse 1. Now Sarah, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So she said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my maidservant.

Perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sarah said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarah's wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

He slept with Hagar and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarah said to Abram, You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.

I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me. Your servant is in your hands, Abram said.

Do with her whatever you think best. Then Sarah ill-treated Hagar, so she fled from her. 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, servant of Sarah, where have you come from, and where are you going? I am running away from my mistress Sarah, she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, Go back to your mistress and submit to her.

The angel added, I will also increase your descendants, and there will be too numerous to count. The angel of the Lord also said to her, You are now with child, and you will have a son. He shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard 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 towards 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 seen the one who sees me. That is why the well was called Be'er al-Hayri. It is still there between Kedesh and Bered.

So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. Pray this very sincerely.

This part of the service may be meaningful as we arrest your mind. And please God, the Holy Spirit, cause us your will to buckle to the superior authority of his word. Let's stand.

Let me touch thy eyes and make me see. Show me the truth from still within thy Word. Now it would be of great help if you had your Bibles open at the 16th chapter of Genesis, which was just read to you.

Listen to these verses also. This is found in Proverbs, chapter 15, verse 3. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. And here's another verse which speaks of God's gracious dealings with a woman who so desperately needed a sense of his eyes upon her.

This is John 4. It's a woman whose circumstances, like the ladies that we had read to us earlier from Genesis, John 4. The lady is not named. The place is different, but to some degree the dilemma is the same. She needs to have an encounter with the Lord Jesus.

John 4, 4. Now Jesus had to go through Samaria, so he came to a town in Samaria called Syca, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, You're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Jesus answered, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds? Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. There's another verse like that one in Proverbs which says, this is in Chronicles, The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. I was brought up to believe that God was a sort of super cop.

A policeman who from his heavens looked down and checked what I was doing. And if I got it wrong, then in the colloquial language of today, but not when I was a youngster, he'd zap me. A discipline that God really desired always to exercise.

In one sense, there is a truth in the fact that God does deal with us firmly. But one of the amazing characteristics about God is that he's the father of all compassions. He's full of mercy.

And it is true because the Bible tells us in the Old Testament and the New Testament that the eyes of God go around the world. The God of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps. But he's primarily not looking upon us to zap us.

Because of his compassion, he keeps you and me in mind. So, the answer to the question which poses the title of our address this evening. Quite simply, does God, do I matter to God? Is yes.

And maybe you're not going to listen to any more than what I'm saying in these opening moments. I hope you will, but if you don't, I've got three things I want to say from the throne of God. And I measure my words to you.

God loves you. God longs to be merciful to you. And God knows where you are at in your life.

God loves you. He wants to be merciful to you. He knows where you are at in your life.

And the vigilance that he directs towards you is not that of a punitive God who wants to zap you. It's that of a loving Heavenly Father whose eyes are sometimes bedewed with tears when he looks at the difficulty that you and I have got ourselves in. He is the Father of all mercies.

He is the Father of all compassion. Remember that. For your sake.

For God's sake. Never forget it. And I know in this incident which was read to us, you've got a domestic story.

It's replayed with infinite variations, but in principle it's the same. Time and time and time and time again. You've got three personalities.

They're all hurting. One? Well, he's a very great man. His name is Abram, or extended to Abraham.

The other? His wife. Her name is Saria. Changed significantly later to Sarah.

And the third? Well, in one sense I wouldn't want to give you the name, but it's in Scripture so you must have it. But I don't want you just to think of her as a historical character, though she was that. I want you to think of her as standing for you.

Her name is Hagar. Trace it back in the history of the Hebrew language and it gives you the idea of the word wanderer. Unless you've never been through the experience of being married and not having had any children, you will find it hard to understand the domestic problem within the household of Abraham.

For he has not fathered a child. More accurately, he has not fathered a child through his wife, Sarah. In those days, for a woman to be barren was a social stigma.

Expressed theologically, as often it was interpreted, I think, wrongly. It was an indication that God was against the woman. He had closed her womb.

Now, there were many options, at least there were a couple of options open to Abraham and Sarah. It seems as though he tried one of them. For he adopted his servant Eliezer.

And he suggested to God, trying to get God out of difficulty, we all copy Abraham in that respect. You, God, said that I would have a child, but I'm getting on a bit and my wife, she's equal on nearly so in her years. Let Eliezer live before you.

In other words, I'll take him as my adopted son. He's my servant, but we'll settle for that. God said no.

God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would give birth to a child. Now, I don't know about you, but one of my problems with God is not the fact of his compassion. I'm so grateful for that or else I wouldn't dare to be here.

My problem is he's slow. I mean, ten years is a long time. I'm not an electrician.

I'm one of these incredibly frustrating people, however, who tinkers with things. Shift the metaphor, I can't sort out my lawnmower, but I will try. And then thank God for John Makara.

Well, it was electrics that created the problem this last week. My lamp fused in my office. Now, later on this past week in the history of Worthing Tabernacle Vestry, we had problems with a smell.

It was a nasty one. It was so embarrassing when people came to see me. I thought that perhaps a seagull had fallen down the old chimney stack and was decaying in the recess behind what used to be the fireplace.

I thought maybe it was a mouse that had expired. I was just about to suggest that Phil started to rip down the office because I couldn't stand the smell any longer. When someone who knows a thing or two about electricity came in and said, it's Bakelite.

What had happened was, the bulb that we'd replaced, we put a hundred in instead of a sixty. With the net result, it was melting the little, what's the name, at the back of the bulb. And the smell was awful.

Tinkering about with something I knew very little of could well have cost the church an awful amount of money in terms of paying our caretaker maintenance man to rip out the vestry to find a non-existent dead seagull. You get yourself into even more great problem when you tinker about with the sovereignty of God. A third option, or a second option for Abraham and Sarah was, according to one of the ethical codes, if that's the right word in those days, here is my slave girl, use her.

That's where Hagar comes in. And so, Abraham, in one sense, reproducing, replaying Eden, listens to his wife and he gets into difficulty and I'm not blaming Sarah over against Abraham. But Eden does have a tendency to replay itself in every situation, in every civilization, in every person's experience.

All right, dear. Transferring what should have been his authority to his wife and taking advice which at best was questionable and at worst would be disastrous. Poor Hagar.

When she finds herself to be pregnant, or as I would prefer to say, with child, that amenable disposition which had always been hers suddenly changes. She now becomes somewhat uppish and Sarah cannot stand it. And so here we have this domestic situation which I tell you is replayed a thousand times in our century as well as down the centuries and probably is represented here in a dozen different situations.

We have three people who are hurting. Abraham hurting because the child that he wants will never be happy in his homestead. Hagar hurting because she is now being maltreated by Sarah, her mistress.

And Sarah hurting because she has not been able herself to perform this delicate, wonderful function that most women so desperately want to experience of becoming a mother. That's not, of course, where the story ends. But you can break off for a moment and say this, that great people often fail.

Abraham, friend of God. The 15th chapter listens to God, obeys God, and God declares him to be right. God is righteous.

The 16th chapter, he listens to the poor advice of his wife and he's in a mess as a result. Oh, the infinite mercy and patience of God. He'll still use Abraham.

He'll still use Sarah. And when you fall, this compassionate, merciful God receives you back to himself because the nature of God is compassion and forgiveness. Not that this completes what we need to look at this evening because the focal point of attention in order to justify the title that we've given to this study must be on Hagar.

If there's anyone who demands your sympathy in this chapter, it is surely her. Hagar is representative of millions of women who will follow in her trail. The single parent mother with no social security.

Weak, vulnerable, ostracized, with child, and no visible, tangible means of help. I didn't tell you where Hagar came on the story, where she came in on the scene. Abraham and Sarah, they'd been in Egypt and it seems that in Egypt they commandeered the services of this au pair.

What does she do when she finds herself in this condition, with child, maltreated, and unwanted? She escapes. She runs away and heads to the only place where she can possibly be directed. That is the road to Shur, verse 7, towards the Nile Delta.

Across the burning desert, her circumstances becoming more and more vulnerable as the days go by. Have you ever felt at wit's end corner? Nobody really understands. You find yourself in a morass of circumstances that you haven't actually contributed towards.

You're sort of caught up. There's nothing you can do to change the metaphor. You're spinning like an uncontrollable top.

To shift it again, it's as though you're in the channel tunnel before they've finished. And there's darkness ahead and you're not too sure that you'll ever penetrate and get out. If you've never been in that situation, then I wonder how long you've lived.

For the majority of us here sometimes have been brought to this ironic, frustrating position in life where we have not known how to get through. And it's at that point that those three little things I tried to tell you at the beginning of my address become so relevant. God loves you.

God longs to be merciful to you. He knows your circumstances. And one more.

You count. Did you hear that? He loves you. He longs to be merciful.

He knows your circumstances. And you count. Here is a woman who finds herself midway on this journey, seated by probably the only water source that there is in the whole of that area.

So it wasn't too difficult for the angel of the Lord to find her. It's a spring in the desert. There she is, greedily slaking her thirst.

Satisfying that physical desire, but wondering who on earth is going to help her satisfy all the other desires. Or for that matter, provide the money for bread for her to eat and a home for when she gets back to Egypt. Do you know the occasion came in the ministry of our beloved Lord when he too was moved by the thought of a woman who was in need.

Circumstances a little different, but nonetheless she has this common denominator with Hagar. She desperately needs the intervention of God in her life. She, like Hagar, is not a Jew.

And you might think reading the Old Testament and the Old Testament ideas spilling over into the early chapters of the New Testament, the gospels which are immersed in Old Testament stories and back cloth, that there is no place in the heart of God for Egyptians, for Samaritans, for English people, for anyone else who is not part of the direct descendants of Abraham. And the whole of the Bible rises up and says that is not so. God loves Israel, but he loves all the sons and daughters of Adam.

The eyes of God, you remember, go around the world, but not as a policeman looking for someone to zap. But as a compassionate father looking for someone who is in need. And when Jesus comes alongside this well at Sychar and asks for a drink, he does so in order to get this lady in conversation with him.

And he will start to expose to her, her needs. And she will come to a realization that in an uncanny fashion Jesus has insights into her circumstances. And can tell something of her sexual history.

And still not disconnect in terms of continuing the conversation. Here are two examples from the Old Testament and the New Testament. And they interlace so much you would almost feel that there had been some sort of human connivance bringing the common denominators out.

And it becomes a further evidence as to the inspiration that there is in this most remarkable book we call the Bible. Now here is my conclusion. At this point, if God had an interest in Hagar, an Egyptian au pair, almost unknown apart from the fact that her name is on the page of sacred history.

If God the Son has a concern for this woman whose reputation is at gutter level in the village of Sychar. Then how much can we be convinced that God has an interest in us. And that wherever we've been and whatever our activity and whatever our circumstances, self-caused or whether caught up in the flux of an uncontrollable series of events.

God has his eyes upon us and he thinks good towards us. It's interesting here that the first reference to a well in scripture, although in the NIV translated spring, occurs in this particular chapter. There is only one place of safety and sustenance on that journey from Abraham's home to Egypt.

Where Hagar can spend some time in refreshment. And it's just there we read that God reveals himself to her. The angel of the Lord, verse 9. The angel, verse 10.

The angel of the Lord, verse 11. The name of the Lord, verse 13. If you've been thinking through, checking these verses as I've mentioned these particular phrases.

You will come to a realization that what is happening here is something absolutely exceptional. In the grace of God he is speaking to a woman, not a Jew, who is in desperate circumstances and he is revealing the fact that he has a concern for her. To the extent that she makes this conclusion.

You are the God who sees me. She was not to know this but centuries later, born into this world, would come God's own son. And the reason why Jesus comes into the world, we learned this morning, was not for those who are good, is not for those who are righteous, is not for those who have made a success.

It is for those who are like Hagar. Those who are desperately in need. Jesus has come to meet the circumstances of people who have found themselves in a knot, to disentangle the knot, to straighten out their lives and to make them right with God.

But before Jesus came into this world, there were occasions in the Old Testament when there were anticipations of the incarnation. Jesus in remarkable fashion appears to people, sometimes he is referred to as the angel of the Lord or the angel. And when you put all the titles together, you suddenly find that Holy Scriptures smuggles in the designation that this is more than just an angel or an archangel.

This is none other than God himself. And standing by the well where Hagar is, is the angel of the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnation fashion. And he speaks to this woman.

And he says, where have you come from? Where are you going? And he says just the same, in effect, to the woman by Sikh as well. And he says the same to you, to me. Where have you come from? I've come from such a tangled web of circumstances, Lord.

Where are you going? I'm going into the unknown. All right, he says. I want you to know this, that where you came from, though you didn't know it, I was there.

And where you're going to, though you didn't realize this, I will be there. Hagar, you're with child. You know what you're going to call that child? Ishmael.

You are going to call your child Ishmael. Do you know what that means? God hears. Does God matter to me? The child, Hagar.

When you go back, for go back you will, to Sarah's home. Go back, as you will, to Abraham's encampment. And every time when your child is born, you mention his name, you will remember this experience.

You will remember me. You will remember that God hears and God has answered your prayers. And Hagar, where you are, I will be.

And in your circumstances, I am involved. And that is the same, my friend, not only for Hagar, not only for the woman at Sycaswell, it's also the same for you. He is involved.

He does love you. He is merciful. He has his eyes on you.

And you count. And the reason why the beloved Lord came into the world and hung on the cross of Calvary was to demonstrate the amazing dimensions of the love of God. Who wants the Hagars of this world? Who wants these sort of anonymous people who feel that they are wretched and they really just don't care.

No one cares about them in our society. He wants you to know that he died on the cross for your sin. That the guilt that was yours has been transferred to him so that you can be pure and holy and clean.

So that you can have your dignity restored. So that you can go into your circumstances as Hagar with a recognition that God has heard your cry. And God has you in his perspective.

And God loves you and wants your company and your discipleship. Do I matter to God? Yes. In fact I could just have said that and sat down.

But then the elders would have been most disappointed. Let's pray. They were all hurting.

Abraham. Sarah. Hagar.

They tinkered about with divine sovereignty. And when you do that, it does hurt. God would have every justification of wiping his hands clean and saying, get on with it.

But he doesn't. Abraham passes the buck to Sarah. Sarah boots out Hagar.

But God's there in the wilderness. Then God comes back and deals with Abraham. And he deals with Sarah.

And he gets that relationship right. And don't you see, my beloved friend, this God is our God. Forever.

And ever. Let me pray for you. As I pray for myself.

Let's all stand. I don't want to presume upon anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable. But out of respect I'm asking that at least our heads are bowed.

Whatever our convictions finally may be. There are people here who needed to be reminded of my triple assertion right at the beginning. I want to pray specifically for you.

I'm suggesting that physically it might help you just to open the palms of your hands and maybe extend your hands a little. Let me pray that God in his grace will meet you at the point of your need. Lord, some of us find ourselves like Hagar.

Not quite as innocent as she is. Or was in this story. We need your help.

We pray for your blessing. We pray for your corrections. We pray for your forgiveness.

We ask that though we do not bear a child called Ishmael, we might go from this place convinced because written upon our hearts is a conviction that God hears. Some of you here need a touch of God upon your life. And in filling of his spirit.

I want to pray that he might come in all his power, in all his dynamism, to enthuse and to encourage and to envision you. You might like to do the same thing as I suggested a moment or two ago. Just some physical acknowledgement of your need.

Father, we come before your throne. So often like Abraham and Sarah, we find ourselves slipping away from what we know to be a better plane of life, a better route. And as a result, spiritually, we get impoverished.

Instead of being luscious and fruitful, we find ourselves more like a withered twig. Come Holy Spirit, and put to right what is wrong. In this church, in the lives of people here, may we know your fullness.

May we know your empowering. Lord, come to us. Some of you need to confess Jesus Christ as your Saviour.

To slip your hand into his hand and to confess your sins and to receive his forgiveness. Do the same physically. Extend your hands to him and let me pray for you.

Father, seal the gospel, the efficacy of the message in the experience of these folk, enable them to trust the Lord Jesus as Saviour and to be brought into his eternal kingdom. Lord, save, heal, rejuvenate men and women in this church right now. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Pray for me anew. Fail me anew.

Spirit of the Lord, fall afresh on me. Amen.