Title: God Who Sees / Genesis 16:1-16
The history of the world is made up of events stained with the ugly greed of humans, but God never neglects them and intervenes by observing and intervening in the relationships of complex and subtle conflicts, divisions, and shifting of responsibility. In today's text, we realize how honest the Bible is about human weakness.
As we have already seen, Abram was a man who went down to Egypt during a famine and committed a cowardly act to save his life by calling his wife Sarai as a sister in front of the king. Abram and Sarai, however,
you will be making a mistake. He believed in God's promise to prosper his descendants, but he was ruthless even after 10 years had passed, so he thought of human means. If Sarai gave birth to a son through her servant Hagar, she could legally become Sarai's son.
Because of this, he proposed a way to give Hagar as a concubine to her husband Abram.
Sarai was a woman of faith and never disbelieved in God's promises. However, the human method was chosen as the way to fulfill that belief. God's blessing is to be received in God's way, but Sarai devised a human way and pushed that way.
This is not just Sarai's problem. There is also a problem with Abram's faith, who secretly accepted Sarai's invitation.
Hearing Sarai's invitation, I thought that it was not bad to have an affair with a young woman and to sleep with my wife's permission, and I interpreted it conveniently that God's will could be accomplished in such a way. It can be said that it is a collaboration between the impatience of women's blessings and men's insidious and expedient interpretations.
They broke the principle of monogamy that God established in the Garden of Eden with human expediency thinking, and committed the sin of partial unbelief, trying to understand God's promises by transforming them instead of receiving them in their original form. Somewhere in the Garden of Eden
Rum's wife first decided and suggested to her husband that they sinned together.
At Sarai's offer, Hagar, a servant, became Abram's widow, and Hagar conceived. When Hagar conceived, she despised her mistress Sarai. As the position changed, so did the attitude. In an era when infertility was regarded as punishment and shame, maybe it was
is usually a natural change of a woman. Sarai was angry and could not stand it. The anger broke out on Abram. You see the absurdity of putting the work on your own and putting the blame on your husband. Abram suffered between his fiercely opposed wife, Sarai, and Hagar, who bore his seed. But for the sake of the family's peace, Abram said to Sarai, "Hagar is in your hand; do to her what is good in your eyes."
Sarai abused Hagar. What is the cause of this fight? This is because we did not wait for God's method with faith in the first place. Unable to bear it, Hagar ran out of the house. Abram's happy family in an instant
destruction and divisions have come. There was no way to fix it.
As Hagar fled into the wilderness, the war was over, and it seemed that victory had gone on Sarai's side.
Hagar left her house and wandered in the wilderness. But an angel of God appeared to the woman. An angel of the Lord visits Hagar, a foreign woman, comforts her, and tells her to go home. And he promises blessings.
Hagar is thrilled and confesses. "Hagar said, "The name of the LORD, whom Hagar has spoken to her, is the God who sees. How did I see a God who sees me here?" (Genesis 16:13).
God is a God who sees. He observed the attitudes of Abram and Sarai, and also watched the battle between Sarai and Hagar. He also noticed that Hagar was weary in the wilderness. Dear saints, I have good faith
is the God who sees the faults of the Abrams and not only watches the endless battle between Sarai and Hagar, but also sees Hagar's suffering.
Although we were lowly like Hagar, we were a sinful people, proud, and sinful Gentiles, but we believe that Jesus Christ, who came into the world in the form of the angel of the Lord, has pity on us, saves us and blesses us
It is. Not because we were good, but because we had pity. As Hagar confessed that 'the God who sees', I hope you all praise the God who has mercy and saves, God who raises my hand today.
(November 14. Sunday Sermon)