God’s Loving Kindness
Psalm 63:3
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b38ttun-apc
As I was approaching what to say for this Mother’s Day message, two distinct things came as I was in prayer. The first was to look at the lovingkindness of God, and the second was the story of Hagar.
Now, the lovingkindness of God really got my interest, because it is mentioned throughout the Bible, and through its many stories in the Bible. But I wondered how the story of Hagar fit into a Mother’s Day message, because there isn’t much said about her, except she was the Mother of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, and the father of the Arab people.
But then taking another look at the story, I saw the lovingkindness of God on full display. And so, let me share with you what I see within these two areas, Hagar and the lovingkindness of God.
Hagar’s story is found in Genesis chapter 16 and 21. But, to understand, the story found in these two chapters and what lies between them isn’t about her, it’s about Abraham and Sarah. It’s about God’s promise of a son to Abraham, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, along with the time they spent in the land of Gerar.
So, let me take a moment and give to you what it says and what happened with Hagar in these two chapters.
Hagar was a female bondservant, some versions say, “slave,” that served Sarah. Back in those days, one of the ways that someone entered into the service of another as a bondservant, or slave, was when they either sold themselves, or were sold by their family to pay a debt. This may have been how Hagar became a maid servant to Sarah.
But it was also a practice during these times that a child could be born to a family through one of their servants. We see an example of this practice in the story of Jacob with his two wives, Rachel and Leah, who gave to Jacob their two maidservants, Zilpah and Bilhah. And it is from all four that the 12 tribes of Israel originate.
Well, as Sarah’s maid servant, Hagar, was offered to Abraham by Sarah as a surrogate to bear to Abraham and Sarah a son, to fulfill God’s promise. The only problem is that this was never God’s idea, and thus it produced trouble in the family dynamic, to say the least.
After she got pregnant, it says that Hagar began to despise Sarah, and so Sarah began to treat Hagar harshly, maybe even abusively. Well, Hagar could only take so much so she ran away, but the Angel of the Lord met her on the way and told her to return and submit herself.
But along with this request came the promise of a son who would give her descendants too numerous to count. Further, she was to call his name, Ishmael, which means, “God hears.” This is instrumental in our understanding because God heard her cry and was going to intercede.
What I find interesting at this point is that Hagar is the only woman who gives God a proper name. She said, “You-Are-the God-Who-Sees,” or “El Roi.” And the well of water in which the Angel of the Lord met her, she gives the name, “Beer Lahai Roi,” or the “Well of the Living One that Sees me.”
And so, the Lord both heard and saw her, and what we could say heard and saw the child, Ishmael, within her womb, and gave to her a promise to see both of them through these difficult times.
Later, God visited Abraham and Sarah, and Sarah became pregnant with Isaac, and after Isaac had been weaned, Abraham threw a feast, but instead of celebrating, Ishmael began mocking.
Sarah then had Abraham send both Hagar and Ishmael away. Soon, their water and food ran out and Hagar left Ishmael under some bushes so she couldn’t hear his cry or see him die. It was then that the Angel of the Lord came again and said that God had heard the cry of Ishmael, and opened her eyes to a well of water, and again promised that Ishmael would grow and become a great nation.
And so, we get to the second part of our message and that is the lovingkindness of God.
The verse that came to mind when I saw this was Psalm 63:3, which was part of a praise and worship song that was quite popular in my early years as a Christian from Maranatha Music, which simply put Psalm 63:3-4 to music.
“Thy lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise Thee, thus I will bless Thee,
I will lift up my hands unto Thy name.”
But for this message it was the first part of verse 3 that captured my attention.
“Your lovingkindness is better than life” (Psalm 63:3)
The word lovingkindness signifies mercy, kindness, goodness, and love. It means to have mercy towards someone. And so, as it applies to God’s relationship to humanity, He gives to us His mercy, kindness, and love, and that is when we least expect or deserve it. This is basically the meaning behind the word, “agape,” the Greek word for unconditional love.
Agape is the unconditional love of God, that is, it is a love where God loves us in spite of ourselves. God’s lovingkindness is His unconditional, unlimited, unfailing, unending, and everlasting love for us.
Further, the word, “lovingkindness,” is a compound word that reveals love being played out or manifested through kindness. Now, please understand that this isn’t some abstract principle that sounds good in a sermon. No! It is a cause and action word, that is, a love that produces kind actions.
God Reveals Himself Through Lovingkindness
In other words, God’s lovingkindness fills the gap between His holiness and our sin. You see, as we seek to pursue the path of righteousness, many times we fail and fall into temptation or sin.
That’s where God’s lovingkindness steps in. Like the parable of the prodigal son, God loves us no matter what we’ve done. God is holy and perfect, and His desire is to come into communion with us, which is seen in the gift of His Son, Jesus. And in this new relationship, He wants to exercise daily His mercy and kindness towards us, even though we don’t deserve it.
I love what it says in the Amplified Bible in Lamentations 3:22-23.
“It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23 Amplified)
Therefore, understanding this about God’s lovingkindness, how then is God’s lovingkindness on display through the story of Hagar.
God Sees
To say that God sees her means that He knows her, He has called her, and that He has a plan for her life. I love what the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah that speaks volumes about this.
“Thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.’” (Isaiah 43:1 NKJV)
You see, God knew all about her. He was the one who created her and redeemed her and called her by name.
Now, God calling her by her name is significant, because while her name comes up in the commentary of Genesis 16 where we are introduced to her, neither Sarah nor Abraham called her by her name, only by her position. Sarah said, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” (Genesis 16:2 NKJV)
Sarah refers to her only as her maid as did Abraham. But not so God. When the Angel of the Lord found her by the well of water, He said, “Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8 NKJV)
For me, I wondered what Hagar must have been thinking. How does this person know her, and knows her name? But then, upon seeing Him, she knew Him. You see, whenever we see the title, “The Angel of the Lord,” what this is, in theological terms is a Theophany, which means God come in human form.
What you could say is that the Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Jesus, the 2nd person of the Godhead, the Lord God Himself. That is how she knew who He was, and so look now what she called Him, “El Roi,” that is, “God Who Sees.”
As we go through the various trials and tribulations that come in life, we often wonder if God even sees us, or for that matter knows us. Unfortunately we have been named and labeled by this world to the point that we don’t even know who we are.
But God does.
And the beauty of God’s lovingkindness towards us is that God sees what we are going through, and He knows our name, which means that we are not forgotten, nor are we forsaken, because like Jacob and Israel, and like Hagar, He has created us, He has formed us, He has redeemed us, and He has called us by name, we are His.
God Provides
This is the second way God’s lovingkindness is on display through the story of Hagar, and that is not only does He see and hear her, and her son, both in the womb and outside of it, is His provision.
It begins with His promise to her when He tells her to go back to Sarah. Notice what the Angel of the Lord said.
“‘I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.’ And the Angel of the Lord said to her: ‘Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction.’” (Genesis 16:10-11 NKJV)
To see her through this time of difficulty, God provides her with a promise, that He would multiply her descendants, and later defines that as a great nation.
You see, in God’s lovingkindness He wasn’t going to leave her without any hope. And it is the same hope that God provides for us in and through His lovingkindness as well.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV)
And, truthfully, even more than the necessities of life we need God’s lovingkindness and the promises He provides, because they give us peace, along with a hope for the future, because truthfully, things aren’t looking all that good at the moment.
But God also graciously provides for us, again as that act of love, the necessities. This is seen when Abraham sent her away, and they were about to die. The Angel of the Lord again appears to her saying, “Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.” (Genesis 21:17-18 NKJV)
“Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink.” (Genesis 21:19 NKJV)
And this is God’s promise to us.
To the Philippians, Paul said, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:9 NKJV)
Now, while there is so much more that can be said about God’s lovingkindness, there is something else that David said in our Psalm about God’s lovingkindness that I’d like to address.
God’s Lovingkindness is Better than Life
“Your lovingkindness is better than life” (Psalm 63:3)
What this reveals is the value of God’s lovingkindness, and that is, it is better than life itself.
Think about what we value in this life. We value gold and silver, possessions, knowledge, health, not to mention our reputations. Yet, all these things are temporal, that is, here today and gone tomorrow.
God taught me about this prior to my losing everything. It’s found in Proverbs 23:5. It says, “Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.”
But what God values the most, that is, outside of our relationship with Him, is life itself.
Notice again, when God came to Hagar that first time, He said that He knew that she was with child, a son to be exact, and that she should name him, Ishmael, which means, “God hears.”
What I find interesting is that God heard her as she was crying out in her afflictions, but by naming the child in her womb, “Ishmael,” would likewise indicate that He heard the child as well. And we can see this in the second time when she left Ishmael under the bushes to die. While it says that she lifted her voice and wept, it was the boy’s voice the Lord heard.
What this tells me, especially seeing what is going on right now in our county, is that God values life and so should we. That is, life both in the womb and outside of it.
But it doesn’t seem that as a country we value life either inside the womb or outside of it.
Almost 50 years ago we legalized abortion, and we are presently in the process of legalizing Euthanasia, that is, taking a person’s life when they no longer want to live. It is called by some, physician assisted suicide.
What I think is that life today is only valued as long as it is convenient. In other words, it’s not life that we value, it is convenience.
But consider how valuable our lives are to God.
First, we have been created in the image and likeness of God, no other created being can say that. But also, God sent His Son, to die for our sins so we can have eternal life with Him.
And this, was in and through His lovingkindness.
And, when we have a revelation of God’s lovingkindness, it will change our whole perspective of how we live our lives. The Apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
This then brings new value to what the Psalmist wrote.
“Whoever is wise will observe these things, and they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” (Psalm 107:43 NKJV)
It is in the lovingkindness of God that we are forgiven and that He opens the floodgates of His blessings upon us.
Conclusion
Psalms 36:7 states, “How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.” (Psalm 36:7 NKJV)
Once we see how compassionate God is, once we see how merciful and loving He is, we really have no choice but to put our trust in Him. The moment we get the revelation of God’s love for us through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us upon the cross, it is easy to trust Him, and believe Him for whatever we need, not to mention with our lives.
Therefore, we need to continue to grow in God’s lovingkindness through that relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let me end with this thought. God will never fail in His lovingkindness towards us. And that’s because it is based upon His character, and not upon our conduct. And so, it all comes down to the agape love of God, the unconditional, unlimited, unfailing, unending, and everlasting love of God.
This then is the story of Hagar and the lovingkindness of God.
