The God Who See's Us

“The God Who See’s Us”

Genesis 16:1-16

Genesis 16:13 “And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?”

I. The virtues of the One who see’s us

Genesis 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.

a. He is omnipresent - ubiquitous DEF. - present everywhere at once.

The angel of the Lord goes where only the ever present God can go.

b. He is omniscient – all knowing, knowing everything.

The angel of the Lord knows what only the all knowing omniscient God could know.

c. He is omnipotent – all powerful, possessing complete, unlimited or universal power and authority.

Does omnipotence mean that God can do literally anything? No, that is not the meaning. There are many things God cannot do. He cannot do what is self-contradictory or nonsensical, like squaring the circle. Nor (and this is vital) can he act out of character. God has a perfect moral character, and it is not in him to deny it. He cannot be capricious, unloving, random, unjust, or inconsistent. Just as he cannot pardon sin without atonement because that would not be right, so he cannot fail to be faithful and just in forgiving sins that are confessed in faith and in keeping all the other promises he has made. Moral instability, vacillation, and unreliability are marks of weakness, not of strength: but God's omnipotence is supreme strength, making is impossible that he should lapse into imperfection of this sort.

The positive way to say this is: though there are things which a holy, rational God is incapable of intending, all that he intends to do he actually does. "Whatever the Lord pleases he does" (Ps. 135:6). As when he planned the make the world, "he spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9), so it is with everything that he wills. With people "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip," but not with him.

James Packer

The angel of the Lord promises to do what only the omnipotent God could do.

II. The values of the One who see’s us

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:--'Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value.

T. Paine.

Genesis 16:3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

a. The object of that He values

Genesis 12:16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

Hagar was most probably a slave given to Abraham by Pharaoh during the time that he was down in Egypt. She was therefore considered to be no more than a piece of property with no rights and subject to the whims and will of her master Abraham, and in this case Sarah his wife. In chapter 15 we have the promise of an heir for Abraham but 10 years have past with no fulfillment of the promise and Sarah takes matters into her own hands and with Abraham’s collusion gives her slave, Hagar, to take to wife in the hopes that what God has thus far failed to provide can be accomplished thru human resourcefulness. Abraham takes Hagar as his secondary wife, she conceives and unwisely begins to lord her pregnancy over Sarah who finding this situation of her own creation intolerable, begins to persecute Hagar and (her husband) resulting in Hagar fleeing for homeland.

Somerset Maugham, the English writer, once wrote a story about a janitor at St Peter's Church in London. One day a young vicar discovered that the janitor was illiterate and fired him. Jobless, the man invested his meager savings in a tiny tobacco shop, where he prospered, bought another, expanded, and ended up with a chain of tobacco stores worth several hundred thousand dollars. One day the man's banker said, "You've done well for an illiterate, but where would you be if you could read and write?" "Well," replied the man, "I'd be janitor of St. Peter's Church in Neville Square."

b. His values in operation

Genesis 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her…

“The angel of the Lord found her…” Not in the sense that God didn’t know where she was or where she was going but in the sense that God picked the time and the place to reveal Himself to her.

The photographer for a national magazine was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene hampered him and he asked his home office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go at once to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived at the airport, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled, "Let's go! Let's go!" The pilot swung the plane into the wind and they soon were in the air.