Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Hope for a Hopeless Situation | God Is: Part 6

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

Do you ever feel like you're all alone? Maybe you’ve been asking, “Does God care about me?” Here's the truth: God sees everything you do. He loves you and cares for you. If you need some encouragement, you won't want to miss this message. ABOUT THIS MESSAGEWhen you see God Is _____ what comes to mind? How can any of us really know what God's like? Too often, we view Him from our limited perspective, but it doesn't have to be that way. Together, let's discover how to fill that space with truth. WE’RE OPENWe’re continuing to monitor guidelines and best practices for gathering in a safe way. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchTikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIId...Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #doesGodcare Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Do you ever sometimes, though, feel all alone? Like no one sees. That no one cares. That life somehow for you doesn't seem to matter. Do you sometimes believe that your heartache won't ever heal? And that sometimes the pain is so great that you might even doubt that God cares about your real problems. Well, today, by God's very good grace, we're going to believe that we're going to see some truth to speak to all of our hearts.

And the title of my message is hope for a hopeless situation. Let's pray. Father, God, we love you so much. We come near to you. We draw near to you. We draw near. with our hearts and we say we're ready to receive from you, would you reveal yourself to us in Jesus' name? Amen. Amen. Well, today we're going to be looking at a name of God, a name of God that was given to us by a servant woman. But, you know, there's just one God, but he has many names. The Bible shows us. These names that he has revealed to us, they tell us who he is. They're talking. He's tell us something about his character, the names of God. They tell us ways that he relates to us, his people.

And so we will look at one of these names in Genesis 16 today. Now, speaking of names, Craig and I, we have six children. Now they're all grown. As you can see, our family keeps growing. But it was amazing naming our kids. We loved it. and we took it seriously, and we wanted their names to have some special meaning. We wanted it to speak over their lives, something, a positive message for them.

And we even took it a step further with our last two kids, Stephen and Joy. And I wanted to go with like the ancient Hebrew style, where sometimes they would name a child based on how they felt about them arriving. And so Stephen, when we found out we were having another son, I said, he's Stephen, which means crown. I feel so rewarded by God to have this son. And then our last is joy. And honestly, her conception just brought laughter. Her life has brought laughter and joy. And so we gave her the name joy. Now, as we look at Hagar in chapter 16 of the very first book of the Bible Genesis, I want to first give you some background to this story, okay? Because she's a servant of

Sarah and Abraham from Egypt. She's a slave. And God had promised Abraham and Sarah that he was going to bless them with children. In fact, make them into a great nation and all nations would be blessed through Abraham. So God has this great plan for them. But, and that's the in Genesis 12. Well, now, fast forward to Genesis 16, it's been 10 years, and they still don't have a single child. Okay? 10 years of waiting. What is going on? That is a long time. For some of you, it's half your life. So instead, in those 10 years, instead of continuing to wait on God, they do what a lot of us do. We take matters in our own hands. We need to help God out, don't we? We think we do. And so they got practical, and Sarah thought, hmm, okay, Abraham,

guess what? I think I have a plan. I think you need to take Hagar, my servant, as your wife, and she can be like a surrogate mother to bear children for us. And it was actually a common practice in this culture, and not crazy unusual like it would be today. And so they went ahead with this plan. The plan worked and she conceived. Well, the shame and the hurt and the pain that Sarah had, it didn't go away. In fact, I know it must have increased that all of a sudden Hagar could get conceived so quickly. And so she took her pain out one day on Hagar. Somehow, the scripture doesn't say, but she harshly mistreated her in such a way that Hagar took off, belted out into the unknown to the wilderness,

and we're going to find her now here in a hopeless situation alone, pregnant in the wilderness. Hopefully she didn't have morning sickness. Afraid not knowing what to do. Genesis 16 verse 7, something incredible happens. The angel of the Lord. found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from? Where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarai. The angel of the

Lord said to her, return to your mistress, submit to her. That sounds crazy. But listen, I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. Behold, You are pregnant and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. And Ishmael means God has heard. Isn't God good? And here is the key verse for today.

Verse 13, Hagar, she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her. You are the God who sees me. In Hebrew, it's you are El Rui. I have now seen the one who sees me. God is El Rui. He is the God who sees. He sees. All right.

He sees. God sees. He's all knowing. He's all present. And this can cause certain emotions to surface in us, knowing he sees. He's converse. he sees all. He didn't just see Hagar, right? So there's some emotions I think we need to consider that we might have knowing that we serve and are under a God who sees. The first one is

concern because he's a God who sees it all. He knows everything about me. I, you know, forget about what maybe I think you might be. of him seeing my own life, my own sin, my thoughts, God sees and knows, there's concern that, thank God there is, because that's wisdom. And that's the thing is that Hebrews 413 says nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the of him whom we must give an account. And we need to know this. And thankfully, it's revealed to us in the Bible, but because we need to understand concern is reasonable. It leads us to consider our ways. But now we're going to come back to that emotion later. The next emotion that we might feel,

knowing God, you see everything, is we might get a little bewildered. God, if you see everything, I don't understand. I'm confused. Like why? That big can of worms just opened up. Why? All this suffering. You know about it. You're almighty. Why? I am confused. You see and you know yet there's still so much pain. I want us to just look today at two reasons why we might get confused. Okay? And the first one we need to understand is that we can get a, because we only have a partial view, because we can have a blurred vision, right? We only have partial view. Now, biblically, we've been, the Word of God has revealed to us some foundational knowledge. And for some of us, maybe it's a lack of that biblical knowledge that you're confused, that you just don't understand that, that basic understanding that we live in a fallen world, that sin has brought in pain and suffering. And ever since the very beginning with Adam and Eve, we have lived under the curse of sin.

And there is pain involved with that. Sin is destructive. And there is brokenness and suffering because of it. And we also have a spiritual enemy who's still running loose. And he is after us to kill, still, and destroy. Yet in all of this, the scripture also says throughout the whole Bible that God is good. He has a plan for redemption. We have a God who loves to restore, redeem, and rescue.

And so we have a knowledge from the Bible to help us, right? Yet, yet. even with that great amount of biblical knowledge you can know the Bible backwards and forward there are still going to be things that we do not understand we will never understand this side of heaven in fact scripture tells us Isaiah 55 9 for as the heavens are higher than the earth so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts we just have a partial view. 1 Corinthians 13. Paul said we only know in part, we only see in part. Okay, some of us wear glasses. My son, Stephen, when he was five years old and doing homeschool,

he sat like a perfect little student. But then one day, all of a sudden he couldn't sit still. And my girlfriend said, you know, Amy, you need to go get his eyes checked. I don't think that you've done that and he needs to get him checked. So at the age of six, we'd had him in to get his eyes checked, and lobehold, that kid had some need for eye correction. I mean, I think we have, yep, and he's so cute? Okay, that's just too cute. Well, he needed eye correction significantly.

And, in fact, I'll never forget when he sat down to put on his first pair of glasses, and the optician sitting there as he puts them on, and she goes, look at your mom. Look outside at the trees. Because she understood that he was seeing some things for the first time, like he had never seen them before. And one day when we get to heaven, that's how we're going to see. We're going to finally understand some things, right?

But right now, we don't know what we don't know, and we only see what we can see. and it is in part. And so it's okay. There's going to be some confusion because we only have a partial view. And the second reason why we might get confused is because, look, fear and our pain in life,

they cause us to forget God's goodness. They cause us to doubt in His goodness. It happens to all of us. It happens to me. But let's speak into that for a minute with Hagar. She did the same thing. She had a revelation of God, like most of us, have never experienced. Yet five chapters later, the promised son, Isaac, is on the scene as a little infant,

and Hagar and Ishmael are sent packing. They, this time, have some provisions, and the Lord told Abram, it's going to be okay to send them off. I'll take care of him. but she goes off, she's in the desert, her provisions run out, and she and her son are crying their eyes out, thinking they're about to die of thirst in the desert. She had forgotten.

Hagar had forgotten. The God who sees her that takes care of her. And so she's crying, and what happens is so beautiful. The Lord, a voice from heaven says, Hagar, it's going to be okay. And then he opens her eyes, and she sees there's, a water, there's a well right there. It was there all the time. In fact, pastor and Dr. Tony Evans has a great quote about this situation with Hagar. He said, the well that Hagar saw, it was there

all the time. But she was so busy crying, so busy forgetting God, she stopped trusting and stopped looking for God. She saw the one who saw her, but then she forgot. How often do we is forget to start and stop looking at the God who sees, who's there. Why do we get so confused? Well, our pain and our fear causes to start forgetting and doubting, right? Why? Well, let me give you this example to help, because I think that we just need to know God more. Hagar needed to know God a little deeper. We could all know God, no matter how well. We can be. We all know God, no matter how well we know, we need to know him a little bit more than we do. So Craig and I, we've been married for 31 years this coming May.

And thank you. It's amazing. By the grace of God, it's been the best thing. 31 years. And so we know each other really well, really well. Okay? You live with someone that long. You know them.

And you know their quirks, their imperfections. you know their character. Well, one thing about Craig, walking with him all these years, is that the guy is on time. He is always on time. He's an annoyingly on time. And, in fact, he will say, I'm going to come home at 512. And lo and behold, the car is in the driveway at 512.

Who does that? That is what I'm talking about. And so I understand this about his character, right? Well, if he ever would be late to something, I don't jump to a conclusion in fear and doubt and of like, oh my gosh, he must be unfaithful to me. He must be in a wreck. He must, something terrible about him has happened. No, I don't do this because I know there has to be a reasonable explanation for him being late,

because I have walked with him and I know him. I know his character. Okay? So when we walk daily with God, it builds our confidence in his character. And I'm telling you, let me say it again, when you walk daily with God, your confidence in his character is going to grow. I have walked with God more years than I've walked with my husband. And my confidence level in my perfect and good God is off the charts. It's not because I am this spiritual giant.

It's because I've walked with him. I have looked to him and I know him. I have seen him in the pain, in all my fears, be good, be my daddy, be my shepherd. I have confidence in that God. my God is so good now the third emotion that we could feel besides that we might feel concerned that we might feel confused is what I know Hagar must have felt and that's comfort I know she felt the comfort of God in the presence of God there is peace and there's fullness of joy you see can you just Just imagine the transformation that happened when Hagar sees her, that God sees her.

He saw her. He knew her name. He called her by this, by her name and knew her. She realized at that moment, God isn't distant. He isn't unknowable. He is personal. He is caring. He's attentive.

And she names him El Roe. In a sense, she's proclaiming to all of us even today. friends, God is not far away. He is not asleep. He knows you. He's intimately involved in your life. He knows what you've been through. He cares. He doesn't miss a thing. He's the true God who sees. God gave Hagar such great comfort. He gave her a future hope. so she could go back into a difficult situation and endure because she knew God was with her, that he cared. You guys, when Craig asked me to speak this message, I was so excited. And really, this message, he keeps telling me, the message picked you. And he said, pick a quality of God that's been very personal to you.

and I said, oh, I have it. Because this is who God has been to me, these last few years especially. He has been so watchful, such a good shepherd over my life. I have had, for the last several years, some issues with my health. And I'll just say, so you'll stop all the worrying, I'm seeing a lot of improvement in the last six months, praise God. But for several years, pre-pandemic, I started going to doctors, tests being run, and a lot of it was just a debilitating fatigue.

Like, I don't want to, I'm a very active person. I don't like to sit down, and this fatigue would just keep me from even going on the walks. We last summer went to Colorado, we often do, and Craig and I just like to hike. We just go on hikes all the time. And when I got there, our first day, I said, babe, I just want you know, I don't know. if I'm going to be able to walk through these hikes. We'll just take it day by day. I don't know.

And honestly, I was, I was, when you're feeling so depleted, it's scary, it's lonely. And so I was on the balcony that first night, crying out to God. And I just, I said, Lord, am I going to be okay? Am I going to be okay? And I just sat there and I just waited for him. And he reassured me. He gave me peace. And I went back in to the condo, and I just felt a comfort from God.

I'm going to be okay. Well, weeks later, I was feeling really bad again. I was at home, and I woke up thinking, I'm going to feel better. I had a good night's sleep. But I woke up, and it didn't feel better. And I began to just pray. I wake up and I just start praying. Maybe you do this.

And I'm like, Lord, thank you. for the day. God, I love you. You are so good. I know you're with me. I know you care. I stopped. I stopped. And I just, it's like, wait, do you care? I just need to know. Do you care for me? So I keep praying. I have my phone and I'm about to do my routine of just click on my Bible app, but I just decided instead to push my playlist on Spotify and play some worship and keep praying. Well, my playlist always plays the same songs every time. It just, you know, and as I'm praying, I realize I'm hearing a song I've never heard before. In 30 seconds into the song, I'm hearing a lyric that jaw dropped me. Where did this song come from? What did this, what did

these words just say just after I prayed. And I heard J.J. Heller singing a song, and her lyric was, Jesus cares for every sparrow. I know he cares for you. I never heard this song. And I just started sobbing right there because, look, in that moment, God heard my cry. He's He was there, and he wanted me to know that he sees. And I want you to know that he sees you, you who are listening now and you, he sees you. As in you matter, as in your dearly loved, you have immense value. Matthew 6, Jesus said, look at the birds of the air. Your Heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they? He sees you. He sees your worries. He sees your fears. He sees your insecurities. Guys, he's seeking you out. He is seeking you. He wants to replace pain with peace.

He seeks to be known. He knows you, but he wants to be known by you. And so how do we respond to a God like this who sees us, who loves us, who knows us? How do we respond? Seek to know the God who sees you. We must seek to know him, guys. We've got to put our phones down, turn the TV off. We've got to seek to know our Savior.

It's no wonder that we are drowning in doubt and fear and unbelief because we're not seeking the beholder. She saw the one who, she beheld the one who beheld her, her beholder. Hagar dead. We need to seek him. You see, when you seek him, and you seek him earnestly, you will find him. And when you see him, not maybe physically, but when you see him spiritually, you will see love. You will see mercy. You will see peace.

You will see holiness that will transform you. You will see hope. You will see the waymaker. You will see joy. When you behold him, you will see truth and you will see freedom. It's for freedom that Christ set us free. He's come to set us free. The psalmist proclaimed something beautiful in Psalms 111.

He said, I lift my eyes up to the mountain. you ask the question, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. So we're not going to get so focused on our problems, guys, that we get blinded from the truth. We need to see the truth. God is good. He sees you. He cares. So lift your eyes to him. look to him every single day all throughout the day. He's your helper, and he is your hope. Amen. Let's pray. Oh, awesome, awesome, Father, L.O.E. Thank you that you not only see us, but you love us. You care that you're the great rescuer. And Heavenly Father, as we pray, as we spend this time responding to you, Lord,

I want everyone to just bow and pray and pray right now and just realize, guys, if you're confused, if you need comfort, if you just need a touch from God, I want you to respond with yes, Lord, just call out to him. I want you to respond if you need to just commit, that you're going to begin to seek God, seek to see Him every day.

If these are ways that you want to respond, would you raise your hand? We will pray. If you want to respond right now, raise your hand. I'm committing to seeking to know God more than I ever have. I'm committing that I'm going to be real with God and ask him to clear up confusion and to be my comforter. Raise your hand. If those are your needs right now, I believe it could be all of us.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we lift your name up. We call out on you, and we need you, Lord. We need you as comforter. We need you as our helper. We need you in our confusion and doubt, Father. We just come honest before you and how we feel and just ask for you to give us your truth. Give us your comfort, Father.

We're going to pursue you. You say that you want your face seeked, Lord. Oh, Lord, we will seek your face. We commit to it, Lord. daily. We know you're the source. We know you are everything. So we just are going to keep pursuing you. Thank you that you pursue us. We love you, Lord. In Jesus' name. And as we continue to pray, I said I want to go back to this concern. There's a real concern for those who haven't received a gift that God began when the fall began. He had a plan to rescue us from this destructive

sin. His plan was to send his son, Jesus. Jesus came through the line of Abraham. This promise to Abraham became a gift to all people. All nations on earth would be blessed through the promise of Abraham because the covenant with Abraham was not just made for him. It was to bless all people of the world. Hagar, what's so cool about Hagar is she was a foreigner. She was an Egyptian. in the New Testament we see she represents the law she represents how we are as a slave without being freed from sin but in Christ he said I care I want you to know I care about Jews Gentiles Egyptians all people of the earth I want all people to know me for God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus. And Jesus became the perfect sacrifice with God without sin, all man, fully God,

and He wants to take away your concern, your great burden of sin. He took it upon him, and all you need to do is if you've never received the payment that Jesus paid on the cross for your debt of sin, to be forgiven, to be rescued, to be set free so that you're no longer a So you're no longer a foreigner, but you're brought near, you're brought into the kingdom of God, which was what his plan is for us all along. If you want that today, if you have not received him today, if you have not believed that he paid for your sins. And today, you say, that is me.

That is why I feel like I am listening to this message. That is what the Holy Spirit is now revealing to me, that I need him. I need forgiveness and I need to know him. If that is you, I want you to lift your hands right now. and if you're online, click or just type in the chat. I am giving my life to Jesus. Raise your hands, everyone who needs to know Jesus as Savior, and we will pray for you.

Thank you, Father, for working in people's lives today and bringing salvation. You are so good. Heavenly Father, everyone just pray aloud with me. Heavenly Father, today I'm giving my life to you. I thank you that you see me. I ask you to forgive me. I receive what Jesus did for me on the cross.

I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me, change my life, make me new. I believe I'm now your child. I'm giving you my whole life. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Praise you, Lord.